Experienced site selection consultants can add considerable value to a corporation’s site selection process.  One key area of value creation is identification of the optimum location from an operational perspective. Another is negotiating valuable location incentives.  Not addressing each of these issues during the site selection process can result in significant financial losses and operational challenges over the long-term. 

The number of professionals providing site selection services has grown in recent years to include a variety of smaller practices and larger firms that provide a variety of business and real estate services, including site selection. For larger firms providing a variety of services, site selection is typically a small component of the overall business.

Because the choice of site selection providers vary greatly and the value created (or potentially lost) through utilization of site selection consultants is so profound, we recommend the following considerations when selecting a site location consultant for your manufacturing or headquarters location project:

1. Experience:  Site selection is complex and requires seasoned professionals to reach optimum decisions and generate the desired financial benefits.  Using moderately experienced personnel to address site selection issues typically results in costly and time consuming mistakes.
2. Lack of Conflict of Interest: Site selection consultants should be selected based on their desire and ability to directly fulfill the fiduciary duty to their client.  Consulting firms that may be motivated to evaluate or recommend a site based on a commission or other site specific compensation may not be able to conduct an unbiased search and provide unbiased recommendations for the site that best meets their clients’ needs.
3. Ability to Provide Informed Recommendations: Site selection consultants should possess the ability to understand the unique site selection criteria of a client and generate recommendations through quantitative and qualitative analysis that aid the client in ranking and ultimately selecting the best sites.

[Strategic Development Group, Inc. provides site selection and negotiation services with a focus on large foreign and domestic projects.  The firm has sited projects valued over $1.7 billion within the last four years.  We would be pleased to discuss your company’s site selection needs and hope to have the opportunity to work directly with you.]
Site location incentives