Covid-19 data, ‘benchmark’ markets, talent trends for remote teams, and other software updates
5 powerful product updates to our location intelligence platform
Companies are starting to emerge from the initial shock of the pandemic. We are now seeing even more companies planning and building distributed teams, and exploring new markets beyond their HQ locations. Just this past week, we had 3 conversations with SF-based startups, in 150–700 employee range, asking for help evaluating other cities across the country. Some are planning physical presence in these markets, while others are focused on virtual hubs — building talent clusters around a given city for ease of scaling and getting together in person as needed.
To match, our location intelligence platform now has more data, faster performance, and deeper functionality. Outlined below are 5 powerful new features. We have a lot more in development, all in service of enhancing access to location insights and associated decision-making workflow.
1. COVID-19 Risk Level by State
Whether you are helping a client identify a different market to open an office (or even advising the client on location options to hire remote employees), we know that it is essential to have all pertinent information when making those decisions. The coronavirus and the risks associated with it are factors that companies and individuals will have to continue to assess for some time to come. Therefore, we have added a COVID-19 Severity Filter to our platform. Now you can narrow your market shortlist to those states that have a COVID-19 risk level commensurate with client’s comfort level. The three risk levels are Reduced (low risk), Moderate (medium risk), and Elevated (high risk).
2. Evaluate New Markets Against a Benchmark Market
Is there a specific market that you or your client have identified as optimal? Do you want to find a market that has characteristics exactly like or very similar to that ideal market? Our platform can now help you do that very thing. All you need to do is select that ideal market from the drop-down list and the specific data for that market is visible. You can now look for your new market using this information as a guide (or recipe) to help your client find that next ideal market.
3. Cost Savings Compared Against Any Chosen Market
Once you are at the Market Comparison section of the platform, you can compare the markets from your shortlist in a variety of very informative ways: availability of talent, cost of talent, cost of real estate, projected burn rate over different time periods, etc. But what about cost savings? how much would your client be saving when comparing one market to another?
You can now see the percentage of cost savings from a benchmark location to more accurately compare costs relative to the markets on your client’s shortlist. E.g. what are the cost savings for a 50-person team (e.g. software engineers and salespeople) and 10,000 sq ft office space between San Francisco and Denver? Or between San Francisco and Salt Lake City?
4. Cost vs. Talent: Weighted Comparison Summary
When looking for the next market to open an office, is your client equally focused on costs and talent availability? Or does one of these major factors dominate the decision making paradigm? Whether weighted evenly or substantially disproportionate, we now provide you with the ability to change the weight (or emphasis) of the data to align with your clients’ individual and unique needs.
5. Talent Needs For Remote Teams
The Client Needs pages allows you to add job titles for which they are hiring as well as approximate office size (in square feet). The information entered on this page is used to calculate corresponding costs in various markets. Up until this product update, the user was required to enter BOTH the talent AND real estate information in order to move on to the next screen to compare markets. Now, users can enter just the talent information (without any real estate input) to move forward to analyzing the market shortlist tools.
