As the pace of the changing business climate escalates, the challenge to remain competitive and profitable has increased in the manufacturing sector. When aptly managed and measured, corporate real estate does add value to the corporate bottom line. The Spring 2009 IAMC Professional Forum will address forces that drive change in the global economy and offer specific how-tos for identifying, measuring, and increasing corporate real estate’s shareholder value contribution.

Broad Viewpoints

• Global changes reshaping the industrial landscape
• The role of real estate in corporate investment decision making
• Visionary viewpoints regarding the industries that will sustain over the next 3 - 10 years
• The changing U.S. industrial base

• Adding value through foreign investments
• Financial tools for containing costs in corporate acquisitions, dispositions, divestitures, and private equity
• Financial tools to measure the value add from real estate
• Teaming with economic development and service provider professionals to contain costs

• Cost containment driven by the corporate real estate function
• Space utilization and planning
• Adaptive re-use of existing facilities
• Disposing of specialized real estate assets
• Adding more value with a smaller real estate staff (outsourcing)
• Going green and the cost benefi t analysis that enables it
• Supply issues

IAMC future site, the Grove Park Inn.

by Mark Arend

Great incentives. Low taxes. A receptive economic development department.

That's how one corporate site seeker described North Carolina in a survey of such respondents that makes up half of Site Selection's annual ranking of state business climates. Add a track record of consistently strong business expansion activity as tracked by the publication's proprietary New Plant database – the other half of the ranking – and a state has what it takes to land at the top of that ranking.

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by Ron Starner

Targacept's rapid rise in North Carolina is as striking as it is unorthodox.

Growing as a biotechnology startup out of a tobacco empire, the Winston-Salem-based company is shattering many of the myths about the Tar Heel State even as the firm helps transform a region into a global player in one of the world's most competitive industries.

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Other Major Industries Include:

• Aerospace and Aviation Biotechnology
• Chemicals, Plastics and Rubber
• Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences
• Information and Communications Technologies
• Business and Financial Services
• Motor Vehicles and Heavy Equipment