The Ada Jobs Foundation is partnering with the Pontotoc Technology Center to plan and implement a continuous business retention and expansion (BRE) program. This program will seek to help local companies in the Ada area grow and expand through company visits and research analysis.
The BRE program is still in the planning stages, but the program will target locally owned companies with less than 100 employees. The program will also seek out companies in "basic industries," which primarily sell or export products and services to markets outside of the Ada market. Many of our manufacturers and some of our service-industry companies fit this definition.
This approach is backed by research on job growth and wealth creation in local areas. Most job growth in a local region comes from local companies hiring more employees versus new companies coming into the region. Based on work by David Birch, David Fleming and Stephan Goetz found that "second stage" growth companies with 10 to 100 employees tend to have the most potential to grow a local economy. Several of Ada's local manufacturing and service companies could be considered "second stage" and likely face a unique set of strategic challenges with regards to being able to grow a company.
While the Ada Jobs Foundation has been able to build relationships with the larger, base industry employers in the area, a different approach will be needed to help the smaller companies founded by local entrepreneurs. The goal for this program will be to discover critical issues to a company's organization, product, or staff that the owner may not have time to address as the company grows. The program will seek to add value for these companies by providing deep research and analysis. The program is also considering whether to provide marketing and workforce support to these companies as well.
The Ada Jobs Foundation hopes to see outcomes from this program result in increased employment growth, increased export figures, and an increased recognition of the impact of Ada's local base industry companies. The program will also dovetail into efforts to support local entrepreneurs as well as to attract investment and innovation into our targeted industry clusters.