Latest News

New Ohio ad campaign aimed at attracting businesses touts state’s low taxes, sparks online debate

Wednesday, March 31, 2021

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- What’s the first thing you think of when you think of Ohio? Is it low corporate taxes? Maybe not, but that’s part of what JobsOhio wants business owners in Boston, New York City, Seattle and other higher-cost, major U.S. cities to ponder as they consider whether to move elsewhere. The “Ohio is for Leaders” campaign launched as a pilot program in September, with a full rollout in January. It involves digital ads and social media, but a major component is billboards, with different messaging tailored toward the markets they’re in. For example, for Times Square in New York City...

Ohio State offers Apple app development and coding certificate courses to the public

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

This report is a summary of third-party economic research and perspectives to foster communication with business and economic development stakeholders during the COVID-19 crisis. Key Economic Insights Global: Global consumers are ready to unleash trillions of dollars in excess savings. U.S.: Economists on average expected gross domestic product to expand nearly 4.9% this year. Hiring in the U.S. technology sector continued on its upward trajectory in January. Ohio: Ohio landed four hospitals in the top 50 on Healthgrade’s 2021 America’s Best Hospitals list. Ohio State offers Apple app development and coding certificate courses to the public. Global Insights A new report shows global consumers are ready to unleash trillions of dollars i...

Ohio Can Lead America’s Heartland as More Companies Look to Reshore

Monday, March 29, 2021

For years, companies have been looking for ways to reduce production costs. Building production facilities overseas was commonly perceived as one way to save. However, companies are now seeking to move their facilities back to America and with the effects of COVID-19, reshoring has never been more important. Companies—both domestic and foreign— are investing in America for production and manufacturing. Ohio and the rest of America’s Heartland —the region between the Rockies and Appalachia — is proving to be a prime location for these facilities. Keeping operations in the U.S. provides companies benefits such as protecting intellectual property, shortening supply chains...

On the Rebound

Friday, March 26, 2021

If renewal is a hallmark of economic recovery, then the Midwest is a walking, talking, hard-working advertisement for a U.S. comeback. Here’s a brief tour of redevelopment projects across a region defined by resilience and reinvention. Michigan Two years after Ford Motor Company Executive Chairman Bill Ford announced plans to restore Detroit’s train station, abandoned since 1988, as the center of an innovation hub, the company in November unveiled the site plan for Michigan Central, a 30-acre mobility innovation district centered around the iconic Michigan Central Station and adjacent Book Depository, located at the nexus of four Detroit neighborhoods. The plan envisions ...

Why Would My Community Want To Attract A Remote Workforce

Thursday, March 25, 2021

Why would my community want to attract a REMOTE WORKFORCE? -- To grow your economy, of course! The coronavirus pandemic has affected U.S. workplaces in many ways, including transitioning many employees to remote work. As some businesses begin to welcome employees back to the office, many remote workers, about two-thirds to be exact, are opting to continue working remotely, according to a GALLUP POLL. Attracting remote workers should now be a priority for all economic developers. WHY WOULD MY COMMUNITY WANT TO ATTRACT A REMOTE WORKFORCE? Remote workers can bring many benefits to the communities they choose to live in. Just like any othe...

10 Reasons Why Your Economic Development Website Isn't Attracting Remote Workers

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

These 10 reasons why your economic development website isn't attracting remote workers may be why you're experiencing a lack of success. NEARLY 62% of employees already work remotely at least part of the time, and that number continues to grow as social distancing and COVID safety protocol remain intact. It's of prime concern that economic developers target this audience, and knowing what your audience is looking for is key to developing the best possible website. 10 REASONS WHY YOUR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT WEBSITE ISN'T ATTRACTING REMOTE WORKERS 1. REMOTE WORKERS AREN'T A TARGET AUDIENCE ON THE WEBPAGE This is the most obvious issue. The economic syste...

Check out these powerful economic development videos

Tuesday, March 23, 2021

If you missed these webinars, you can still check out all the great content we covered in these two fantastic sessions. Enjoy practical solutions and words of wisdom and experience from your colleagues in the industry. Your location's businesses of all sizes need as much support as they can get to survive the pandemic. This is particularly true of small and medium-sized businesses, who generally cannot afford to hire pricey outside consultants. These businesses represent the lifeblood of most regional economies, generating the vast majority of jobs. There are a number of ways economic development organizations, SBDCs and chambers of commerc...

10 Biggest Challenges Small Business Owners Face Right Now

Monday, March 22, 2021

There is not a day that goes by where we don’t talk about the COVID pandemic. It is on the news, in our social feeds and it has infiltrated both our personal and professional worlds. Many businesses have shifted employees to a work-from-home routine; changing everything about how the business day works. We’ve moved from in-person to video. We’ve adapted to multiple family members attempting to be productive, in the same space, at the same time and we’ve shifted from brick-and-mortar to a heavier online presence. In the midst of it all, there have been many success stories. Yet, the challenges are ever apparent...

How To Prepare A Business Plan That Is Useful In Practice

Friday, March 19, 2021

Have you ever seen one of those 50-page business plans that go into detail about every conceivable aspect of a still purely theoretical business? You probably have, since those business plans have been the industry standard for decades. Yet, in a world where words like lean and agile are becoming the new norm for startups, 50-page business plans look a bit out of place, and with a good reason. It’s a fact that creating a plan is very helpful for a new business. A study of more than 10 thousand businesses shows that ventures grow 30% faster on average if they create business plans. However, another study indicates that innovative startup...

Small Business Strikes Back: The Numbers Behind The Next 1000

Thursday, March 18, 2021

In 2020, American venture capitalists invested an unprecedented $156 billion dollars into 12,254 startups, setting records in biotech, pharma and fintech. There were a record 454 initial offerings in the U.S. markets, generating over $167 billion. But pull out a map, and you’ll see a country full of small-scale entrepreneurs who don’t have access to venture funding or Silicon Valley’s unicorn factory. According to the Kauffman Foundation, 89% of U.S. small businesses are either sole proprietorships or have less than 20 full-time employees. The majority (83%) are funded from savings, credit cards, and loans from family or friends, with approximately $80,000 in startu...

Recruiting and Retaining Today’s Manufacturing Workforce

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

AD: How has COVID-19 changed the employee experience in manufacturing, and what facets of this should organizations retain going forward? Zenk: Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, employees have been experiencing a drastically different work environment. Thousands of manufacturers across the U.S. and around the world were deemed essential during the pandemic, and their production lines haven’t stopped. They’ve continued to produce essential goods that the global community relies on — from the food we eat to the clothes we wear and cleaning supplies we use in our homes. As some manufacturers increased output and others reconfigured operations to satisfy urgent demands...

Front Line: Job Creation Through Reshoring

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

Back in the 1980s, the term “offshoring” became a business buzzword as more and more U.S. companies moved manufacturing to foreign countries, typically to save on labor costs. In recent years, “reshoring” has been added to the lexicon as companies decide to bring manufacturing back to the U.S., for various reasons.In 2020, reshoring created more U.S. jobs than foreign direct investment (FDI) for the first time in seven years, according to data collected by the Reshoring Initiative. In 2020, U.S. companies reshored nearly 69,000 manufacturing positions, while greenfield investment in the same industries created fewer than 42,000 jobs, according to the Initiative...

The Business Case and Economic Impact of Inclusion

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

The mission of economic developers is to grow jobs and capital investment in our communities. While the distribution of employment and investment in communities around the country has long been a concern of Economic Development Organizations (EDO), the question about “WHO” in the community benefits from any increase in jobs and investment is attracting widespread attention. Economic research shows that since the year 2000, minority groups such as Hispanics and African Americans, have been affected by declining of household incomes, growing inequality in income distribution, higher levels of unemployment, concentrated poverty, and low rates of mobility among classes (IEDC, 2016). Unfortunately...

Pandemic Fuels Data Center Growth

Monday, March 15, 2021

In a year full of turmoil and strife caused by an unexpected pandemic, data centers were quickly recognized for their crucial presence in all lives, for maintaining communication and knowledge during a period of sudden change for humanity. Data center operators and major services held fast throughout the troubled, early days as they were identified as truly mission critical. Companies large and small rapidly scaled up workloads with cloud service providers so employees could access their normal applications; schools and universities moved online as students attended classes remotely; and all people looked to the Internet for entertainment as they stayed hom...

Trends in Office and Industrial Parks

Friday, March 12, 2021

Of course, the big factor impacting office and industrial parks going into 2021 is COVID-19. The pandemic has reduced business production and workforce (through illness, social distancing, and remote working), disrupted the supply chain and cash flow, and brought about significant investments in technology. Across the nation, the demand for suburban office parks is rising as more skilled workers move back to suburbs, due to concerns about housing costs and quality of education — they also feel safer from COVID-19 and the civil unrest that is happening in some larger cities. “The most notable shift is toward lower-intensity spaces, where getting int...

The Future of the Workforce Is a “Better Normal”

Thursday, March 11, 2021

The world as we all knew it changed earlier this year with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Seemingly overnight, everything that we used to think was normal had changed, and things that once were deemed impossible for the workplace became the “new normal.” Now, seven months later, most of us have gotten used to this “new normal” — embracing the work-from-home lifestyle, using new technology, wearing masks, social distancing, and connecting virtually. But what comes next? Eventually this pandemic will end, a vaccine will be readily available, and we will attempt to return back to our “normal” lives. Bu...

Why Amazon's Building Binge Has Just Begun

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

The most enduring sounds of the past holiday season may have been those of a van squeaking to a stop at the mailbox, followed by the thud of a box being delivered at the porch. It was an Amazon Christmas. Amazon, which began 2020 as a mere juggernaut, enters 2021 a monolith. Consider the fact that during a year of severe job cuts throughout most of the economy, Amazon hired on average of 1,400 people a day from January to October. The company’s unrivaled pace of hiring doubled during the second half of the year as the full onset of th...

Servicing the Wind

Tuesday, March 09, 2021

Solar and wind farms impress with the stupendous scale of their towers, blades and panels, stretching all the way to the horizon to capture every last drop of sun and breeze. Much of the economic opportunity related to them, however, takes place on smaller scale, in the form of services rendered to those massive displays of power from clusters of manufacturing, maintenance and services firms. It can take the form of individual companies such as Cross Country Infrastructure Services, an Aurora, Colorado–based equipment and construction contractor supplier that announced in November it’s moving into growing wind and solar markets by increasin...

Cathedrals of Talent

Monday, March 08, 2021

Does tech investment follow tech talent or the other way around? It’s actually some of both. The question going forward, says Colin Yasukochi, executive director of the Tech Insights Center at CBRE, is the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic could upset longstanding equations and trends as 2021 unfolds into the post-COVID era. “The pandemic,” says Yasukochi, “could slow the growth of tech talent in some of the major markets if remote work takes hold, if people really do leave town and hiring starts to take place outside of those markets. It’s going to be very, very interesting.” CBRE’s 2020 Scoring Tech Talen...

Social media influence a huge draw for local businesses

Monday, March 08, 2021

When Lena Syed posted a TikTok video in early January featuring Springfield’s own Ironworks Waffle Cafe, she knew it would be popular, but even she didn’t expect the results. As a content creator, Syed says she assumed she’d get 50 thousand to 100 thousand views on her post because of the size of Springfield – compared to other larger markets that might bring anywhere from hundreds of thousands to 1 million plus views on a TikTok video. But, the video of Lena enjoying Ironworks waffles in and around COhatch The Market in Springfield quickly jumped to more than 500 thousand views. As word spread, customers followed an...

DeWine Releases “Investing in Ohio” Budget; More Funding for Broadband, Infrastructure/Site Readiness, Workforce Development & Small Biz Grants

Friday, March 05, 2021

Governor Mike DeWine announced his administration’s executive budget proposal for fiscal years 2022 and 2023. Joined by Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted and Office of Budget and Management Director Kimberly Murnieks, Governor DeWine walked through the highlights of the two year spending plan. Altogether, the budget proposes spending $85.76 billion in FY22 and $85.81 billion in FY23 in federal and state funding. The actual legislative language is not available yet, so while the Governor’s spending plans and priorities and his announced policy initiatives are known, there are still more details and proposals to come. Budget Proposal Highlights Governor DeWine, in touting the two-year spending plan...

How to Host Better Virtual Meetings

Friday, March 05, 2021

If you’re like most professionals, you spent a lot of time in virtual meetings in 2020 and will in 2021 — more than you ever thought possible in, say, 2015. And if you’re like most professionals meeting virtually, you’ve lamented the fact that they could be better. Virtual meetings suffer many of the same drawbacks as traditional meetings, including poor organization, bloated time slots and disinterested attendees. But they also suffer from a batch of problems uniquely their own, including intermittent delays, connectivity issues and the dreaded patterns of ongoing interruptions. And of course, virtual meetings aren’t going anywhere. Many businesses that transitioned t...

Free On-Demand Webinar: How to Safely Reopen Offices & Manage a Hybrid Workforce

Thursday, March 04, 2021

In the wake of coronavirus shutting down offices around the world, remote work has become the new norm. So how do you make workplaces safer post-pandemic? In the 15th episode of our Leadership Lessons series, Comparably CEO Jason Nazar speaks with an expert on the topic, Envoy founder/CEO Larry Gadea, who has facilitated 1 million safe returns to the office. With a suite of products that redefine how to welcome visitors and employees back to the office, the workplace platform includes tools for check-in registrations, booking rooms/desks, managing deliveries, and capacity limits for social distancing. Envoy is used in more tha...

Lauren Kelley shares her passion for, dedication to equality through Leaders of Change

Thursday, March 04, 2021

Born and raised in Springfield, Lauren Kelley is rooted in the city and wants to see it thrive. The founder of Leaders of Change, Kelley wants to be a part of a collaborative effort to improve racial equality throughout the community. And she’s using the platform created through her organization to help build the bridges to make that happen. A 2007 graduate of the former North High School, Kelley started working for the Clark County Juvenile Court in 2011 in the Clerk’s Office. When she had the opportunity to become a corrections officer in the Juvenile Detention Center, she was excited for the chance, and she’...

5 Tips for a Thriving Company Culture

Wednesday, March 03, 2021

Given the uncertainty businesses face in 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, company leaders are looking at every phase of their operation to determine ways they can improve. Workplace culture is one area commanding attention. As the virus caused business limitations and forced many companies to go fully remote in 2020, workplace culture was challenged in new ways. This was a reminder to company leaders to make this a priority, forcing them to find ways to strengthen it in the new year, says Mark McClain, CEO and co-founder of SailPoint and the ForbesBooks author of Joy and Success at Work: Building Organizations that Don’t Suck (th...

Wright State cuts are part of plan to evolve

Wednesday, March 03, 2021

Plans to cut 113 faculty positions at Wright State University over the next several years are meant to keep the university on par with a problem Ohio’s higher education institutions are facing - dropping enrollment. Wright State President Susan Edwards recommended the faculty positions be cut due to declining student enrollment that has occurred over the past five years and is projected to continue at least two more years. The university says it is cutting faculty to align with projected enrollment declines. Greg Lawson, a Research Fellow with the Buckeye Institute, an independent think tank that works on higher education in Ohio...

4 Keys To Startup Success In Crowded Markets

Tuesday, March 02, 2021

Many would-be entrepreneurs spend a lot of time trying to think of the next big thing. Most end up spinning their wheels and never getting a new venture off the ground. It’s hard to come up with an original business idea. However, if you look at some of the most successful businesses in the world, you'll find that they aren't based on new ideas at all. The truth is that you don't have to be original to start a successful business. Many startups succeed in crowded markets by doing their homework and executing their business plans. Nerd Wallet, for example, succeeded amon...

The states Americans headed to the most in 2020, according to U-Haul

Tuesday, March 02, 2021

Work from home orders and job losses caused by the Covid-19 pandemic prompted many Americans to pack up and head to other states in 2020. The ones who rented one-way U-Hauls went to states like Tennessee, Texas, Florida and Ohio, according to a new report by the company. U-Haul’s annual migration trends report calculates how many one-way U-Haul vehicles enter a state versus how many leave it each calendar year. For the 2020 report, the data were complied from more than 2 million one-way U-Haul rental customer transactions. In 2020, Tennessee claimed the top spot for the most one-way U-Haul arrivals versus departures for the first tim...

Challenges of Moving Manufacturing Out of China

Monday, March 01, 2021

There is plenty of manufacturing capability around the world for consumer goods, PPE, testing equipment, medical devices, consumer goods, and other industrial products. So why are companies reshoring their manufacturing operations now? The Tax Reform Act of 2017 helped. The 301 China penalty tariffs gave a little push. But the global pandemic made executives acutely aware of their global supply chain risks and vulnerabilities and provided an opportunity to rethink their global manufacturing strategy. New strategies typically include at least some capacity for manufacturing and sourcing critical goods in America. Pharmaceutical manufacturers were among the first to consider reshoring in an attemp...

Why Ohio Could Be the No. 1 Destination for Veteran Jobs and Businesses

Monday, March 01, 2021

Move over, Texas: Ohio is coming in hot. The state is looking to attract the next generation of military families, entrepreneurs and veterans ready to join the civilian workforce. In a series of moves that decentralize economic aid and community support, JobsOhio wants veterans to come back to the heart of it all. In 2011, Ohio privatized its economic development department into a nonprofit corporation: JobsOhio. Using the power of capitalism, it has since spurred job creation and business development in nine sectors. The organization is now ready to begin attracting employers and talent in a 10th sector: military installations and the federal government. Unlik...

In Focus: Construction Tech Adoption Speeds Up

Friday, February 26, 2021

Faced with the urgent need to both enable remote work and safeguard job-site activity, U.S. construction firms significantly ramped up tech investments in 2020, condensing three years worth of adoption into a single year. According to JLL’s State of Construction Tech report, mature technologies — including digital collaboration platforms, virtual scanning tools, and safety-focused wearables — were forecast to see strong growth in 2020, thanks to proven value and low barriers to adoption. But once the pandemic struck, these tools proved more than nice-to-have — they’ve become a veritable lifeline for companies of all sizes to keep projects alive through this publi...

President Johnson delivers first State of the University address

Friday, February 26, 2021

In her first State of the University address as the 16th president of The Ohio State University, Kristina M. Johnson today announced a commitment to hire hundreds of new faculty members and invest more than $750 million in new cutting-edge research, and promised a debt-free undergraduate education in a decade. Johnson started her tenure during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, following a summer of protests against racial injustice and through a contentious political campaign season. While highlighting the challenging times, she also pointed toward a more optimistic future. “The Ohio State University was created to spread opportunity more widely,” she said. “And if eve...

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine Outlines $1 B Program to Combat COVID Economy

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Governor Mike DeWine, as part of his state operating budget kickoff, announced a broad and impressive $1 B Investing in Ohio program designed to impact the economic downturn created by the COVID 19 virus. Ohio like many other states around the country have experienced reduced revenues, and economic activity due to the pandemic and the governor is focused on provided resources and support to help spur economic activity while supporting small businesses in the state. The proposed $1 billion program would provide $460 million to support businesses to help cover costs to keep their doors open, including businesses in the entertainment...

“Made in America” Executive Order to Affect International Companies and FDI

Thursday, February 25, 2021

On January 25th, President Biden issued one of his first Executive Orders, making changes to the “Made in America” program. The order left many with questions about how it would affect trade and international investment into the U.S. About the Executive Order The Executive Order is designed to strengthen the requirements for federal procurement in the U.S., allowing more of a preference for domestic products and supply chains (e.g., components) of domestic products. The order creates a new “Made in America” office to administer the new processes, which will be housed under the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) and will have its own director. Rea...

Attract Those Remote Workers

Thursday, December 31, 2020

Did you know?? Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, 43% of the workforce worked from home at least some of the time according to Gallup data. With the pandemic, that percentage increased and many people have switched to completely remote work. With the switch, many found a certain freedom. In April 2020, people in the U.S. relocated at twice the rate they did one year ago. And that higher rate of moves continued through May, reported The Wall Street Journal. Remote workers are looking to relocate from more populated and price-y metros to smaller towns where they can more easily social distance, get more ban...

Does Your Business Need a Digital Transformation?

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

As technology constantly and rapidly changes, many businesses find themselves unable to keep up with the advances. The reality is that digitalization promises to change the way that businesses operate, and a 2019 McKinsey Digital Quotient survey found that 93 percent of executives believe that taking advantage of digital technology is essential for accomplishing strategic goals. Digitization brings new opportunities, improves processes, expands production and many other benefits. Leaders need to work to develop the right systems, structures, and expertise to welcome digitization with open arms. What is digital transformation? Digital transformation is defined as “cultural, organizational, and operation change of an organization, industry, or ecosystem through the smart integratio...

What Business Can Learn from Supermarkets' Pandemic Playbooks

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Businesses across the board are struggling to meet the new demands put forth due to Covid. Increasing sales while decreasing operational costs is not an easy feat. However, the country’s nearly 40,000 grocery stores, classified an essential service during the pandemic, have had to adapt quickly without any downtime. Only about 3 to 4 percent of grocery spending in the U.S. was online before the pandemic, but that’s surged to 10 to 15 percent, according to research by consulting firm Bain & Company. And in some cases, it’s much greater than that. “Early on during the pandemic, we saw a 300 percent increase, on average, in online grocery sales amon...

4 Mindset and Growth Strategies to Help You Grow Your Business Revenue

Monday, December 28, 2020

As entrepreneurs, we’re always itching for growth. Although we love looking back at all we’ve accomplished, what truly excites us are the milestones ahead. The problem is that business growth is not constant. There are hiatuses along the way, and if we don’t see the bigger picture, we can get lost in the patches of shade and twists in the road. What’s more, there are challenges that make us question if continuing to fight for our dreams of success is really worthwhile. The key is to keep focused with the right mindset and growth strategies in our arsenal. Here are four to add to yours. Read full article.

How This App Is Helping Parents Become Entrepreneurs

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

If your children have outgrown their baby items, you might have wondered if you can make money by selling your gently used things. Stephanie Cartin had that thought when her daughter was eight months old. Today, she’s the co-founder of Markid. She spoke with Jessica Abo to share how her marketplace is helping parents become entrepreneurs. Jessica Abo: Stephanie, how did you and your business partner come up with the idea to start Markid? Stephanie Cartin: When my daughter was eight months old, she began to outgrow many of the items that we had purchased for her, like her Mamaroo, her bouncer and her bassinet. And there were new products tha...

10 Key Questions And Answers About SPACs

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

SPACs, or “special purpose acquisition companies,” are continually in the business news these days, with $50+ billion having been raised by SPACs this year alone. In fact, SPACs are estimated to become 50% of the IPO market this year. The increasing popularity of SPACs and the flexibility they provide to companies wishing to go public has led to the formation of a number of high-profile SPACs. SPACs provide the opportunity for private companies to go public in a manner different than traditional IPOs. SPACs also provide for significant incentives for their sponsors. In this article, we answer 10 key questions about SPACs. Rea...

4 Things To Keep In Mind During National Entrepreneurship Month

Monday, December 21, 2020

As the calendar turns to November and National Entrepreneurship Month, business owners have an opportunity to celebrate and reflect. It undoubtedly has been a taxing year for business founders, but those challenges haven’t dampened the overall entrepreneurial spirit. Don’t believe me? Just look at the numbers. According to Yelp, Covid-19 caused more than 163,000 businesses to close as of the end of August, representing a 60% uptick compared with the middle of July. But with more than half a billion new companies setting up shop each month and 24 million people planning to become self-employed in the coming year, it seems like plenty of people are willing t...

No Office, No Problem: Software Unicorn GitLab's CEO

Friday, December 18, 2020

Sid Sijbrandij knows the perils of working from home. In 2018, after years of toiling exclusively from a small room in his 47th-floor apartment in a San Francisco high-rise, the entrepreneur developed foot problems. So he moved in a treadmill desk alongside his Zoom-friendly green screen and three monitors. But GitLab’s CEO says the problem isn’t remote work, but how it’s practiced. Unless you’re employed by one of the handful of companies that have fully embraced the new work reality, Sijbrandij (pronounced see brandy) thinks you’re probably doing it wrong. His radical take on remote work: It’s effective only if you go al...

Billionaire Bill Ackman: Covid Will Get ‘Ugly’ In Next Few Months, But Expect ‘Explosive Growth’ Once It’s Over

Thursday, December 17, 2020

As the pandemic worsens in the United States, billionaire activist investor Bill Ackman thinks the next three to four months could be terrible for the economic recovery, but once a vaccine becomes widely available, the founder of Pershing Square Capital Management expects boom times for the economy, he said at Forbes’ Wealth Management Summit. Pointing to worrying factors like a near-nationwide increase in the positive-test rate for coronavirus, Ackman says the next several months are “going to be ugly” for the pandemic and “challenging” for the economy, particularly in states like New York, where many businesses will likely be forced to halt thei...

In Focus: The Evolving Role of Outdoor Spaces

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

This year has been hallmarked by re-evaluation. On all levels, people have taken a second look at their habits, spaces, and lifestyles and have had to adjust greatly to meet the new needs of today. With safety as a priority, people entered their homes in March, and most have not returned to a “normal” lifestyle. On a macro-level, spaces must be reimagined in order for people to return safely and once again participate in day-to-day activities without fear of getting sick or infecting others. One solution is moving traditionally indoor spaces outdoors. The office is a great example of how outdoo...

Leveraging the Workplace in Recruitment Strategies

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

For most recruiters finding prospective employees is only half the battle. As challenging as it may be to sift through resumes and emails, when that one outstanding candidate comes along, there is an even greater obstacle: making sure he or she chooses to work with your organization. So how can one company stand out against another? Salaries and benefits are a huge factor, but they are certainly not the only variables considered. Company culture also plays a crucial role and, in many cases, may be the deciding factor for prospective employees. When a candidate visits a company’s office for an interview...

Redevelopment of Space for Booming Life Sciences Firms

Monday, December 14, 2020

As the race for a vaccine or widely available treatment for COVID-19 kicks into high gear, many life sciences firms are looking to ramp up their production capacity — for this and future public health crises. With this anticipated growth in production volume comes the need for more lab space. But when looking for space to expand, life sciences firms may need to look beyond space specifically built for life sciences and identify sites that have been redeveloped into lab space. Developers are taking note that some markets that have the assets of a life science cluster — such as proximit...

Workforce: A Primary Ingredient in the Evolution of the Food Industry

Friday, December 11, 2020

Food processing is an ever-changing industry. Recent years have ushered in a wave of change driven by consumer demands, technology advancements, and regulation shifts. Society has become much more aware of the food it consumes and how it is sourced. As with other industries, millennials are vocal about their preferences, which has motivated manufacturers, including food processors, to listen. The food and beverage industry, in response, is transforming itself through increasing production times, changing technologies, heightened food safety regulations, and more in-facility work. This evolution has been in the works for some time now and shows no indication of slowing down. Ad...

Trends in Industrial Design Accelerated by E-Commerce

Thursday, December 10, 2020

Industrial real estate has experienced healthy growth over the past five years, but no one could have forecast that a global pandemic would be a boon for the sector. The global shutdown resulting from the coronavirus outbreak has forced many consumers to change their shopping habits, drastically accelerating the penetration and adoption of e-commerce worldwide. In the U.S., online shopping increased by 30 percent in the first six months of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019. This e-commerce surge has put remarkable pressure on retailers to quickly move their inventory online and bolster their distribution networks, resulting in nearly unprecedented deman...

Expanded Incentives Support the Growth in Remote Work

Wednesday, December 09, 2020

So much about life has changed dramatically since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. We’ve upped our game with hand hygiene and gotten used to wearing a mask in public. We’ve learned a lot about food carryout and delivery. And for millions of Americans, we’ve had a crash course in remote work. Indeed, as of an October 2020 Gallup survey, fully a third of the American workforce was “always” working remotely, and another quarter said they were working remotely “sometimes.” The share of remote workers in October was down a fair amount from what it was earlier in the pandemic, but still huge...

Finding the Sweet Spot in Food Plant Location Decisions

Tuesday, December 08, 2020

Who doesn’t like cookies? The food industry usually avoids NIMBY objections. The facilities smell nice, they are not too big, and they often have a company store open to the public! This article is focused on food plants in the $20 million to $80 million range, perhaps 40,000 square feet to 120,000 square feet. In future articles we can discuss finding and retrofitting existing buildings and the site selections of more challenging operations like animal slaughter. A Strong Sector New food plant construction has continued in 2020. And as the year progresses, owners are also restarting projects that were delayed due t...

Leaning into the storm: Reshoring manufacturing is Ohio’s call to duty

Tuesday, December 08, 2020

Ohioans couldn’t get N95 masks into our hospitals. Business couldn’t buy PPE to stay open. States fought to get testing kits. It didn’t stop with medical supplies. Try to buy a bicycle during COVID? Good luck. Many overseas-dependent products couldn’t be found on our shelves. Some seemingly simple items couldn’t be found because of one tiny component in the supply chain wasn’t available in our country. Reshoring, the restoring of manufacturing supply chains to our North American shores, is imperative! It’s also bipartisan. It’s clearly one of only a few issues upon which both sides of the aisle can agree — let’s bring manufacturing back to the U.S. Red full article.

Literary Buffs Will Love These Roadside Destinations

Monday, December 07, 2020

Once upon a time in a land close to home, there were workplaces and living spaces of famous authors and illustrators that literary fans could explore through printed maps created by the Ohioana Library Association. After more than 50 years, the organization, which collects, preserves and celebrates Ohio literature, has now gone digital with the Ohio Literary Trail, an online map that connects people to more than 60 notable sites around the state. “Literary tourism is becoming a much more popular thing because people love authors and books,” says Ohioana Library Association executive director David Weaver. “It’s exciting to g...

Nondisclosure Agreements Best Practices When Negotiating Incentives

Monday, December 07, 2020

Nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) or confidentiality agreements are commonplace in commercial transactions, especially in deals that are negotiated privately before any public disclosure, or if parties need to share proprietary information. In the context of economic development transactions, NDAs are sometimes used, but their limitations are often misunderstood. Incentives transactions generally involve a private-sector entity applying for financial or other incentives from one or more governmental or quasi-governmental entities. Incentive transactions can involve critical information that the company needs to keep confidential until the incentives negotiations are complete. For instance, a company considering relocating to a new state may not want it...

Boom in E-Commerce Creating Workforce Opportunities

Friday, December 04, 2020

To say that COVID-19 has altered our world is an understatement. Among the pandemic’s many adverse effects is the impact on brick-and-mortar retailers. UBS analysts projected that 100,000 retail locations could close by 2025 if Americans continue the online shopping craze perpetuated by COVID-19. The pandemic is just the latest blow to a trend in brick-and-mortar downturn. Previous years have seen record closures due, in part, to online retail giants dominating retail. Meanwhile, steady (and rising) unemployment numbers have left many out of work. But there is an expected bright spot in the culmination of these two problems: The rise of e-commerce could fuel a massive nee...

OSU seeks approval to build $36.7M innovation center

Friday, December 04, 2020

Provided that the Board of Trustees approves the project this week, construction will start in June 2021. The facility would be slated to open in May 2023. Read full article.

Air Force, Ohio State announce partnership to improve diversity in science, engineering

Thursday, December 03, 2020

The Ohio State University and the U.S. Air Force are creating a national consortium to increase opportunities in the Air Force for minority STEM students and graduates. Ohio State will co-lead the new effort with Wright State University, North Carolina A&T State University, and the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The six-year, $40 million project, funded by the AFRL, will include summer internships for minority engineering students, access to specialized research equipment and laboratory space at AFRL, Ohio State and Wright State, and support for projects to be determined by collaborating with historically black colleges and universities an...

Certainty and Predictability Are the Winning States’ Hallmarks

Thursday, December 03, 2020

State business climates are exceedingly competitive in 2020, if Site Selection’s latest Business Climate Ranking is any indication. For the first time ever, two states claim the top spot — Georgia, which now has an eight-year run in first place, and North Carolina, which missed tying Georgia last year by just two points. What’s more, there are two additional sets of tied states in the Top 10, Texas and South Carolina in fourth place and Alabama and Arizona in seventh. Half the ranking is based on a survey of corporate executives and site selectors (asked to identify the states they believ...

A Country With a Great History and Even Greater Potential

Wednesday, December 02, 2020

Georgia is probably a place you don’t know much about,” said the late Anthony Bourdain when his “Parts Unknown” TV program filmed an episode about the country several years ago. “Few Americans, I suspect, could place it on a map. It’s small compared to the superpowers around it, but vital, its significance far exceeding its relative size.” My conversations with an array of global investors and experts confirm that vitality and significance. More and more companies today know where to find it on a map. But first, let’s get one thing straight: The country was first inhabited by the proto-Georgian tribes i...

Ohio Ranked Third in Site Selection’s 2020 Top State Business Climate Rankings

Wednesday, December 02, 2020

This report is a summary of third-party economic research and perspectives to foster communication with business and economic development stakeholders during the COVID-19 crisis. Key Takeaways Global: International FDI fell by 49%; outlook remains negative. U.S.: U.S. unemployment rate falls to 6.9%, Federal Reserve holds rates at zero amid considerable risks as economy continued to recover. Ohio: Ohio ranked third in Site Selection’s 2020 Top State Business Climate Rankings. Global Foreign direct investment (FDI) fell by 49% to $399B in the first half of 2020 according to UNCTAD. The European Union’s executive commission lowered its economic forecast for next year and doesn’t expect to reach pre-virus levels until 2023. The ne...

5 Creative Approaches To Gain The Attention Of Businesses

Tuesday, December 01, 2020

So your community didn’t get on the finalist list of Amazon HQ2. Now what? The site selection process is changing and adapting with the trends in business. While it may still be important for you to look for potentially large company relocations, many good business expansions can occur with small to mid-sized companies. But gaining the attention of their businesses requires some creative approaches. #1 TALENT > INCENTIVES Workforce, workforce, workforce. The ability of a community to attract and retain a workforce is ranking at the top of the incentive list. Business owners may still be interested in traditional incentives, but th...

Will Modi's Moves Lead to the 'Next China'?

Tuesday, December 01, 2020

COVID-19 taught global manufacturing companies the dangers of depending on any single country for their operations. Multinationals are reviewing their global footprints and diversifying away from China. Is India the first step? Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recognized that India has many of the attributes that made China successful, such as low-cost and abundant labor, technical and engineering excellence and growing domestic consumption led by an emerging middle class. The factor that has been missing has been investor- and business-friendly policies, but Modi is aggressively addressing this shortcoming, and is in hot pursuit of global manufacturing FDI. He has bee...

Safe Harbor

Monday, November 30, 2020

The categories and types of special economic zones, free trade zones and just plain free zones sometimes can seem as numerous as the zones themselves. Their boundaries can shift and jump depending on community and company needs. And even as some zones merge or disappear (Mexico’s government repealed several SEZs late last year) new zones are being formed and named all the time. China’s State Council in September, for instance, announced that it will establish three new pilot free trade zones (FTZs) in Beijing, Hunan, and Anhui and expand the FTZ in Zhejiang. As explained by Dezan, Shira & Associates, “pilo...

Where FDI Drives the Bus

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Since the late 1980s, the global corporate facility projects database maintained and populated by Conway Data has tracked project locations and expansions by companies of every stripe in every U.S. state. But only within the past decade did we add to our columns of data a category tracking investing companies by country of ultimate beneficial owner. Now that a critical mass of projects has been tracked, this fall we analyzed the 1,686 U.S. projects we’ve tracked since 2015 that have had at least a share of involvement by a foreign-based firm (i.e. joint ventures count). The Top 10s below represent th...

The Business Case and Economic Impact of Inclusion

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

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