---
title: "Keynote Case Study: IAMC — Bold Decisions Build The Next Economic Wave"
canonical: https://jimcarroll.com/2017/10/iamc-richmond-2017-past/
updated: 2026-10-05T21:27:14+00:00
---

# Keynote Case Study: IAMC — Bold Decisions Build The Next Economic Wave

IAMC brought futurist Jim Carroll to its Fall 2017 gathering in Richmond, Virginia to challenge corporate real-estate and industrial leaders to align facilities and portfolio strategy with faster manufacturing and economic change.

*Bold Decisions Build The Next Economic Wave*

![Jim Carroll keynote for IAMC Richmond Fall 2017](https://jimcarroll.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/IAMC2017_case_study_page_1.png)

Facilities and portfolios are long-lived assets, but the technology, manufacturing methods, talent patterns and location economics around them can change quickly. Jim’s keynote pushed corporate real-estate leaders to think trends, not fads — and to challenge their assumptions about how fast the environment around their portfolios can actually change.

![Six corporate real estate trends presented by Jim Carroll](https://jimcarroll.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/IAMC2017_case_study_page_2.png)

Six trends are shaping that shift.

- **Manufacturing Reinvention.** Advanced manufacturing changes the footprint, flexibility and capabilities required of industrial facilities.

- **Smart Assets.** Connected buildings and equipment turn physical assets into continuous streams of operational data.

- **Automation.** Robotics and automated processes alter space design, workflow and the economics of location.

- **Portfolio Agility.** Long-term portfolios need enough flexibility to respond to shorter technology and business-model cycles.

- **Talent + Location.** Where skills are available increasingly influences where organizations place facilities and investment.

- **Strategic Risk.** Future-ready portfolios require bold decisions before every variable is certain.

Long-lived assets require forward-looking decisions, Jim told the room — portfolio strategy cannot rest on yesterday’s assumptions.

It’s a message corporate real-estate leaders carried straight back into their own site-selection conversations. Explore more [keynote case studies](https://jimcarroll.com/tag/case-studies/).