Business Location

6 Key excerpts on "Business Location"

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  Logistics Strategy for Agricultural Products in Thailand; Case Study: Hub and Spoke System Applied within the Shrimp Industry

  • (Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Cuvillier Verlag

    (Publisher)

  3 2 Approaches for Location Planning 2.1 Principles of Location Planning A Business Location is a geographical position where an enterprise is established in order to operate within goods or service industries (Schill 1990). The location can influence the competitive advantage of the business and determine their survival in the market. For example, some locations facilitate commodity production at a lower cost, and some locations can provide an added convenience factor for customers. On the contrary, the location can also be a disadvantage if a company is located in an inappropriate area. Moreover, location is a long term investment as the costs of establishment and change of location can be very high and inflexible in the short-term (Domschke and Drexl 1996b). Therefore the choice of location and location planning are of the utmost importance, which can result in business success or demise in the long term. 2.1.1 Descriptive Approach Descriptive theory provides the instruments used to describe the assumptions and processes considered while making location decisions (Domschke & Drexl 1996b). During the location planning process, a business chooses a potential location to lead to business success. Decisions of location are made with the goal of achieving sustained conformity with principal corporate objectives and conditions. The conditions of a location will be referred to as “factors”. Using the normative approach, numerous location factors have to be considered (Bloech 2001). The location factors can result in cost reduction, advantages of convenience in the market, and so on. Location factors, which are evaluated when considering various locations, are shown in Table 2.1. 4 Table 2.1: Factors of Location Choice 1. Ground and Land - Location and size - Expansion possibility - Land costs - Building regulations 2. Transportation - Route network - Infrastructure; Harbors, Airports, Highways - Transportation costs 3.

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  The State of the Art in Small Business and Entrepreneurship

  • Pierre-Andre Julien(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  section 2.1 ) can be used effectively to describe the geographical distribution of businesses not only in national and regional areas, but also in urban areas (Berry, 1971). Lastly, Business Location is an item of major importance in feasibility studies, since it constitutes the central portion of such studies (Colbert and Cote, 1990). In agreement with the latter authors, it must be emphasized that a Business Location study is “more than a question of site”, since it must include an examination of financial and marketing aspects. In their words,

  “A location analysis is one of the components in a firm’s marketing strategy, and its importance is directly linked to the financial life of the business. A location analysis can be defined as follows: an analysis of a group of geographical, economic, sociological and cultural variables, designed to assess an existing location or to select the best possible location for meeting a retail business’s sales and profit objectives.” (p. 8, our translation)

  Locating a business involves answering, first, the following question: in which locality should the business or service be established? If the projected business will sell consumer goods, the range of possible sites is broader that it would be in the case of a specialized business or service. A bookstore requires a wider commercial area than a small grocery store. If the decision involves the selection of a locality (rather than of a specific site within a locality), the promoter can refer to the empirical results obtained using the central place theory or gravitation models. The financial and commercial aspects will probably, in such a case, be less important for an individual than for a firm seeking to establish affiliates. Personal factors, such as the place of residence, will probably play an important role in an individual promoter’s decision to establish a business in a given community.

  The real importance of location analysis has to do with the selection of the best site or the most advantageous location within a given locality, especially in an urban context. The first step in the analysis is an assessment of demand based on a study of demographic data, consumer spending habits and recent trends, market location and area, residential development poles, natural and physical barriers within the territory, road networks, complementary services, and so on. The next step is to estimate the theoretical and actual supply, taking into account the fact that some trade inevitably gravitates to die major urban centres. The data on supply and demand allows them to be compared and a decision to be made, either to “close a shop, maintain the status quo

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  Regional Policy

  A European Approach

  • Norbert Vanhove(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  4 Micro and Macro-Aspects of the Location of Firms Introduction Theories about the location of firms and theories about the regional distribution of industries are in fact closely related to one another. Although the location of a firm is of course, a precisely defined concept, an exact point in space, for many reasons the region within which a location takes place is a much more convenient geographical concept to handle, particularly since from many a point of view knowledge of the exact location is irrelevant for a proper regional analysis. An important restriction should, of course, be made here. Regional analysis may serve different purposes. An analysis of the location of shops requires much smaller regions than one of the location of international airports. The relevant size of a region depends on the activity that is being considered. This should always be kept in mind whenever a study of a particular activity is undertaken. In the next chapter we shall have the opportunity to explain the consequences in some more detail. Weber, the father of location theory 1 2 A location factor is, according to Weber, ’ein seiner Art nach scharf begrenzter Kostenvorteil, der einen bestimmten Industrieprozess hierhin oder dorthin zieht’. In his analysis he makes a distinction between factors that determine the distribution of industries among regions (general location factors) and those which determine location within a region (specific factors). He considers the costs of the inputs (raw materials), labour, and transport. As price differences of raw materials can be reduced to differences in the costs of transporting these raw materials, only two differences in costs are actually relevant: those of labour and transport. When there are no differences in labour costs, the location chosen will coincide with the point of minimum transportation costs (determined by weight and distance). The point of optimum location is in general determined by three factors : 148

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  Geomarketing

  Methods and Strategies in Spatial Marketing

  • Gérard Cliquet(Author)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-ISTE

    (Publisher)

  In this context, the importance of location is underplayed as a result of the tendency to take a rather formulaic approach to delivering marketing objectives through what is simplistically termed the retail “marketing mix” [McD 93]. The primary focus of writing here has been on the concept of “place” in the role of marketing management, rather than location as such, with the emphasis very much on the use of alternative channels of distribution to get goods from the producer to the end-user. Retailing is, essentially, treated in an aspatial fashion, with the overt importance of location being stressed as simply a matter of choosing (strategically, of course) the type of outlets that are used rather than their location relative to the market. Consequently, issues such as store environment and image are held to be of paramount importance, whereas the features of the site and the trade area around it are less so. Thus, whilst harsh, it is still fair to say that the emphasis on “place” in marketing literature has tended to under-represent work that has been carried out in other disciplines, where the absolute dimensions and attributes of place as locality (whether aesthetic, spiritual, natural, artificial or historical) rather then the relative aspects of location such as the spatial relationships of outlets to their customers and competitors [CLA 97, CLA 95] have been more emphasized. As Clarke et al (1997) go on to point out in their review of this area, this clear division of approaches to location by geographers and marketers began to be recognized in the 1980s as a result of the emergence of management and marketing programs specialized in retailing. The focus of more recent research into retail location reflects the pragmatic preoccupation of retailers at that time on growth through the expansion of store networks, particularly in terms of technical and policy issues

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  Business Intelligence

  The Savvy Manager's Guide

  • David Loshin(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Morgan Kaufmann

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 16

  Creating Business Value through Location-Based Intelligence

  The Business Value of Location

  Even with the growth of virtual businesses, online companies, and electronic commerce, it is still true that any business transaction or event, ranging from sales, customer service, maintenance, supply chain, and so on, involves parties that are physically at some set of locations. As companies seek to drive improved profits, reduced costs, or improved productivity from the “virtualized space” of the World Wide Web, the ever-growing volume of data can yield interesting and surprising insight in relation to the location of events, transactions, and behaviors. Whether we are looking for operational efficiencies, revenue growth, or more effective management, many individual decisions on a minute-by-minute basis can be informed as a result of location-based intelligence.

  In other words, there is value in understanding how location influences both operational and analytical applications. This chapter provides an introduction to location-based intelligence as it relates to the common view of an address, and provides an overview of geocoding and geographic data services. We will then examine how geocoding can be used within business applications, and consider analytical techniques that can be applied across many types of industries and organizations. The chapter provides examples of some specific usage scenarios for selected vertical industries, presents an overview of some types of geographic data services, and discusses how those services satisfy the needs of those business applications, without the need of an actual “map.”

  Demystifying Geography: Address Versus Location

  Often people are confused by the term “location,” and equate it with the concept of an “address.” But in fact there are some key differences that are worth reviewing.

  An address is a text string formatted according to a definition provided by a postal authority intended for direct mail delivery. While an address often maps to a physical place, there are addresses (such as post office boxes or military addresses) that are used for mail delivery but do not truly correspond to a location. The ability to map an address associated with an identified physical place to its specific location is critical in many industries, such as insurance, financial services, and utility provision, among numerous others.

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  Small Business Start-Up Kit, The

  A Step-by-Step Legal Guide

  • Peri Pakroo(Author)
  • 2024(Publication Date)
  • NOLO

    (Publisher)

  Because no universal definition determines what makes a location good for business, it’s important for every business owner to figure out how location will (or will not) contribute to the success of the business— and to choose a spot accordingly. That said, everyone needs to consider some basic issues when choosing a Business Location. For starters, make sure the location makes economic sense. You won’t want to spend a fortune for a spot on an exclusive commercial strip unless it’s really going to pay off. It’s obviously important that the rent for your business space fits into your overall budget. But don’t be too frugal in this area—even the best-run business will fail if its customers can’t find it or don’t want to go to an inconvenient or unsafe neighborhood. And, of course, the location that you choose needs to be legally acceptable for whatever you plan to do there. Since 2020 there’s another consider- ation: Remote and hybrid workplaces are becoming common. Employees and owners alike are working from home more often than they used to, even if not exclusively. Many workers appreciate the option to work from home either for COVID avoid- ance or to save commuting costs. But not everyone wants to work from home; many folks prefer working in-person with others. In short, COVID has upended many norms, expectations, and patterns of working locations and styles. You’ll need to consider all these angles when figuring out what and where your workplace will be. Especially if you are planning to work from home or in a nonbusiness area, you’ll need to check zoning laws to see if they prohibit your type of business. This chapter will help you figure out how to find a suitable place that meets all the needs of your business and complies with local laws. SKIP AHEAD Planning to work from home? If you’ve already decided that you want to run your business from home, you can skip most— but not all—of this chapter.

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