Apple Second Headquarter Location Report

Apple is planning to open another major office that will house at least 5,000 mostly new Apple employees including engineers, computer scientists, and management personnel. Tim Cook has asked all of the top consulting firms including Cambridge Consulting Group, McKinley, WolfBain, and of course ours, to each choose what we think is the best city for Apple to locate its new office. Tim has committed that he will make the firm that recommends the city Apple ultimately chooses the exclusive management consulting firm for all future Apple projects. In other words, if Apple chooses the city we recommend, our firm stands to make millions.

You will lead this engagement.

Unfortunately, Tim was intentionally vague about providing us with any additional information. He made clear that he expects us to determine what Apple’s most important criteria should be (e.g., proximity to major airports, climate, low corporate or income taxes, etc.), as well as argue how our recommendation best satisfies those criteria. It’ll be up to you to determine–among other things–which city to choose and what criteria should drive Apple’s decision.

The city you choose can be any city in United States. You must be able to capture the bigger picture, not just focus on solely better supply chain location or more potential tax advantages. For example, when Amazon decided to change their headquarters from Seattle to somewhere else, it was not because of financial obstacles or et cetera. it was because they have depleted the human resources they need for expansion. Seattle did not have enough educated workforce to drive amazon’s growth and therefore, instead of purchasing offices next to its headquarters, it decided to move to another state. I suggest you read some articles about Amazons new headquarter choosing process to get a better idea of what to write about. I want the report to be formal and sophisticated. The REPORT SHOULD BE BELOW 1000 words. Try to be completely unbiased in your report and have a well formed, structured argument, backed up with data.

I know that for big corporations tax breaks are a huge factor when considering building or purchasing new headquarters, but unfortunately we cant assume how negotiations between the company and state will go, so there cant be arguments like, that if Apple builds headquarters in South Dakota they will be able to get huge tax advantages because state desperately needs tax revenues.
Also, knowing the fact that apple recently opened their new headquarters 3 years ago, we are not assuming that they need second headquarters because of some unforeseen circumstances or there is a problem with the first headquarters. It’s pretty straight, if Apple were to choose to open headquarters, which city and why. Apple did not provide specific guidelines, so you have to yourself envision, what is the best for apple, which factors they should focus on in their new headquarters to maximize their success as company and one of technological innovative worlds leaders. Let me Know if you have any additional questions or want to clarify anything.