Good Morning Friends! I have had the opportunity to research and tour some very large available industrial sites and buildings during my recent trips. Availability is certainly a sign of the times as companies downsize and shed unneeded inventory. The available space should also be looked at as an opportunity to help attract future expansions and locations. But space alone is not enough to attract new projects.
Due to large scale layoffs and massive unemployment, one would assume that the skills are available for any future location/expansion. But are the skills available for the businesses of the future? Many occupations are now gone, particularly in many manufacturing sectors such as traditional automotive. These sectors will be replaced with new emerging ones such as wind energy, solar, biotech, biofuels and many that have not even been thought of yet.
The key here is for each region to carefully determine the emerging target industries that are right for them by matching their strengths with the site selection needs of the emerging business. The most important criteria will be skill needs. We know that traditional automotive jobs have transferable skill sets to those needed in some of the energy categories such as solar, wind power and electric vehicles.
These workforce specifics need to be documented so that the emerging prospects, that are soon to be looking, understand that your community has the skill sets that can be trained into their occupation needs. If you can complement this with details on available industrial space that can be converted to the prospects needs, you will have a nice “leg up” on the competition. Happy Prospecting! Deane