Business Retention

1
Business Retention Expansion Panel

• Panel Members
• Ryan Bater
• General Manager, Strategic Alliance
  Battlefords, Big Gully, and Border REDAs
• Sonja Dahlman
• Economic Development Officer,
• Assiniboia Economic Development Authority
• Diana Ireland
• Director of Economic Development,
• Moose Jaw REDA
• Marty Salberg
• Business Development Manager, City of Swift
  Current

2
Business Retention Model

• Goals of a BRE Program
• Action Steps in Developing a Program.
• Where Our Community is Now

3
Introduction to BRE

• Business Retention Expansion Programs are one
  of the primary functions of Economic Development
  Departments.
• New business openings receive more press, but
  existing businesses create jobs.

4
Goals Objectives of a BRE Program

• To strengthen and diversify the local economy
• To promote economic development and job creation.
• To build local capacity to implement economic
  development action plans.

5
Action Steps for a BRE Program

• Business Visitations
• Data Analysis
• Development of Local Action Plans
• Follow Up

6
Benefits of Business Visitation

• Strengthens relationships between local
  businesses and economic development agencies.
• Demonstrate a pro-business attitude and an
  appreciation of each firms contribution
• Identifies perceptions and problems of local
  businesses

7
Benefits of Business Visitation

• Provides a wealth of business information for the
  community that can be used for
• The evaluation of community strengths
  weaknesses
• The analysis of local market strengths and
  opportunities
• The attraction of new business investment

8
Conducting Business Visitations

• A survey is the primary tool of a business visit.
• Determine which businesses will be visited.
• Recruit people to conduct the visits.

9
Conducting Business Visits

• As the visits were taking place in our community,
  the people conducting the visits became more
  motivated and the business people responded
  positively because someone was taking the time
  and taking the interest in their business.

10
Data Analysis

• In our community the results of the survey gave
  us a pleasant surprise.
• In the 5 years prior to the initial visitations,
  local businesses had created 201 new full time
  jobs, 106 new part time jobs and 13 new seasonal
  jobs.
• Positive results ignite communities to push
  forward into new initiatives

11
Action Plans

• With data analyzed, there will be some obvious
  areas that require attention.
• Address any urgent issues immediately
• Action plans can be simple or complex depending
  on need.

12
What Can BRE Do For Your Community?

• Most businesses appreciate that they have been
  asked for their opinion.
• Continue to communicate with your businesses so
  that they know that their business is always
  important to the community and not just when you
  need to complete a survey.

13
What Can BRE Do For Your Community?

• Our community created over 200 new jobs with
  existing employers in a 5 year period.
• An investment attraction project that we pursued
  during that same time took 7 years to develop and
  created 38 new jobs.

14
What Can BRE Do For Your Community?

• In the end the visitors are enthused about local
  business and local business is enthused about
  their future in the community.

15
Key Strategies

• Continue visitations
• Promote succession planning/business financing
  options
• Workforce recruitment strategy
• Promote and recognize local business
• Market Community Amenities

16
Key Strategies

• Encourage the community beautification program to
  proceed
• Develop a Main Street Strategy
• Pursue industrial projects and value added
  agriculture projects
• Explore educational opportunities for local
  businesses
• Explore business opportunities for non-peak
  seasons of winter and summer

17
Partnerships

• Engage stakeholders in the process by giving them
  the encouragement to react to the feedback and to
  become proactive in determining immediate and
  future plans.

18
Where Are We Now?

• It has been almost 5 years since the process
  started. It is an on-going process, not a one
  time project.
• Key issues were identified solutions were
  developed information was passed to appropriate
  agencies
• Weakness of the program has been
  identifying/linking the solutions to our BRE
  program

19
Summary

• You will end up with the things you aim for.
• If you want a strong local business community and
  an attractive location for business attraction
  and business re-investment, you have to spend
  time with the investment that is already there.
• We often spend time looking for something that is
  sitting right in front of us.

20

• Some regard private enterprise as if it were a
  predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it
  as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see
  it for what it really is the strong horse that
  pulls the whole cart.
• - Winston Churchill