Business Retention and Expansion
Business Retention and Expansion, known often by the acronym BR&E, is a fundamental strategy in economic development for economic sustainability and growth.[1]
Existing businesses create as many as 80 percent of all new jobs in a community. Research demonstrates that a local economy with strong economic output makes that community attractive to new business ventures in addition to the growth of existing and startup businesses.[2] Business Retention & Expansion is an economic development strategy of proactively connecting with existing businesses to understand and respond to local business needs, with special attention given to small and mid-sized businesses businesses.[3]
Definition[edit]
In economic development, business retention and expansion is a program designed to strengthen the connection between companies and the community while encouraging each business to continue to grow in the community. Through direct interactions, events, and research, the program seeks to gain insight into business practices, planned future actions, as well as the challenges of targeted companies. Then, to turn this “business intelligence” into value added services, programs, and/or products that address individual and shared company opportunities and problems.[4]
BR&E in Economic Development[edit]
Business Retention and Expansion is one of the three pillars of economic development policy, encompassing job creation with efforts in business finance, marketing, Community development, workforce development, small business development, technology transfer, and real estate development.[5]
A healthy, vibrant local economy depends largely on the strength of existing businesses. Community leaders can help local businesses grow and thrive through business retention and expansion programs.[6] Communities will often charge their chambers of commerce or economic development organizations with developing business retention and expansion efforts. The effort of such work is often the source of feature stories published in local newspapers as a way to demonstrate efforts of the communities to learn from local businesses and make improvements for growth and expansion.
Business Retention and Expansion takes multiple forms, but most of these forms revolve around surveying local businesses. Common questions[7]
Business Retention and Expansion International[edit]
In 1989, a group of economic development practitioners met to network and brainstorm about business retention and expansion (BR&E). This informal session was followed by several national meetings that led to the formation of Business Retention & Expansion International (BREI) in 1994.
BREI is the professional association for business retention and expansion. The organization represent professionals in the economic development field from across the globe in order to educate, train, and promote best practices for increasing economic activity and growth in both urban and rural areas. It promotes and trains economic developers through a variety of workshops and conferences focused on both individual as well as broad-based skills.[8]
References[edit]
- ↑ "About BRE". Business Retention and Expansion International. Business Retention and Expansion International. Retrieved 22 November 2018.
- ↑ Boyles, Peggy (September 29, 2015). "Business Retention and Expansion (BR&E): Creating Jobs, Building Community". eXtension. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
- ↑ "Economic and Business Development". Purdue University. Purdue University. Retrieved November 24, 2018.
- ↑ "What is BRE". Business Retention and Expansion International.
- ↑ "Economic development". Wikipedia. 1 November 2018.
- ↑ University of Minnesota Extension https://extension.umn.edu/courses-and-events/business-retention-and-expansion-course. Retrieved 22 November 2018. Missing or empty
|title=(help) - ↑ Thompson, Nancy. "Questions for a Business Retention Visit". Useful Community Development. Retrieved October 26, 2018.
- ↑ "About". Business Retention and Expansion International. 6 June 2017.
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