Utah long has been viewed by many in the nation's business community as ideally situated to foster the movement of manufactured goods between both the East and West coasts, and Canada and Mexico.
And now the state known informally as the "Crossroads of the West" is getting a boost to its reputation as a premier location for warehousing and distribution operations.
A new survey by one of the nation's leading corporate site selection companies - The Boyd Co. of Princeton, N.J. - found the cost of operating a distribution warehouse in the Salt Lake City/Provo area was the second lowest among 30 cities it studied.
"Utah has a lot going for it," said consultant John Boyd. "You have a pro-business governor, a relatively low corporate income tax rate, low land and utility costs and a central location."
The study looked at the cost of operating a 500,000-squarefoot distribution center employing 225 hourly workers that ships its cargo by truck to markets in California and through the West.
Annual operating costs ranged from a high of $24.6 million in Chicago to a low of $13.7 million in Mohave Valley, Ariz., Boyd said. The cost of operating in the Salt Lake City-Provo area was $15.7 million a year.
Boyd argues that despite the nation's weakening economy, the expansion, construction and operation of new warehouses will be a major source of new investment and jobs in Utah in the years ahead. More here.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Syracuse named a top site for business location
Business Facilities magazine cites affordability, abundance of water.
Friday, September 26, 2008
By Rick Moriarty Staff writer
A site selection magazine has named the Syracuse metropolitan area among seven around the country worthy of a look by companies seeking a new location.
Business Facilities magazine said in its September issue that Syracuse came to its attention when it came in as the sixth most affordable place for business in a ranking developed by Regional Financial Associates, an independent provider of economic research.
After taking a closer look, the magazine said it found that the Syracuse area "has something that increasingly is a rare and valuable commodity: an abundant supply of fresh, potable water!"
Early this year, Onondaga County's economic development office launched an advertising campaign touting the Syracuse area's abundance of water. The campaign was geared toward the beverage and food-processing industries.
"At a time when the southeastern U.S. is experiencing devastating drought conditions that are affecting industry as well as individuals, Syracuse, located next to Lake Ontario, has access to eight million gallons per day of high-quality, low-priced water," the magazine said.
The magazine also noted that the area's manufacturing sector got a boost in February when Bitzer Scroll Inc., a large independent manufacturer of air conditioning and refrigeration compressors, announced it would set up a manufacturing facility in Salina and create 289 jobs. It recently opened the facility in the former General Motors Inland Fisher Guide plant, now an industrial park.
The other six metro areas listed as the magazine's "editors' location picks" are Salt Lake City; Midland, Texas; Philadelphia; Oklahoma City; Minneapolis-Saint Paul; and Wichita, Kan.
Greg Hitchin, interim director of the Onondaga County economic development office, said being included in the listing will help Syracuse grab the attention of corporate real estate executives and site selection consultants.
The magazine has a circulation of 43,000, with 51 percent going to manufacturing companies and the rest to business services and other types of companies, he said.
He said a Web site created for the county's advertising campaign received more than 700 hits. And as a result of the campaign, the county has been in contact with a food-processing firm and a company that uses a lot of water in its manufacturing process, Hitchin said.
The full article is on the magazine's Web site, www.business facilities.com. Click on the "Editors' Location Picks 2008" link.
Staff writer Rick Moriarty can be reached at 470-3148 or rmoriarty@syracuse.com.
Friday, September 26, 2008
By Rick Moriarty Staff writer
A site selection magazine has named the Syracuse metropolitan area among seven around the country worthy of a look by companies seeking a new location.
Business Facilities magazine said in its September issue that Syracuse came to its attention when it came in as the sixth most affordable place for business in a ranking developed by Regional Financial Associates, an independent provider of economic research.
After taking a closer look, the magazine said it found that the Syracuse area "has something that increasingly is a rare and valuable commodity: an abundant supply of fresh, potable water!"
Early this year, Onondaga County's economic development office launched an advertising campaign touting the Syracuse area's abundance of water. The campaign was geared toward the beverage and food-processing industries.
"At a time when the southeastern U.S. is experiencing devastating drought conditions that are affecting industry as well as individuals, Syracuse, located next to Lake Ontario, has access to eight million gallons per day of high-quality, low-priced water," the magazine said.
The magazine also noted that the area's manufacturing sector got a boost in February when Bitzer Scroll Inc., a large independent manufacturer of air conditioning and refrigeration compressors, announced it would set up a manufacturing facility in Salina and create 289 jobs. It recently opened the facility in the former General Motors Inland Fisher Guide plant, now an industrial park.
The other six metro areas listed as the magazine's "editors' location picks" are Salt Lake City; Midland, Texas; Philadelphia; Oklahoma City; Minneapolis-Saint Paul; and Wichita, Kan.
Greg Hitchin, interim director of the Onondaga County economic development office, said being included in the listing will help Syracuse grab the attention of corporate real estate executives and site selection consultants.
The magazine has a circulation of 43,000, with 51 percent going to manufacturing companies and the rest to business services and other types of companies, he said.
He said a Web site created for the county's advertising campaign received more than 700 hits. And as a result of the campaign, the county has been in contact with a food-processing firm and a company that uses a lot of water in its manufacturing process, Hitchin said.
The full article is on the magazine's Web site, www.business facilities.com. Click on the "Editors' Location Picks 2008" link.
Staff writer Rick Moriarty can be reached at 470-3148 or rmoriarty@syracuse.com.
The Case For Place Branding
Contributed by: Ed Burghard, Harley Procter Marketer, Procter & Gamble/Executive Director, Ohio Business Development Coalition
In my current role, I am often asked why I believe place branding is a right strategy for accelerating the economic growth of a location.
Global competition for capital investment in increasing, driven in part by companies deciding to increase their capability and capacity to service emerging markets in Asia. This puts pressure on the amount of practically available capital for investing in developed markets. Additionally, advances in telecommunications are making it possible for companies to service developed markets from virtually any location that can provide a high-speed internet connection. Limited dollars and increased choice are the classic conditions that demand effective place branding to attract capital investment and drive accelerated economic growth.
Place branding is a strategy being used by an increasing number of locations around the world to effectively compete for an increased share of foreign direct investment dollars and capital expansion of resident companies. However, too often place branding initiatives are little more than sales campaigns with limited sustainable impact.
I think the work supported by Cincinnati USA to communicate the region's promise and the purposeful integration with the Ohio branding work to ensure delivery of a consistent and persuasive message, is among the best in class examples. The Dayton, Columbus and Cleveland business communities are supporting similar initiatives. From my vantage point, this is a very positive development that will make Ohio even more competitive for capital investment.
However, other locations like St. Louis, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York City, Triangle Park, and so on, are strengthening their investment and capabilities in place branding as well. We need to continue to focus efforts on improving our state and local business environment, and on effectively communicating our Ohio and Regional brand promises to potential capital investors.
I thought you might find it interesting to read the following 7 tips I provide to economic development professionals to help ensure maximum return on investment from place branding efforts. The greater Cincinnati region does a good job across all seven. Continuing to keep these in mind will help ensure long-term success.
TIP #1 – Create a team of trusted advisors.
It is important you seek the guidance of marketing professionals to cut through the jargon used by advertising agencies and place branding consultants. They can help ensure the process being recommended will deliver the results you expect, and the price is reasonable. These experts can easily be found in private industry companies. Your board of directors is a good place to start looking for a marketing professional resource to provide you guidance. Often, just a couple of meetings with professional marketers during the strategic phase of your place branding initiative can make a huge difference in ensuring a positive outcome.
TIP #2 – Enroll your business community thought leaders as ambassadors.
One sure way to cripple a place branding initiative is to involve too many opinions and not enough data. Thought leaders can be key in helping you enroll local private and public sector managers to the design and output of your place branding initiative. Defining the right brand promise without having broad based buy-in will cause you to fail. Thought leaders can often help ensure your vocal influencers are part of the solution and not part of the problem.
TIP #3 – Focus on a few industries and do the job well.
No industry or company wants to be left out of a place branding effort. However, in the short term it is often better to limit the playing field to gain a competitive share of promotional voice. Spreading limited resources across multiple fronts increases the risk of failure. Begin with your driving industries first. These are the industries representing the majority of your location’s gross domestic product. A good resource to help define driving industries is Moody’s economy.com database. These industries have experienced success in your area and their vitality is critical to economic growth. Build from strength. To ensure a balanced approach, select one or two emerging industries to add to your focused portfolio. This conscious and controlled speculation is often prudent to managing your economic portfolio. Your budget and internal resources will guide your decision on how many industries is too many to focus on.
TIP #4 – Get to know industry experts in your business community.
Once you’ve selected industries to focus your place branding efforts against, you need to generate insights into which assets in your area are key points of competitive difference. Industry experts can keep you current on emerging trends that will affect profitability and global competitiveness. They are outstanding sounding boards to evaluate campaign concepts proposed by your agencies. They help keep your communication focused and relevant.
TIP #5 – Translate your location assets into business benefits.
There is an old saying in business circles … features tell, but benefits sell. An excellent university is a wonderful feature. The benefit is a sustainable pipeline of qualified labor. You need to connect the dots for the capital investor and explain the business value of your location assets. Great branding copy states the benefit and uses features as reasons to believe the benefit can be realized. Your industry experts are an effective resource to help you understand why an asset is important to their business performance. It is often easiest to brainstorm the most important assets in your area and then use your industry experts to ladder the assets up into benefits.
TIP #6 – Partner with other communities in your region to be more competitive.
Economic clusters are not limited by geographic boundaries. Often a manufacturers supply chain will include multiple communities and regions. When communities have an interdependent economy, then the assets of the broader geography are important to consider. These assets can be leveraged to make a more compelling case than could be made by focusing on your community alone. And, if there is true interdependence, a capital investment made anywhere within the economic cluster benefits everybody connected to it.
TIP #7 – Provide adequate support for your project.
Two truths about place branding is that it takes time and costs money. If you want to change people’s opinion about your location quickly, you need to be prepared to invest to buy a leadership share of voice. If you have a limited budget, you need to be patient to see measurable results. This is a hard, but important, discussion to have with your community leaders. You need a sustainable effort at competitive levels to make a difference in the minds of capital investment decision makers.
In my current role, I am often asked why I believe place branding is a right strategy for accelerating the economic growth of a location.
Global competition for capital investment in increasing, driven in part by companies deciding to increase their capability and capacity to service emerging markets in Asia. This puts pressure on the amount of practically available capital for investing in developed markets. Additionally, advances in telecommunications are making it possible for companies to service developed markets from virtually any location that can provide a high-speed internet connection. Limited dollars and increased choice are the classic conditions that demand effective place branding to attract capital investment and drive accelerated economic growth.
Place branding is a strategy being used by an increasing number of locations around the world to effectively compete for an increased share of foreign direct investment dollars and capital expansion of resident companies. However, too often place branding initiatives are little more than sales campaigns with limited sustainable impact.
I think the work supported by Cincinnati USA to communicate the region's promise and the purposeful integration with the Ohio branding work to ensure delivery of a consistent and persuasive message, is among the best in class examples. The Dayton, Columbus and Cleveland business communities are supporting similar initiatives. From my vantage point, this is a very positive development that will make Ohio even more competitive for capital investment.
However, other locations like St. Louis, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York City, Triangle Park, and so on, are strengthening their investment and capabilities in place branding as well. We need to continue to focus efforts on improving our state and local business environment, and on effectively communicating our Ohio and Regional brand promises to potential capital investors.
I thought you might find it interesting to read the following 7 tips I provide to economic development professionals to help ensure maximum return on investment from place branding efforts. The greater Cincinnati region does a good job across all seven. Continuing to keep these in mind will help ensure long-term success.
TIP #1 – Create a team of trusted advisors.
It is important you seek the guidance of marketing professionals to cut through the jargon used by advertising agencies and place branding consultants. They can help ensure the process being recommended will deliver the results you expect, and the price is reasonable. These experts can easily be found in private industry companies. Your board of directors is a good place to start looking for a marketing professional resource to provide you guidance. Often, just a couple of meetings with professional marketers during the strategic phase of your place branding initiative can make a huge difference in ensuring a positive outcome.
TIP #2 – Enroll your business community thought leaders as ambassadors.
One sure way to cripple a place branding initiative is to involve too many opinions and not enough data. Thought leaders can be key in helping you enroll local private and public sector managers to the design and output of your place branding initiative. Defining the right brand promise without having broad based buy-in will cause you to fail. Thought leaders can often help ensure your vocal influencers are part of the solution and not part of the problem.
TIP #3 – Focus on a few industries and do the job well.
No industry or company wants to be left out of a place branding effort. However, in the short term it is often better to limit the playing field to gain a competitive share of promotional voice. Spreading limited resources across multiple fronts increases the risk of failure. Begin with your driving industries first. These are the industries representing the majority of your location’s gross domestic product. A good resource to help define driving industries is Moody’s economy.com database. These industries have experienced success in your area and their vitality is critical to economic growth. Build from strength. To ensure a balanced approach, select one or two emerging industries to add to your focused portfolio. This conscious and controlled speculation is often prudent to managing your economic portfolio. Your budget and internal resources will guide your decision on how many industries is too many to focus on.
TIP #4 – Get to know industry experts in your business community.
Once you’ve selected industries to focus your place branding efforts against, you need to generate insights into which assets in your area are key points of competitive difference. Industry experts can keep you current on emerging trends that will affect profitability and global competitiveness. They are outstanding sounding boards to evaluate campaign concepts proposed by your agencies. They help keep your communication focused and relevant.
TIP #5 – Translate your location assets into business benefits.
There is an old saying in business circles … features tell, but benefits sell. An excellent university is a wonderful feature. The benefit is a sustainable pipeline of qualified labor. You need to connect the dots for the capital investor and explain the business value of your location assets. Great branding copy states the benefit and uses features as reasons to believe the benefit can be realized. Your industry experts are an effective resource to help you understand why an asset is important to their business performance. It is often easiest to brainstorm the most important assets in your area and then use your industry experts to ladder the assets up into benefits.
TIP #6 – Partner with other communities in your region to be more competitive.
Economic clusters are not limited by geographic boundaries. Often a manufacturers supply chain will include multiple communities and regions. When communities have an interdependent economy, then the assets of the broader geography are important to consider. These assets can be leveraged to make a more compelling case than could be made by focusing on your community alone. And, if there is true interdependence, a capital investment made anywhere within the economic cluster benefits everybody connected to it.
TIP #7 – Provide adequate support for your project.
Two truths about place branding is that it takes time and costs money. If you want to change people’s opinion about your location quickly, you need to be prepared to invest to buy a leadership share of voice. If you have a limited budget, you need to be patient to see measurable results. This is a hard, but important, discussion to have with your community leaders. You need a sustainable effort at competitive levels to make a difference in the minds of capital investment decision makers.
Arm & Hammer Reaches Out to Pennsylvania
By: Andrew Deichler
Household and specialty products provider Church & Dwight broke ground on its new Arm & Hammer manufacturing facility and distribution center in York County, PA, with the promise of bringing 300 new jobs to the region.
The Davies Facility, named after former Church & Dwight CEO Robert A. Davies III, is slated for delivery at the end of next year. The planned 1.1 million-square-foot industrial property will feature a cutting-edge green design, minimizing waste and energy consumption.
Church & Dwight selected the 232-acre site at 260 Hidden Lane due to its proximity to Interstate 83, U.S. Route 30 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike, as well as its convenient access to rail lines.
After a yearlong search, the company chose the York County site in south central Pennsylvania for its strategic location and its proximity to major highways and railroads. The site is near Interstate 83, U.S. Route 30 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike to the north, and Interstate 81 to the west. The local railroad, York Rail, has ties to the Norfolk Southern, CSX and Canadian Pacific rail lines.
First Industrial Realty Trust is developing the $150 million facility, with The Norwood Co. signed on as the general contractor. First Industrial purchased the site earlier this month from Stewart Associates for $15 million, or $64,655 per acre.
Kevin Hodge of ROCK Commercial Real Estate represented Stewart in the sale. Joseph McDermott of CB Richard Ellis represented First Industrial.
The York County Economic Development Corp. assisted Church & Dwight in obtaining a $3.25 million funding offer from the Department of Community and Economic Development that includes a $900,000 opportunity grant, $1.25 million in infrastructure development program funding, $900,000 in job creation tax credits and $200,000 in job training assistance.
The facility will make and distribute Arm & Hammer brand liquid laundry detergent and laundry additives. The General Contractor for the project is The Norwood Co.
Household and specialty products provider Church & Dwight broke ground on its new Arm & Hammer manufacturing facility and distribution center in York County, PA, with the promise of bringing 300 new jobs to the region.
The Davies Facility, named after former Church & Dwight CEO Robert A. Davies III, is slated for delivery at the end of next year. The planned 1.1 million-square-foot industrial property will feature a cutting-edge green design, minimizing waste and energy consumption.
Church & Dwight selected the 232-acre site at 260 Hidden Lane due to its proximity to Interstate 83, U.S. Route 30 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike, as well as its convenient access to rail lines.
After a yearlong search, the company chose the York County site in south central Pennsylvania for its strategic location and its proximity to major highways and railroads. The site is near Interstate 83, U.S. Route 30 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike to the north, and Interstate 81 to the west. The local railroad, York Rail, has ties to the Norfolk Southern, CSX and Canadian Pacific rail lines.
First Industrial Realty Trust is developing the $150 million facility, with The Norwood Co. signed on as the general contractor. First Industrial purchased the site earlier this month from Stewart Associates for $15 million, or $64,655 per acre.
Kevin Hodge of ROCK Commercial Real Estate represented Stewart in the sale. Joseph McDermott of CB Richard Ellis represented First Industrial.
The York County Economic Development Corp. assisted Church & Dwight in obtaining a $3.25 million funding offer from the Department of Community and Economic Development that includes a $900,000 opportunity grant, $1.25 million in infrastructure development program funding, $900,000 in job creation tax credits and $200,000 in job training assistance.
The facility will make and distribute Arm & Hammer brand liquid laundry detergent and laundry additives. The General Contractor for the project is The Norwood Co.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Google's departure from Valley stirs debate
by Andrew Johnson - Sept. 22, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Was it us, or them?
Some Valley technology entrepreneurs have asked that question since Google Inc. announced plans Friday to close its Tempe office by Nov. 21.
Most economic-development officials attributed the search-engine giant's departure to an internal company decision, not a deficiency in metro Phoenix's talent pool.
The company said moving some of the employees in the office to other Google locations will increase efficiency.
But some well-networked entrepreneurs question the message the decision sends to Arizona's technology industry.
Aaron Post, director of business development for Chandler-based marketing firm Forty Agency, said colleagues he talked to took the news as a setback.
Google, which employs about 50 workers at its office on Arizona State University's main campus, first announced plans to come to the Valley in 2005.
Some local software developers thought the Mountain View, Calif. company's presence would shed light on the burgeoning startup community that has taken shape in the Valley.
They hoped that perhaps, venture capitalists would pay closer attention to the innovations taking shape in Arizona and invest more frequently in companies based here.
Post said he and others took the company's decision as a signal that more needed to be done to highlight progress in the technology community.
Aaron Bare, chief executive officer of Scottsdale-based CareerTours, said the belief that Google's arrival would somehow jump-start the technology environment here was misguided.
He noted that the positions housed at the Tempe office - engineers that worked on finance, billing and other internal matters - weren't the type of jobs that would necessarily elevate a city's status as technology hotbed.
One reason why Arizona lags when it comes to venture-capital investments, some business owners say, is that much of the investments are going to later-stage technology companies. A large part of the Valley's technology base is startups.
"I think we definitely need to facilitate in getting the venture capital moving in this market by having more success stories," Bare said.
Bare's company, which creates online recruitment videos for businesses, received $1.2 million in venture capital this year. The company is considering additional investment offers worth as much as $3 million, he said.
"We just need more successful startups to come out of Phoenix and really create a Silicon desert," Bare said.
The Arizona Republic
Was it us, or them?
Some Valley technology entrepreneurs have asked that question since Google Inc. announced plans Friday to close its Tempe office by Nov. 21.
Most economic-development officials attributed the search-engine giant's departure to an internal company decision, not a deficiency in metro Phoenix's talent pool.
The company said moving some of the employees in the office to other Google locations will increase efficiency.
But some well-networked entrepreneurs question the message the decision sends to Arizona's technology industry.
Aaron Post, director of business development for Chandler-based marketing firm Forty Agency, said colleagues he talked to took the news as a setback.
Google, which employs about 50 workers at its office on Arizona State University's main campus, first announced plans to come to the Valley in 2005.
Some local software developers thought the Mountain View, Calif. company's presence would shed light on the burgeoning startup community that has taken shape in the Valley.
They hoped that perhaps, venture capitalists would pay closer attention to the innovations taking shape in Arizona and invest more frequently in companies based here.
Post said he and others took the company's decision as a signal that more needed to be done to highlight progress in the technology community.
Aaron Bare, chief executive officer of Scottsdale-based CareerTours, said the belief that Google's arrival would somehow jump-start the technology environment here was misguided.
He noted that the positions housed at the Tempe office - engineers that worked on finance, billing and other internal matters - weren't the type of jobs that would necessarily elevate a city's status as technology hotbed.
One reason why Arizona lags when it comes to venture-capital investments, some business owners say, is that much of the investments are going to later-stage technology companies. A large part of the Valley's technology base is startups.
"I think we definitely need to facilitate in getting the venture capital moving in this market by having more success stories," Bare said.
Bare's company, which creates online recruitment videos for businesses, received $1.2 million in venture capital this year. The company is considering additional investment offers worth as much as $3 million, he said.
"We just need more successful startups to come out of Phoenix and really create a Silicon desert," Bare said.
Google marks two-year anniversary of its Ann Arbor AdWords operations
"I cannot underestimate what we've termed 'The Google Effect.' It's a worldwide brand that means something to a lot of people. They are a young, hip, growing company that hires good talent and sets up offices in cool places." - Spark spokeswoman Elizabeth Parkinson on the Internet search engine giant's impact on Ann Arbor.
It's been two years since Google Inc. opened its Ann Arbor AdWords office with eight employees housed above a restaurant on South Main Street.
It was a small but auspicious start - but one that would soon become a beacon of light in the darkening economic gloom that settled in the area after Pfizer Inc. announced in early 2007 it would shutter its Ann Arbor research center and take away more than 2,100 high-paying jobs.
Since that first day on Sept. 18, 2006, the Ann Arbor Google operations have moved to larger quarters in the newly renovated McKinley Towne Centre on East Liberty Street at Division Street and its local payroll has grown to about 250 (the company won't give exact figures).
The local office is still a long way from the company's initial growth projections of creating 1,000 jobs in the area within five years. It needs to reach that goal by the end of 2011 to take full advantage of the tax breaks the state offered to lure the Internet giant to Michigan. More here.
It's been two years since Google Inc. opened its Ann Arbor AdWords office with eight employees housed above a restaurant on South Main Street.
It was a small but auspicious start - but one that would soon become a beacon of light in the darkening economic gloom that settled in the area after Pfizer Inc. announced in early 2007 it would shutter its Ann Arbor research center and take away more than 2,100 high-paying jobs.
Since that first day on Sept. 18, 2006, the Ann Arbor Google operations have moved to larger quarters in the newly renovated McKinley Towne Centre on East Liberty Street at Division Street and its local payroll has grown to about 250 (the company won't give exact figures).
The local office is still a long way from the company's initial growth projections of creating 1,000 jobs in the area within five years. It needs to reach that goal by the end of 2011 to take full advantage of the tax breaks the state offered to lure the Internet giant to Michigan. More here.
Hub hears recommendations on economic development
ASHEVILLE – With more than 30 different agencies involved in economic development, Asheville might be better served by focusing efforts and money in a single umbrella group to oversee job growth and business expansion, consultants recommended Tuesday.
The Asheville Hub Alliance heard a preliminary report from the Strategic Growth Institute, a consulting group at the University of Central Arkansas hired to inventory Asheville’s economic development efforts and suggest improvements. “The wheels aren’t coming off in this community, but we want to help get those wheels aligned,” said Robert Pittman of SGI.
The Asheville Hub Alliance is a community-wide group promoting the area’s strengths in health care, tourism, the arts, technology, manufacturing and other sectors to create new jobs and industry in a changing economy.
Pittman and his SGI team found that no single agency is in charge of setting the long range vision for new jobs and industry in the Asheville area. Their initial recommendation is to revamp the Economic Development Coalition of Asheville and Buncombe County with a broader-based board of directors.
Now housed in the Asheville Chamber of Commerce and funded through the city and county, the EDC has been slowly trying to create a new identity for itself, according to Rick Lutovsky, CEO of the chamber and a member of the Hub Alliance. The group was first known as a commission, “but that sounded governmental,” Lutovksy said.
Pittman suggested a name like the “Greater Asheville Partnership, which would help the city market the region to outside industries.
With 53 consecutive months of job growth, Asheville is becoming a model for many other communities who want to duplicate that kind of success, Lutovsky said. “We aren’t recession-proof, but we like to think we’re recession-resistant.
The consultants will deliver a final report to the Asheville Hub in November. SGI won out over 22 other groups to provide the new study at a cost of $50,000. Buncombe County contributed $30,000 for the study, and individual Hub members contributed the rest.
The Asheville Hub Alliance heard a preliminary report from the Strategic Growth Institute, a consulting group at the University of Central Arkansas hired to inventory Asheville’s economic development efforts and suggest improvements. “The wheels aren’t coming off in this community, but we want to help get those wheels aligned,” said Robert Pittman of SGI.
The Asheville Hub Alliance is a community-wide group promoting the area’s strengths in health care, tourism, the arts, technology, manufacturing and other sectors to create new jobs and industry in a changing economy.
Pittman and his SGI team found that no single agency is in charge of setting the long range vision for new jobs and industry in the Asheville area. Their initial recommendation is to revamp the Economic Development Coalition of Asheville and Buncombe County with a broader-based board of directors.
Now housed in the Asheville Chamber of Commerce and funded through the city and county, the EDC has been slowly trying to create a new identity for itself, according to Rick Lutovsky, CEO of the chamber and a member of the Hub Alliance. The group was first known as a commission, “but that sounded governmental,” Lutovksy said.
Pittman suggested a name like the “Greater Asheville Partnership, which would help the city market the region to outside industries.
With 53 consecutive months of job growth, Asheville is becoming a model for many other communities who want to duplicate that kind of success, Lutovsky said. “We aren’t recession-proof, but we like to think we’re recession-resistant.
The consultants will deliver a final report to the Asheville Hub in November. SGI won out over 22 other groups to provide the new study at a cost of $50,000. Buncombe County contributed $30,000 for the study, and individual Hub members contributed the rest.
NW Iowa Leaders Launch Economic Development Campaign
A new campaign was unveiled Tuesday to lure large companies to Northwest Iowa. It's called "Beyond Expectations" and it's a joint effort from economic development leaders in six local counties.
Cherokee, Lyon, O'Brien, Osceola, Plymouth and Sioux Counties will now be marketed as one region.
Local business leaders, development leaders and elected officials gathered at Northwest Iowa Community College Tuesday night to hear campaign organizers present a new plan to attract, retain and grow business investment in a six county region.
"To build upon the strengths of each of our counties and communities and regionalize those efforts so that we're more competitive," says Gary Tucker, Plymouth County Econ. Dev. Director.
Targeted companies are those that are compatible with the region's current industries.
"Distribution, logistics, companies in the advanced manufacturing area as well as biosciences," says Tucker.
And the list of incentives to move to Northwest Iowa seems endless.
"We have a quality, dedicated workforce. We have infrastructure. We have ready to build sites. We have industrial parks. We have state incentives, local incentives," says Kiana Johnson, Chair of NW Iowa development campaign.
But while campaign organizers promote Highway 60 as a key Midwest transportation corridor, they also assure neighbors that a boom in big time business won't bulldoze the region's small town values.
"This is just like any other community or county working toward economic development but instead we're doing it regionally," says Johnson.
For detailed information on the campaign click here: http://www.northwestiowa.org/index.html.
Cherokee, Lyon, O'Brien, Osceola, Plymouth and Sioux Counties will now be marketed as one region.
Local business leaders, development leaders and elected officials gathered at Northwest Iowa Community College Tuesday night to hear campaign organizers present a new plan to attract, retain and grow business investment in a six county region.
"To build upon the strengths of each of our counties and communities and regionalize those efforts so that we're more competitive," says Gary Tucker, Plymouth County Econ. Dev. Director.
Targeted companies are those that are compatible with the region's current industries.
"Distribution, logistics, companies in the advanced manufacturing area as well as biosciences," says Tucker.
And the list of incentives to move to Northwest Iowa seems endless.
"We have a quality, dedicated workforce. We have infrastructure. We have ready to build sites. We have industrial parks. We have state incentives, local incentives," says Kiana Johnson, Chair of NW Iowa development campaign.
But while campaign organizers promote Highway 60 as a key Midwest transportation corridor, they also assure neighbors that a boom in big time business won't bulldoze the region's small town values.
"This is just like any other community or county working toward economic development but instead we're doing it regionally," says Johnson.
For detailed information on the campaign click here: http://www.northwestiowa.org/index.html.
Five Keys to Effective Economic Development Marketing
By Steve Vierck, CEcD, President/Economic Development
AngelouEconomics
Getting the attention of your targeted business prospects is a difficult task in the best of situations; battling 13,000 competitors makes it substantially more so. Unfortunately, that is the challenge faced today by economic development professionals. Because of this increasingly intense competition, it is imperative for economic developers to do all in their power to elevate above the competition in order to achieve meaningful results. Angelou Economics has observed that the following five marketing fundamentals can make the difference between great success and mediocrity.
1. Measure results
Knowing what you want to achieve and how to determine whether you are ultimately successful is where the most effective marketing programs begin. Most successful economic development organizations have meaningful performance objectives as their starting point. This means not only tracking final results, but also the effectiveness of your various approaches to generating and converting leads, prospects and locates.
To help evaluate which elements of the marketing mix are most cost effective, try to calculate “dollar to dollar” results from the marketing initiatives which you carry out. One way to do this is to divide expenditures for a particular marketing category, such as advertising or sales trips, by the results generated, in order to derive an average cost per lead or prospect. For instance, your year’s advertising in a particular site selection magazine may yield one lead per every $600 spent while an annual sales trip to a key market area may generate on average one lead per $800. Recognize that some prospects and leads will result from a combination of different elements of the marketing mix.
Along with clarifying your best lead generation approaches, you’ll discover that some approaches are more effective than others at generating quality prospects; the type that may ultimately become locates. Conversely, you may also determine that an approach where you’re spending valuable marketing dollars churns up numerous leads - but few ever come to fruition. Using the previous example, you might find yourself generating numerous leads through advertising, but discover that few ever turn into qualified relocation prospects that actually visit your community or region. On the other hand, the annual sales trip with face-to face meetings may not generate many leads but those that do develop often end up locating in your community.
Once you’ve fine tuned the types of marketing used to generate leads, conversion rates are a useful technique to gauge how effective you are in working with those new clients. Conversion rates are essentially a tool to measure your organization’s efficiency in converting potential customers into new or expanded businesses. As used in economic development, they are calculated by dividing the number of qualified prospects or business locates by the total number of leads. For example, if over the past year your organization converted 20 leads into 5 qualified prospects into 2 locates then your lead to prospect conversion rate would be 5/20 = 25% while your lead to locate conversion rate would be 2/20 or 10%. You can also carry the analysis one step further and compare the conversion rates of leads generated from different types of marketing.
We can often learn more from our failures than from our successes. Don’t neglect to carefully track why companies go elsewhere. Was it because certain skill sets in your workforce were inadequate to support the companies’ operations, the lack of an appropriate building, insufficient incentives, or some other factor? This information helps us to repair any deficiencies and to become more competitive in the future.
2. Understand and meet your customers’ needs
Understanding and meeting customer needs is the essence of marketing. You can do just about everything else wrong, yet serve your customers well, and often be successful. To get a true edge on the competition, strive to not only meet, but exceed, their expectations. First, understand what they really want and need.
On most projects, there are 2-3 main drivers that are the differentiators between success and failure. A key starting point is precise identification of those critical site selection factors. At this point, careful listening to the prospective business is much more important than skillful presentation. This identification of real project needs can be more challenging than expected and often requires clarification. It is not uncommon for economic developers to hear conflicting requirements from the different corporate executives and consultants on the site selection team. It is your job to work your way through the conflicting information and understand what is really important to the success of this project.
Once the real “driver factors” are known, pull out all stops to demonstrate your specific competitive advantages relative to those needs. Perhaps you have a training program at your community college applicable to a primary workforce need, a building that meets their facility requirements, or an incentive program uniquely fitted to their financial needs. Customize your communications to emphasize these attributes and deliver the information ahead of schedule (thereby exceeding their expectations).
Your presentations should be customized to their specific requirements; and not include too much generic material. The key is to provide information that is timely, relevant and concise. Tell them what they need to know; not what you want to tell them. Include regional “subject experts” within the fields of most interest to the client. Avoid the tendency to present “canned” information rather than material customized to the businesses’ specific requirements.
The same need for customized information applies to websites. Develop sections devoted to your target industries with a list of area businesses within that sector, applicable cost information, relevant infrastructure, education/training programs, and other resources. Having a special section of your website dedicated to data centers, for instance, shows that data centers are of strong interest to your region.
Focus on meeting and exceeding your customers’ needs and you’ll successfully meet your own needs as well.
3. Marketing is a process … not an event
A colleague recently went to the drycleaners to pick up his clothing. When he walked in, the owner told him that there was no charge as the bill was on him. When asked why, the owner said that he wanted to thank my colleague for his steady business over the years. I suspect that my colleague won’t be changing drycleaners anytime soon. This is an example of relationship marketing.
Economic Development marketing is relationship marketing - an approach that includes the following steps: Awareness, Comparison, Transaction, Reinforcement and Advocacy. Successful projects will transition from initial awareness of your area to comparison with competitor areas to a transaction such as leasing of facility space and hiring, following successful completion of which the company’s decision will be reinforced, often turning them into strong advocates of your region and organization.
The importance of this “process versus event” approach was reinforced several years ago, when an economic developer scheduled a meeting with a former client in the electronics industry merely to thank him for placing a small design facility in the region. The meeting had barely started before the former client announced that they had a brand new need for another design center and based on his previous experience and dependable relationships, he had decided to locate the second facility in the region.
Just as with the recent success at the Beijing Olympics of the U.S. Men’s Basketball Team, your efforts will be most successful if all the parts work together. A well structured marketing plan contains initiatives that gain substantial value by tightly connecting to the other elements. A commonly-used approach used to help tie together marketing initiatives is to develop a marketing calendar which shows the timing of sales trips, trade shows, industry conferences, special events, etc. Connecting your marketing together reinforces awareness of your area and your specific messages. For example, before exhibiting at a major trade show some organizations send out direct mail or e-mails to attendees inviting them to stop by their booth for a drawing and advertise in trade publications read by many of the attendees.
4) Be different!
Granted, this point cuts across the grain of most of the advice delivered to us as children. But with so many competitors across the globe, it is essential to stand out from the pack. Marketing is about creating desirability and differentiation. Most organizations understand the desirability objective, but a quick glance through the oh-so-similar advertisements in any site selection magazine illustrates that we have a long way to go towards differentiating our messages and communities.
Carve out specific niches. Is your organization known for your interest and assets in at least one field not shared with numerous other economic development organizations? If a target industry market is already filled with competitors, then look for a specific category where you can be tops. You are normally much better positioned pursuing a more specialized industry with, say, 15 relocation or expansion projects per year and 30 competitors, than a larger field with 100 projects pursued by 1,000 organizations.
The fresh perspective and insights on targeting provided by a consultant can often be of value. AngelouEconomics has helped over 100 clients sharpen their industry targeting.
5. Use your Allies (and be used too!)
If there is one industry that absolutely requires effective alliances, it is certainly economic development. No organization has the resources to achieve all that it desires, yet, community and regional resources can be immense. The best organizations are often those that best engage those public and private resources.
Surveys of community economic development groups show that state departments of commerce, regional organizations, and utilities are viewed as the best resources for assistance with developing new business. These allies should be included along with those businesses being targeted as important parts of any relationship marketing process. Periodically communicate with them including face to face visits. Just as we market to prospective new and expanding businesses, we need to market to our principle allies.
If your allies are helpful and deliver results, be mindful of their needs by helping to recognize and bolster them. Exceed their expectations of you as a partner. This is of particular value for state agencies which require demonstrated support from the community level. Testify in support of their funding needs or write a note of recognition to a legislator.
Local colleges and universities are often underutilized as allies and resources. Their alumni can be excellent sources of new business leads as that Engineering or Business Administration graduate from 30 years ago may now be running a company. Don’t stop at the Office of the President or Chancellor. Often, the college Deans and department heads know best where their alumni are located and which are in positions of authority to influence corporate expansion to your region. One community reports of the location of a technical support center, partially because the company’s co-founder was a graduate of the local university’s College of Engineering.
Surveys have consistently shown that corporate decision makers are heavily influenced by their industry peers when making decisions about new facility locations. Business executives, particularly within the same industry, are viewed as credible sources of information. So, don’t forget the power of local businesses. Get them on your marketing team. Leverage their suppliers, customers, and other contacts. Local company support often means the difference between a “cold call” to the supplier and a “warm reception.”
Include appropriate local industry representatives on sales trips and when you host events for visiting companies and site consultants. Local business executives are often the ones most listened to as they have often dealt directly with many of the areas of strong interest and speak the executive “dialect”. Practicing these five fundamentals will help your organization achieve excellent marketing results. Measure results... Understand and meet your customers’ needs – and exceed their expectations... Take a long term relationship marketing approach… Be different and carve out unique niches… gain valuable leverage by using your allies (and being used too!). And think big! A favorite quotation from Michelangelo has much applicability to economic development:
“The greatest danger for most of us is not that we aim too high and miss it, but that we aim too low and reach it.”
Steve Vierck and the Angelou Economics professional staff is available to talk with you about developing and implementing effective marketing programs. Please do not hesitate to contact us directly at 512-225-9321.
AngelouEconomics
Getting the attention of your targeted business prospects is a difficult task in the best of situations; battling 13,000 competitors makes it substantially more so. Unfortunately, that is the challenge faced today by economic development professionals. Because of this increasingly intense competition, it is imperative for economic developers to do all in their power to elevate above the competition in order to achieve meaningful results. Angelou Economics has observed that the following five marketing fundamentals can make the difference between great success and mediocrity.
1. Measure results
Knowing what you want to achieve and how to determine whether you are ultimately successful is where the most effective marketing programs begin. Most successful economic development organizations have meaningful performance objectives as their starting point. This means not only tracking final results, but also the effectiveness of your various approaches to generating and converting leads, prospects and locates.
To help evaluate which elements of the marketing mix are most cost effective, try to calculate “dollar to dollar” results from the marketing initiatives which you carry out. One way to do this is to divide expenditures for a particular marketing category, such as advertising or sales trips, by the results generated, in order to derive an average cost per lead or prospect. For instance, your year’s advertising in a particular site selection magazine may yield one lead per every $600 spent while an annual sales trip to a key market area may generate on average one lead per $800. Recognize that some prospects and leads will result from a combination of different elements of the marketing mix.
Along with clarifying your best lead generation approaches, you’ll discover that some approaches are more effective than others at generating quality prospects; the type that may ultimately become locates. Conversely, you may also determine that an approach where you’re spending valuable marketing dollars churns up numerous leads - but few ever come to fruition. Using the previous example, you might find yourself generating numerous leads through advertising, but discover that few ever turn into qualified relocation prospects that actually visit your community or region. On the other hand, the annual sales trip with face-to face meetings may not generate many leads but those that do develop often end up locating in your community.
Once you’ve fine tuned the types of marketing used to generate leads, conversion rates are a useful technique to gauge how effective you are in working with those new clients. Conversion rates are essentially a tool to measure your organization’s efficiency in converting potential customers into new or expanded businesses. As used in economic development, they are calculated by dividing the number of qualified prospects or business locates by the total number of leads. For example, if over the past year your organization converted 20 leads into 5 qualified prospects into 2 locates then your lead to prospect conversion rate would be 5/20 = 25% while your lead to locate conversion rate would be 2/20 or 10%. You can also carry the analysis one step further and compare the conversion rates of leads generated from different types of marketing.
We can often learn more from our failures than from our successes. Don’t neglect to carefully track why companies go elsewhere. Was it because certain skill sets in your workforce were inadequate to support the companies’ operations, the lack of an appropriate building, insufficient incentives, or some other factor? This information helps us to repair any deficiencies and to become more competitive in the future.
2. Understand and meet your customers’ needs
Understanding and meeting customer needs is the essence of marketing. You can do just about everything else wrong, yet serve your customers well, and often be successful. To get a true edge on the competition, strive to not only meet, but exceed, their expectations. First, understand what they really want and need.
On most projects, there are 2-3 main drivers that are the differentiators between success and failure. A key starting point is precise identification of those critical site selection factors. At this point, careful listening to the prospective business is much more important than skillful presentation. This identification of real project needs can be more challenging than expected and often requires clarification. It is not uncommon for economic developers to hear conflicting requirements from the different corporate executives and consultants on the site selection team. It is your job to work your way through the conflicting information and understand what is really important to the success of this project.
Once the real “driver factors” are known, pull out all stops to demonstrate your specific competitive advantages relative to those needs. Perhaps you have a training program at your community college applicable to a primary workforce need, a building that meets their facility requirements, or an incentive program uniquely fitted to their financial needs. Customize your communications to emphasize these attributes and deliver the information ahead of schedule (thereby exceeding their expectations).
Your presentations should be customized to their specific requirements; and not include too much generic material. The key is to provide information that is timely, relevant and concise. Tell them what they need to know; not what you want to tell them. Include regional “subject experts” within the fields of most interest to the client. Avoid the tendency to present “canned” information rather than material customized to the businesses’ specific requirements.
The same need for customized information applies to websites. Develop sections devoted to your target industries with a list of area businesses within that sector, applicable cost information, relevant infrastructure, education/training programs, and other resources. Having a special section of your website dedicated to data centers, for instance, shows that data centers are of strong interest to your region.
Focus on meeting and exceeding your customers’ needs and you’ll successfully meet your own needs as well.
3. Marketing is a process … not an event
A colleague recently went to the drycleaners to pick up his clothing. When he walked in, the owner told him that there was no charge as the bill was on him. When asked why, the owner said that he wanted to thank my colleague for his steady business over the years. I suspect that my colleague won’t be changing drycleaners anytime soon. This is an example of relationship marketing.
Economic Development marketing is relationship marketing - an approach that includes the following steps: Awareness, Comparison, Transaction, Reinforcement and Advocacy. Successful projects will transition from initial awareness of your area to comparison with competitor areas to a transaction such as leasing of facility space and hiring, following successful completion of which the company’s decision will be reinforced, often turning them into strong advocates of your region and organization.
The importance of this “process versus event” approach was reinforced several years ago, when an economic developer scheduled a meeting with a former client in the electronics industry merely to thank him for placing a small design facility in the region. The meeting had barely started before the former client announced that they had a brand new need for another design center and based on his previous experience and dependable relationships, he had decided to locate the second facility in the region.
Just as with the recent success at the Beijing Olympics of the U.S. Men’s Basketball Team, your efforts will be most successful if all the parts work together. A well structured marketing plan contains initiatives that gain substantial value by tightly connecting to the other elements. A commonly-used approach used to help tie together marketing initiatives is to develop a marketing calendar which shows the timing of sales trips, trade shows, industry conferences, special events, etc. Connecting your marketing together reinforces awareness of your area and your specific messages. For example, before exhibiting at a major trade show some organizations send out direct mail or e-mails to attendees inviting them to stop by their booth for a drawing and advertise in trade publications read by many of the attendees.
4) Be different!
Granted, this point cuts across the grain of most of the advice delivered to us as children. But with so many competitors across the globe, it is essential to stand out from the pack. Marketing is about creating desirability and differentiation. Most organizations understand the desirability objective, but a quick glance through the oh-so-similar advertisements in any site selection magazine illustrates that we have a long way to go towards differentiating our messages and communities.
Carve out specific niches. Is your organization known for your interest and assets in at least one field not shared with numerous other economic development organizations? If a target industry market is already filled with competitors, then look for a specific category where you can be tops. You are normally much better positioned pursuing a more specialized industry with, say, 15 relocation or expansion projects per year and 30 competitors, than a larger field with 100 projects pursued by 1,000 organizations.
The fresh perspective and insights on targeting provided by a consultant can often be of value. AngelouEconomics has helped over 100 clients sharpen their industry targeting.
5. Use your Allies (and be used too!)
If there is one industry that absolutely requires effective alliances, it is certainly economic development. No organization has the resources to achieve all that it desires, yet, community and regional resources can be immense. The best organizations are often those that best engage those public and private resources.
Surveys of community economic development groups show that state departments of commerce, regional organizations, and utilities are viewed as the best resources for assistance with developing new business. These allies should be included along with those businesses being targeted as important parts of any relationship marketing process. Periodically communicate with them including face to face visits. Just as we market to prospective new and expanding businesses, we need to market to our principle allies.
If your allies are helpful and deliver results, be mindful of their needs by helping to recognize and bolster them. Exceed their expectations of you as a partner. This is of particular value for state agencies which require demonstrated support from the community level. Testify in support of their funding needs or write a note of recognition to a legislator.
Local colleges and universities are often underutilized as allies and resources. Their alumni can be excellent sources of new business leads as that Engineering or Business Administration graduate from 30 years ago may now be running a company. Don’t stop at the Office of the President or Chancellor. Often, the college Deans and department heads know best where their alumni are located and which are in positions of authority to influence corporate expansion to your region. One community reports of the location of a technical support center, partially because the company’s co-founder was a graduate of the local university’s College of Engineering.
Surveys have consistently shown that corporate decision makers are heavily influenced by their industry peers when making decisions about new facility locations. Business executives, particularly within the same industry, are viewed as credible sources of information. So, don’t forget the power of local businesses. Get them on your marketing team. Leverage their suppliers, customers, and other contacts. Local company support often means the difference between a “cold call” to the supplier and a “warm reception.”
Include appropriate local industry representatives on sales trips and when you host events for visiting companies and site consultants. Local business executives are often the ones most listened to as they have often dealt directly with many of the areas of strong interest and speak the executive “dialect”. Practicing these five fundamentals will help your organization achieve excellent marketing results. Measure results... Understand and meet your customers’ needs – and exceed their expectations... Take a long term relationship marketing approach… Be different and carve out unique niches… gain valuable leverage by using your allies (and being used too!). And think big! A favorite quotation from Michelangelo has much applicability to economic development:
“The greatest danger for most of us is not that we aim too high and miss it, but that we aim too low and reach it.”
Steve Vierck and the Angelou Economics professional staff is available to talk with you about developing and implementing effective marketing programs. Please do not hesitate to contact us directly at 512-225-9321.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Cornerstone staying ahead
09/15/2008
by David Chapman
Staff Writer
With the national economy down, the competition rises for Cornerstone and its executive director, Jerry Mallot.
Not just from other U.S. cities, either — it’s the international business community that the Northeast Florida economic development organization is going to battle over business growth.
“The business climate has certainly changed,” said Mallot. “The late ‘90s had some of the most prolific growth ever seen ... today the strength of the euro versus the dollar means more companies are expanding their services overseas in foreign markets.”
Amid the current national economic woes, though, Mallot believes the region is building a foundation that will help it overcome the competition – even international companies – and flourish.
“The down economy is kind of a perfect storm affecting businesses,” he said, “but Northeast Florida is well positioned to come out ahead.”
He bases that optimism on the ever-growing and direct port system, numerous roadways that allow for easy accessibility and distribution.
For the Jacksonville Port Authority, working with Cornerstone — the economic development division of the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce — to attract business to Jacksonville is a “tag-team” effort according to one Port official.
“We have a very close relationship with Cornerstone,” said Roy Schleicher, senior director of trade development and global marketing for the Port. “We’re both constantly keeping each other involved with business and looking for opportunities to get jobs to Jacksonville.
“It’s a great relationship and the Port is lucky to have them.”
Mallot said he and his staff are currently looking to attract 57 different business clients — 24 in manufacturing and processing, 23 in office and commercial business and 10 warehouse distribution companies.
Of those 57 potential clients, said Mallot, 68 percent of them would be new to Northeast Florida. More here.
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