The location of businesses.

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The Location of Businesses

Businesses can choose where to locate. Sometimes choice of location is critical. In other cases it is less important. What is the difference? And what happens when a 'right choice' suddenly becomes a wrong choice?

Factors influencing location

Every business locates where it thinks it will be successful. If you remember that businesses need:

* staff to work there

* raw materials to produce finished products

* customers

* to keep their costs as low as possible

then their reasons for choosing a particular location begin to make sense.

Local labour supply

All organizations need to be able to employ staff. So it makes sense to locate where people live. A factory in a remote part of the Scottish Highlands would have trouble finding anyone to work there. Motorway service stations have to pay to transport their staff from local towns and villages to the station itself, a cost which other businesses can avoid. The factors which influence a particular area are often local skills and cost of labour.

Local skills

In some parts of the country particular skills are a tradition. If you