Incentives Alone Just Won’t Land a Deal − Today’s Driving Forces Behind Site Selection S01E03

2023. 11. 07.

#Site Selection #Investment #Didi Caldwell #Podcast #Competitiveness

Site selection is a long process, it is not just about finding the location, but looking at all business factors that make an operation competitive. In this episode of Invest in Hungary we explored what the general aspects and the latest trends of site selection are, why mega projects matter, and what it takes to land a key project. Our guest on the show was Ms. Didi Caldwell, a senior principal and partner of Global Location Strategies and a prominent member of The Site Selectors Guild.

When making their investment decisions, companies seek three things: the highest quality, the lowest cost and the least risk. They want the highest quality locations they can go to, they naturally prefer low costs as it impacts ROI, so it is crucial how much they have to pay for labor, logistics, electricity, water, and taxes. And they factor in risk.

“But there’s often a trade-off, and our job is to help them understand what theses trade-offs are. We do that analysis independent of incentives because they have a way of wearing off. Incentives can make a good location better, but they can never make a bad location good,” she points out.

With the rise of the number of mega projects, there’s a different calculus on when businesses are going to put their next dollar. As Ms. Caldwell adds, mega projects in new technologies simply need to be done in scale; in turn, those in the realm of semi-conductors are specifically tied to geopolitical tensions, whereas EV supply chain-related investments are driven by decarbonization goals.

If an IPA would like to land a mega project, the best it can do is to prepare sites proactively, so that by the time we make the call, the biggest possible number of ownership- and infrastructure-related issues are already sorted out,

Ms Caldwell says.

Listen to the full show now, and find out what else Ms. Caldwell had to share on:

why mega projects matter and how agencies have a chance to land them
what the general aspects and the latest trends of site selection are
where Hungary is positioned on the global FDI map
whether renewable energy is likely to remain the sector where the most capital is invested worldwide
and why Ms. Caldwell can’t help thinking about ROI when she goes shopping to a LEGO store

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Google: https://bit.ly/474t4Nk

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