Chart M
Types of new foreign facilities to be opened by consultants’ clients
(as of total new foreign projects):
• Manufacturing
• Warehouse/Distribution
• Headquarters
• R&D
• Back Office/Call Center
• Other
45%
17%
2%
7%
21%
7%
Chart N
Have you seen an increase in the number of companies establishing
foreign facilities as opposed to domestic ones over the last year?
• Yes
• No
29%
71%
Chart O
Have any of your clients relocated a facility back to the
U.S. from a foreign location?
• Yes
• No
35%
65%
Chart P
Percentage of respondents that have encountered or foresee
problems when helping clients to locate overseas:
• Legal problems
• Regulatory problems
• Skilled labor shortage
• Land not available
• Utility infrastructure
problems
• Transportation infrastructure
problems
• Social/cultural issues
• Other problems
22%
29%
17%
9%
25%
14%
29%
9%
Chart R
Relative importance of incentives to respondents’
clients when making location decisions:
• Have always been of great importance
• Are more important now than in the past
• Are less important now than in the past
52%
37%
11%
Chart S
Types of incentives consultants’ clients consider most
important when making a location decision?
• Tax incentives (tax credits, exemptions, etc.) 57%
• Financial incentives (grants, bonds, loans, etc.) 46%
• Other incentives (land, utility-rate subsidies, 36%
infrastructure support, training, etc.)
distribution network decisions (Chart W).
Increasing fuel costs are probably responsible for the
heightened importance given to railroad service. Although
this factor was only ranked 23rd by the responding consult-
ants, it showed the largest increase in importance over last
year’s consultants’ ratings; the rating of railroad service rose an
astonishing 42 percent, with its combined rating in impor-
tance increasing from 35. 1 percent to 50 percent. Remem-
ber that nearly half of the responding consultants said they
have helped to site warehouse/distribution facilities; they
and their clients have realized the energy costs savings that
can be achieved through the use of railroad service over
trucking.
Closely related to energy issues are environmental con-
cerns. All the talk about “green” or sustainable development
should be reflected in the consultants’ ranking of the envi-
ronmental regulations factor. However, this factor only
bumped up slightly in importance to a 71. 6 percent com-
bined rating, and its 17th place ranking held steady.
Nonetheless, when asked if environmental concerns were
more important to their clients now than in the past, 72
percent of the respondents to our 2008 Consultants Survey
said, “Yes” (Chart X). In response to this, 100 percent said
their clients were undertaking energy-saving facility modifi-
cations, and 70 percent said their clients were also recycling
or re-using waste products from their operations (Chart Y).
However, unfortunately, nearly two thirds of the respon-
dents said the communities they have worked with are not
offering any specific incentives for green initiatives.
Occupancy and construction costs moved up to the sixth spot
in the consultants’ rankings this year, with an 87.1 percent
combined rating, from 11th place in 2007, with an 84.4
percent combined rating. But, strangely enough, labor costs
dropped from third place in last year’s Consultants Survey,
with a 93.8 percent combined importance rating, to tenth
position in the 2008 Consultants Survey, receiving only an
82.8 percent combined rating — an 11 percentage point
decline and the third-largest decrease in the ratings among
the site selection factors. Labor is a recurring cost and I
would have expected the consultants to say this factor was
