The single most important ingredient for successfully growing and attracting business revolves around a single word, and that word is connectivity. It doesn't matter if we're talking about policy, infrastructure, utilities, business costs or amenities. In all cases, the fastest and most efficient connection between a customer and a supplier will always win the day.
One relevant example to illustrate this point is your current broadband provider. If you could double your connection speed at the same price, you'd be foolish not to accept that upgrade. Or maybe it's better to put another way. How excited would you be about going back to dial-up internet service? For that matter, how would anyone even begin to promote dial up service: can you imagine trying to sell the slowest, most unreliable connection for e-business in the 21st century?
It seems sort of ridiculous, but it happens every day. Let's take rail freight for example. We love Chicago. It's a modern metropolis, with beautiful city clubs, and a massive international logistics hub that handles and redirects rail, road, air and water freight from all over the world. But it also sometimes takes up to a week for goods to pass through that bottleneck. It sounds a little bit like a "dial-up connection" for logistics. Everything you could possibly need is stacked in the rail yards and terminals of Chicago, but the download process to get things moving can take up to seven days.
What we're doing today in the Hoosier State to provide nonstop intermodal rail service from Indiana to Asia is attempting to provide a better solution. Indiana's new nonstop intermodal rail service to Asia is essentially giving Hoosier businesses a week's head-start by bypassing Chicago for international freight both into and out of Asia. The added benefit is that Indiana's new intermodal solution will actually relieve congestion from the Chicago bottleneck, which will ultimately be good for the speed and efficiency of the entire region. [Learn More]
Even though it's hard to believe, there are still pockets of the country growing their economies at dial-up speed. We're operating at the speed of business in Indiana, and we're showing absolutely no signs of turning back or slowing down.
It's an incredible example of a Hoosier connectivity, and yet another reason Indiana is a state that works for business.