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News Index
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New Business Connect Initiative Aims to Link Companies, Resources (Eagle Tribune)
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By Dave Price
Staff writer
Benjamin Franklin said it first: Hang together or hang separately.
That's also the message behind a new initiative to be unveiled tomorrow intending to attract new business to the state. The Massachusetts Business Connect project aims to link up prospective corporate residents with executives at existing Massachusetts companies, who can then steer them to the resources that can help both of their businesses thrive.
The model for Business Connect was the discussions between state officials and top management at Procter & Gamble in the weeks and months following P&G's acquisition of Gillette Co. Gov. Mitt Romney — who will detail the new program tomorrow during remarks at the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston — initially may have wanted little more than to limit anticipated job cuts resulting from the deal, although the talks soon morphed into finding ways P&G could build on and expand its newfound presence in the state.
Since those early meetings, Procter & Gamble has committed to a $200 million expansion at the former Gillette facility in South Boston. The Cincinnati-based consumer-products conglomerate also has as many as 10 deals pending with Massachusetts companies and is quickly forging relationships with several of the state's major universities and research laboratories, according to state officials.
"That's a model we can repeat," said Ranch Kimball, executive secretary for economic development in the Romney administration. "Our discussions with Procter & Gamble have been resoundingly successful as well as demonstrating the importance of making connections inside the Massachusetts business community."
Kimball said the initiative will follow four basic steps, starting with sit-down talks between his department and company officials to identify specific needs to propel company growth. From there, detailed lists are created to tally those needs along with the resources that would implement those goals. The process concludes with one or two days of intense discussions bringing together all of the players who can make that growth happen.
"Then we keep doing it again. And again. And again," the secretary said.
In addition to the company, likely participants in the meetings would be prospective suppliers, school officials, work-force experts and funding professionals such as bankers and venture capitalists. Both Romney and Kimball were partners in venture firms prior to joining state government, and several area venture capitalists are slated to appear with the governor tomorrow in a public display of support by the private-equity community in the initiative.
Also likely to gain more prominence through Business Connect are the state's various work-force training agencies and its post-secondary education institutions, said Al McDonald, executive director of the Massachusetts Defense Tech Initiative, a coalition of the state's defense contractors and suppliers.
"Whenever we talk to employers about what they expect their needs will be two, three or five years out, they want to know if we're going to have enough qualified and well-trained people available to work for them," he said. "That means we have bring together business with the universities and the community colleges to make sure they're graduating people with the right skills that businesses want."
Kimball said the current economic development initiative builds on previous state programs, such as "one-stop" permitting process for new or expanding businesses, adding that the Business Connect launch does not mean past efforts were somehow faltering.
"That program has done well and it's bringing jobs to the state. But it's only gotten us to parity with the rest of the country," he sa
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