Today,
private companies as well as local and national governments are
facing increased competition due to the impacts of rapid
technological change and globalization.
As
the pace of change and globalization increases, countries, regions
and local governments are becoming increasingly competitive in
seeking to attract and retain jobs and industry. Many studies have
shown this longer-term competitiveness trend within the developed
countries to be having a leveling effect on many of the basic
business cost factors associated with differing locations. While
this trend offers companies increasing international site
locational choices it also presents new challenges in evaluating
and selecting among this widening range of choices.
For
companies, the impacts of globalization are forcing a rethinking
of their basic business strategies.
Increasing shareholder value, expanding market share,
assessing corporate risks, labor supply and costs, issues of acquisition
or divesture - these and many other considerations are
facing corporate decision-markers as they confront locational and
asset related choices for their varied operations.
Also,
global political, macroeconomic and technological trends are also
important considerations facing decision-makers. For example,
increasing global outsourcing options for IT and related
operations; faster just-in time inventory and time-to-market
logistics requirements; implications of China’s emergence and
entry into the WTO; emergence of the European Union and its
eastward expansion; Russia’s moving to more economic stability
and competitiveness; and the Post 9-11 War on Terrorism and its
fallouts. These are among the many factors making global
locational choices even more complex and challenging.
While
the Internet is allowing an explosion of instantly available
information on macroeconomic trends as well as on local community
conditions, the massive quantity of data itself poses new
challenges. For this abundance of data to be useful in locational
decision-making, systematic transparent frameworks and processes
for organizing and integrating this varied information is needed.
These frameworks and processes are essential in assessing and
evaluating alternatives under a range of trends and business cost
factors.
At
GlobeSite we have developed such decision support tools
which we use in helping companies understanding near-term as well
as longer term implications of locational choices for their
companies. These various tools are discussed in our Methodology
section of this site.
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