ABSTRACT
The data matrix is interpreted conventionally as firms being variables and the cities being objects. In this way each column of the matrix is a ‘firm as variable’ consisting of 123 service values. The distribution of these values across the ‘cities as objects’ represents the global locational strategy of the firm. Each column will be different because no two firms have exactly the same global locational strategy. Thus the matrix describes the distinctiveness of firms. But it also shows similarities between firms. Large numbers of relatively high correlations between the columns show that the matrix is most certainly not the random collection of service values that would indicate singularity of firms. Such similarities indicate that there are common patterns among the firms, and I build upon this to define those patterns.
