But other factors are now influencing corporate location strategies as well, the survey reveals. ED officials report a higher number of companies seeking locations with access to global markets or to specific regions outside their home market, such as the Pacific Rim. Linked to this requirement is a clear desire on the part of corporate clients to locate new facilities near major transportation facilities. And several respondents say their prospects are looking for sites near large urban areas, but not in them. This criterion virtually ensures good air service and other logistics-related amenities, while also generally providing major cost-efficiencies.

"If there is an overall trend in corporate location strategy, it is that more and more decisions are made in light of global economic considerations," noted Bill Dorsey, managing director of Fluor Daniel Consulting, Greenville, S.C., in January 1999, just a few weeks before his death*. "International markets and competition influence virtually every project we work with. Today's local developers need to see their competition in terms of worldwide issues," he stressed. "Transportation, currency exchange, labor skills and a host of other factors must be considered in the global context."

Corporate site seekers also are concerned with minimizing both operating and start-up costs, and they are basing location decisions in part on development agencies' ability to assuage that concern. ED officials also report shorter decision-making cycles and greater expectations surrounding companies' ability to move into a facility in the near future, not several years into the future. For many companies, this means availability of leasable space, because they do not intend to build a new facility lest market forces dictate they relocate in a few years' time.

"We have seen an ever-increasing focus on the overall package - incentives, labor and community - marketed in a professional manner and ready to activate in a short period of time, like less than nine months," observes a regional ED official in South Carolina. "Development time is shorter - it's six to 18 months rather than 18 to 24 months," offers a Utah-based ED executive. "Site selectors are evaluating more data points, because there are more available references and information available."

Technology Cuts to the Chase

The role of technology in today's site selection process cannot be under-emphasized. "Communications and computerized data services are entering a new age," Dorsey suggested. "Web sites are becoming more and more important as initial sources of baseline information. CD-ROMS are replacing videotapes. The leading consulting firms are utilizing GIS technology to a greater extent, and Internet e-mail is a mainstay of communication. All of these technologies make the local developers more effective by making information more current, more able to be tailored to specific requests and more flexible in the hands of the user."

Economic developers concur. "In the old days, site searches typically had five or six stages, and we usually were involved by the second stage," says Richard D. Knowlton, president and CEO of the Savannah (Ga.) Economic Development Authority. "Most initial screening now is done internally or by consultants using databases of information, and companies don't need us for that. So instead of giving the prospect 50 charts, we now display 10 maps; instead of giving basic statistics, we provide more in-depth information. Companies already know how many people we have. They want details: work-force characteristics, commuting patterns near the site and so on. Mid-size and large companies today want to know what's behind the numbers."    SS

* Site Selection is grateful for the many editorial contributions and insights of Bill Dorsey, a long-time member of the International Development Research Council and highly respected member of the site selection industry.