The Birmingham Business Alliance’s Business Retention and Expansion program visits hundreds of local companies annually, like Jay Industrial Repair, pictured here.
One of the Birmingham Business Alliance’s (BBA) premier programs is expanding and accelerating its reach.
The BBA’s Business Retention and Expansion (BRE) program, in existence since 2012, is undergoing enhancements this year that will see it double the number of company visits it undertakes, focus more on minority-owned businesses and launch a health care pilot program, among other improvements.
As the BBA rolls out its new strategic framework in 2020, a key component of that effort will be the BRE program’s advances, with particular on minority-owned businesses and health care companies. The BRE program builds relationships with companies across the Birmingham region – ranging from startups to the region’s largest employers – and provides onsite, one-on-one visits from the BBA’s economic development staff to understand needs, challenges and opportunities to gain insight and data on business climate and trends, as well as connect them with resources to grow.
Dunn Fabricators
Taking care of existing businesses in the region is critical, said Mark Brown, vice president of business retention and expansion at the BBA. He said that, on average, 80 percent of jobs and capital investment in a community come from its existing business base, and as those companies flourish, the Birmingham region will become even more attractive to new companies looking to headquarter or have a strong presence here.
“Our goal is to sweep all corners and fill all gaps as we work towards the continued prosperity of companies in our region,” he said.
Here are the BRE program’s goals for 2020, some of which have already been implemented:
In 2019, the program visited 125 companies in the Birmingham region, and in 2020 hopes to double that number to 250 by extending responsibilities to more team members.
The program will utilize more sources and market intelligence on industry growth trends to better identify growth-oriented companies to visit.
The program will expand upon and develop robust market toolkits in collaboration with its many resource partners.
The program looks to conduct at least four out-of-market corporate headquarter visits to companies that have a presence or significant investment in the Birmingham region.
It will take a deeper look within Birmingham’s core traded sectors – including health care, advanced manufacturing and information technology – with an emphasis on minority-owned companies.
It will also focus on scaleups within the region, particularly on companies that are less than five years old.
The program will also identify any gaps that need filled, and utilize its list of resource partners to help cover the spread to best support and promote company growth.
“Economic development is a changing landscape, and the best and most important thing we can do is understand trends in the global marketplace and understand how those trends are impacting local and regional companies, which then helps us better direct resources to support our economic base and to continue to diversify it,” Brown said. “We are enhancing our efforts and broadening our scope to grow our existing company base, which actually leverages us to be able to recruit new companies in and have support for future economic growth.”
Creative Polymer Solutions
There will be an intentional push to help shepherd the growth of minority-owned businesses, including within that scope black-owned, women-owned and veteran-owned companies, among others, said Victor Brown, the BBA’s vice president of business development.
“The BBA is looking to include all diverse groups, but when you look at recommendations from Brookings Institution and the City of Birmingham, African-American-owned businesses are a top priority,” he said. “For our community, with black-owned businesses and black residents making up such a large portion of the City of Birmingham proper, there’s been a dearth of business growth and scalable, tradable companies in that sector, and we want to help them grow, scale and create jobs. We want to be a part of the conversation and part of the solution to help identify and solve weaknesses that minority-owned companies have.”
The BRE program will also launch a health care pilot program with a specific focus on drug delivery, said Jon Nugent, the BBA’s vice president of innovation and technology. Not only is Birmingham an industry leader in health care research, it is one of the premier hubs of drug delivery globally. Unlike other health care epicenters like Cambridge or San Francisco, where health care companies know one another and work together to bring their community’s economy to scale, in Birmingham that is not yet the case. The BBA’s health care pilot program hopes to change that.
“None of the health care companies are connected to each other and there’s no real community,” Nugent said. “That’s what the health care pilot is all about – helping these companies grow. Health care is such a big part of Birmingham and there is a particular expertise and knowledge base here in Birmingham. We are fortunate to be able to work with these companies. A big part of the BBA’s strategy is to help build jobs and companies here in Birmingham, and leveraging health care in general is one way we’ll be able to do that. The pilot plan is an initial foray into that.”
Since 2012 – when the BRE program began – the BBA staff has completed over 1,100 visits and has seen existing companies announce over 16,000 jobs and $3.9 billion in capital investment.
Click here to learn more about the BRE program and click here to contact Mark Brown.