Dallas - a market overview and a guidebook to do business in Texas
Dallas/Fort Worth is becoming a market that will be increasingly difficult to overlook. Traditionally Finnish companies looking to grow their business to US focus their efforts to either New York or California without true insight in what lies between Big Apple and Silicon Valley: Big (and still growing) Texas with multiple business opportunities.
Based on its’ population of 7.4 million DFW is the fourth biggest metroplex in US after New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Did you know that Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington was the number one in terms of population growth of all metro areas in the nation with 146,000 new residents added during 2017. This is amazing daily growth rate of 432 persons.
This population growth is naturally a result of the healthy and growing economy in the metroplex which constantly demands for new workforce and leads to steady job growth. Dallas/Fort Worth added a record number of 85,500 jobs (only behind of New York and LA) during 2017. Growth in this magnitude typically leads to higher prices with inflation and higher cost of living and cost of doing business. Also here in DFW metroplex? Surprisingly this is not the case (at least not yet). Cost of living in Dallas for instance is only 2% points above the US average and cost of doing business 3% below the US average. Typical 4 bedroom/2 bath house that would cost over $1million in San Francisco would cost $275k in Dallas. Cost of living in New York is more than double of that in Dallas while cost of doing business in Big Apple is about 60% above the US average. No wonder that the economy here is growing with the record pace and migration from other metropolitan areas is in favor of DFW.
What are the strengths of DFW metroplex? Key selling point is clearly a central location in the middle of the nation and easy access to all parts of the continental US with maximum of 3 hr flight from DFW airport (fourth busiest airport in the world, serving 233 destinations including 57 international cities) enabling face to face business meetings within US without overnight stays. Good location brings also logistical benefits already noticed and benefitted by many big companies looking to relocate their headquarters here like Toyota who is already operating in Plano and Amazon still evaluating the future locations for their second headquarter, but Dallas and Austin still as top candidates.
DFW has large industry diversity and is recognized as top 5 metro in U.S. for the following industries: food and beverage (1st), aerospace (2nd), transportation and logistics (2nd), IT and communication (3rd), life sciences (3rd), machinery and equipment (3rd), business and finance (4th), energy (4th), automotive (5th) and metals (5th). DFW is also the largest region in Texas for high tech and manufacturing jobs. DFW is also number one region in the country for new home construction and capital investment and job creation.
Texas is employer friendly ‘Right to work’ state where questions like the current Finnish headline topic of government’s proposal to ease employee dismissals in small firms would be taken a granted and would not even hit headlines. Texas has also competitive salaries and relative low worker compensation costs.
Good deal is typically the one that gives you more value with less money. To summarize in Dallas/Fort Worth an entrepreneur gets the business benefits of top metropolitan regions in the nation with strong and stable economy, infrastructure with business friendly environment and world class work force - all this with the least amount of money.
Newsletters
FABG Dallas Newsletter Fall 2018
https://mailchi.mp/0ed86b445ffd/fabg-newsletter-fall-2018?e=[UNIQID]
Vesa Jaamuru
Chairman Finnish American Business Guild
+1682-234 7345
Dallas.FABG@gmail.com
vjaamuru@verizon.net
www.fabg-dallas.com