Even in the midst of COVID, the Birmingham Business Alliance’s (BBA) Business Retention and Expansion (BRE) team made substantially more site visits to local companies in 2020 than in 2019.

In 2020, the BRE program – comprised of BBA staff – made 220 site visits, nearly 100 more than the 125 site visits made in 2019.

The BRE program, led by the BBA’s Vice President of Business Retention and Expansion Mark Brown, provides onsite, one-on-one visits to identify expansion opportunities, business trends and obstacles to growth. The BRE program allows the BBA to keep a pulse on local businesses, said Brown, and can inform priorities for workforce development, public policy and image enhancement.

“The insights gained through our Business Retention and Expansion initiatives provides opportunity for future existing business growth, future strategic entrepreneurial development and business recruitment opportunities,” he said.

Brown said BRE visits were also able to support companies with information on federal loan programs like the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDLs) and COVID-19 safe operating guidelines.

The BRE program also had a particular focus on information technology, life sciences and advanced manufacturing scaleups – young companies identified as having significant growth potential – in 2020. The BBA worked one-on-one with 47 scaleups in that particular focus area in 2020, 10 of which are minority-owned, and 15 that are women-owned.

These touchpoints with local companies make a difference, said Davies Hood, president of Induron Coatings.

“The BBA has been instrumental in supporting the growth of Induron Coatings,” he said. “They have provided connections which assisted in expanding our facility, opportunities for local business development, R&D relationships in UAB’s chemistry department and they have addressed key issues that we manufacturers face. The BBA helps make Birmingham a great place to do business."

Other data gathered from these visits include:

61 percent of the companies visited reported seeing an increase in sales and market share in 2020; 24 percent reported stable growth, and 16 percent reported a decline.
35 percent of companies stated plans to expand in facilities or equipment.
The top five concerns amongst these employers are education, lack of skills, work ethic, drugs and alcohol, and union activity.
Inadequate supply of qualified job applicants, punitive regulations, unavailable land at current site, age and condition of equipment and facility, and crime were reported as the top five barriers to growth.
Technology, education, advanced manufacturing, health care, transportation, finance and access to capital, and biomedical and life sciences were identified as the top local business drivers in the Birmingham region.

In total, the Birmingham region saw 24 expansion projects that announced 423 jobs and over $265 million in capital investment, the data shows.

“As we look forward into 2021, we will continue our efforts to serve and equip more companies within the region with resources to compete in our global marketplace,” Brown said.

Click here to learn more about the BRE program and click here to contact Mark Brown.