Available for investor purview only, EDCUtah released last week its FY 2016-2017 Program of Work document. It’s a comprehensive breakdown of EDCUtah’s major economic development initiatives for the year.
“The reason for publishing our Program of Work and the effort behind it is to be more methodical about what we do and how we do it,” says EDCUtah President and CEO Jeff Edwards. “We want our investors to know what we are doing with their investment dollars, but the Program of Work is more than a road map, it’s also a mechanism whereby they can see where we they might want to engage with us in various events.”
The document doesn’t focus on the day-to-day economic development activities at EDCUtah. Rather, it outlines the unique, special efforts where EDCUtah plans to spend money beyond its basic work, explains Chief Marketing Officer Michael Flynn. In essence, he says, the Program of Work outlines:
- The targeted special projects
- The purpose or goals behind the projects
- When they will take place
Further, he says the Program of Work provides a metric or level of accountability our investors can use to remain apprised of our special projects and, ultimately, how they worked.
“Everything we do should culminate in either helping us generate a new project or winning a project we already have in our pipeline,” says Edwards. “But we also hope our investors see the Program of Work as an invitation for greater engagement and involvement in what we are doing.”
The foundation for this year’s Program of Work involved extensive data analysis by EDCUtah’s research team. “Over the past few years we have increased the data gathering around all of our events in order to determine what works well and what doesn’t,” says Flynn. “We have a data-driven focus and we’re using that data to design or redesign events and projects that will generate the greatest return on investment.”
Efforts within the FY 2016-2017 Program of Work are outlined according to their focus: Marketing, Events, Global Strategy and Outreach, Research, Business Development, Membership and Administration and Governance. In some areas, EDCUtah is restructuring existing projects to make them more productive, such as rebuilding the EDCUtah.org website and the EDCUtah trade show booth, or integrating the UtahSURESites.com and Locate.Utah.gov websites. In other areas, EDCUtah is using extensive research to launch high-value initiatives that leverage Utah strengths for business development, such as the program to develop and deploy a statewide megasites program focused on large tracts of land that could attract landmark projects.
In the Events area, EDCUtah used its research to fine-tune its trade show agenda. Accordingly, the Program of Work outlines participation in an aggressive schedule of events designed to increase interest in Utah as a location to do business, establish more face time with site selector consultants and provide more investor exposure with those site selectors and corporate executives.
In the Global Strategy and Outreach area, the Program of Work outlines an aggressive schedule of recruitment campaigns in targeted locations with high-value companies identified through EDCUtah’s proprietary data gathering and filtering tools. Meanwhile, in the Business Development area, the Program of Work sets forth an agenda to integrate EDCUtah’s business developers into more activities and events led by the Global Strategy and Outreach team, increase the amount of industry training and education for the business developers and expand their engagement with investors.
“We’ve put a great deal of thought into our Program of Work,” says Edwards. “We think it is a great vehicle to share information with our investors, raise their awareness of what we are doing, provide greater transparency into our organization, and ultimately give them a tool to measure our productivity and get excited about what we are trying to do.”
To obtain a copy of EDCUtah’s Program of Work, call Michael Flynn: 801-323-4248.
