preview

Location Strategy

Decent Essays

SESSION 8 (JRU) THE LOCATION STRATEGY

THE STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF LOCATION

Location has a major impact on the overall risk and profit of the company. Companies make location decisions relatively infrequently, usually because demand has outgrown the current plant’s capacity or because of changes in labor productivity, exchange rates, costs, or local attitudes. Companies may also relocate their manufacturing or service facilities because of shifts in demographics and customer demands.

Location options include: 1. Expanding an existing facility instead of moving. 2. Maintaining current sites while adding another facility elsewhere, or 3. Closing the existing facility and …show more content…

2) Intangible costs. They are less easily quantified and include quality of education, public transportation facilities, community attitudes toward the industry and the company, and the quality and attitude of prospective employees. They also include of quality-of-life variables, such as climate and sports teams that may influence personnel recruiting. d. Ethical issues. To what extent do companies owe long-term allegiance to a particular country or state or town if they are losing money—or if the firm can make greater profits elsewhere? Is it ethical for developed countries to locate plants in underdeveloped countries where sweatshops (small manufacturing establishment employing workers under unfair and unsanitary conditions) and child labor are commonly used? Where low wages and poor working conditions are the norm? It has been said that the factory of the future will be a large ship, capable of moving from port to port as costs in one port become noncompetitive. e. Attitudes. Attitudes of national, state, and local governments toward private and intellectual property, zoning, pollution, and employment stability may be in a flux. Government attitudes at the time a decision is made may not be lasting ones. Moreover, management may find that these attitudes can be influenced by their own leadership.

Worker attitudes may also differ from country to country, region to region, and small town to city.

Get Access