WorldCity Business Magazine

(1) Publisher's Note: $203 bilion ... and counting

by Ian McCluskey

At the beginning of the year, WORLDCITY published a report on the economic muscle of the multinational business community of South Florida. Despite its rather imposing title South Florida Global Economic Impact Study the objective of the study was simple: To measure the combined annual revenues managed by the South Florida offices of approximately 1,200 multinational companies from 56 countries.

The number that we came up with $203 billion was impressive enough. But when you consider that, after four months of research, we only managed to obtain reliable revenue data for just over 700 companies, or 60 percent of the total, our study left us, our sponsors and our readers begging for more.

As a result, we are now embarking on Phase II of our Global Economic Study to shed even more light on the extraordinary diversity and global decision-making power of our multinational business community.

We have three primary goals for Phase II. One is to improve the success rate for gathering revenue data. If we can add reliable data for another 200-300 companies, the figure for the combined multinational company revenue managed from South Florida is likely to surpass $250 billion. Or perhaps even $300 billion.

The second goal is to provide a more detailed breakdown of geographic coverage. From their offices in Miami, Coral Gables, Doral, Ft. Lauderdale or Palm Beach, multinational companies have a startling variety of geographic responsibilities. Some run their U.S. or North American operations from here. Others run their Caribbean or Latin American operations. Still others run European and African business.

The third, and perhaps most important, goal is to analyze the functionality of the South Florida offices of multinational companies. We want to know what regional functions reside here. Is it just the CEO position that is located in South Florida? Or are other C-level functions HR, marketing, legal, finance, real estate also located here.

The results of our investigations will be published in early 2009. But, rather than keep all the data to ourselves until then, we plan to run a series of interim reports over the next 10 months in WorldCity Business. These reports will take an indepth look at certain key industries in South Florida, such as the aerospace, bio-medical and international logistics industries.

Our first report will appear in our next issue. As we kick off our Phase II research once again, under the direction of our head of research Tak Takasu—I am pleased to announce that the law firm of Diaz, Reus, Rolff & Targ has confirmed its participation as a Gold-Level sponsor for this project. They were an enthusiastic sponsor of Phase I and we are delighted to have them back.

Contact: imccluskey@worldcityweb.com