Engaging businesses to strengthen your community

A prosperous business community epitomizes effective city leadership and fuels economic growth. But to fully understand and address specific needs within your community, cities must engage with local stakeholders and businesses to cultivate and maintain a strong business ecosystem. Business engagement plays an essential role in a city’s retention of businesses, helping to foster organic growth and collaboration between different organizations. By elevating your local business community, you can provide tangible success stories to prospecting businesses and potential investors demonstrating why your region should be considered for business growth and opportunities.

Engaging startups and small businesses to help them flourish
Throughout many regions, startups and small businesses are the most fundamental component of local business communities; therefore, we must make sure their voices are heard and their businesses are well-supported. For example, in Dutchess County, N.Y., we have programs tailored to support our startup and small business community. Powered by the Hudson Valley Center for Innovation (HVCI), GEARS is an innovative free program that engages local startups and small businesses, offering targeted programs to overcome entrepreneurial challenges and strengthen business plans. The program includes a highly interactive virtual workshop series that prepares startups and small businesses for the next level of growth and customized one-on-one sessions with expert advisors and group sounding boards led by experienced entrepreneurs, helping entrepreneurs develop concrete business plans and address future challenges.

Highlighting the startup community in Dutchess County and beyond, Accelerate! Hudson Valley is yet another example of our startup-supporting programs, which introduces a unique and vetted pipeline of entrepreneurial talent to the local community and potential investors, assisting new businesses in advancing from ideation to realization. Accelerate! Hudson Valley connects promising startups and entrepreneurs to a panel of expert investors and business leaders who have firsthand experience building and investing in the local community. With this opportunity, entrepreneurs not only secure potential investments, but also gain knowledge and inspiration from the guidance of successful local projects shared by the panelists.

Engaging businesses of all sizes to amplify regional success
Cultivating a unified business ecosystem demands collaboration between businesses of all sizes, from solo entrepreneurs and family-owned businesses to large corporations and publicly traded enterprises. By promoting and connecting with local businesses regardless of size and industry, a sense of belonging is echoed throughout the entire business community.

A strong business community should also be a diverse one, which is why we offer businesses of all sizes an opportunity to shine and connect at the Think Dutchess Business Excellence Awards, which recognize key businesses and nonprofit organizations of all sizes making a significant economic impact in Dutchess County.

Aside from acknowledging prominent and innovative businesses in the region, the event serves as a networking opportunity for all attendees. Creating opportunities for different businesses to connect with each other increases the likelihood of organic collaboration within your business community, ultimately yielding economic growth in return.

Addressing community needs through workforce development
Cities and regions can develop a supportive business environment by anticipating the specific needs of local business communities and addressing them in a proactive and strategic manner.

Every business community has a handful of key industries they want to retain and attract. Dutchess County is home to many advanced manufacturing facilities like iPark 84, who houses tenants like IBM, Frito-Lay/Pepsi and ON Semiconductor Corporation with specialized needs for industry knowledge and skills anchored around advanced manufacturing.

To address our community’s specialized needs, we work closely with educational institutions like Dutchess Community College to launch state-of-the-art programs in technical fields such as mechatronics and aviation, providing our businesses with the specialized workforce they demand.

Through proactively addressing the business community’s specific needs, cities and regions naturally exemplify that they are the right place to do business with key resources and a readily accessible workforce.

A thriving business ecosystem can be achieved through business-supporting programs, networking events and proactive strategies to address your community’s needs. When you establish a supportive and collaborative business environment, you will find it a lot easier to generate business retention and expansion, talent relocation and overall economic growth.

With more than 10 years of economic development experience, Sarah Lee has served as the CEO of Think Dutchess Alliance for Business since 2015. She oversees administration resource management, organization linkages and staff supervision of Think Dutchess and its departments, including business attraction, business retention and expansion and marketing as it relates to economic development. She also serves as the executive director of the Dutchess County Industrial Development Agency.