On October 15, 2003, at a manufacturing plant in Rockford, Governor Blagojevich publicly announced that Illinois had been divided into ten "economic development" regions. This change represents a shift from a centralized business retention approach (Springfield and downtown Chicago) to a placebased approach that more regularly incorporates feedback from local business owners, labor leaders, government officials and community organizations.

The overall initiative is called Opportunity Returns, a comprehensive plan to bring new jobs and increased stability to communities throughout Illinois. As more jobs become outsourced to other countries and small plants close their doors, new strategies should be launched in the context of a global society.

This point was reinforced in a recent article on globalization posted on the MCIC website, www.mcic.org. MCIC president, D. Garth Taylor, writes that each business, unit of government, and non-profit organization concerned with living wage jobs and quality of life needs to re-think its interests and programs in light of the ever-evolving impacts of globalization.

The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO), the lead agency charged with economic development initiatives in Illinois, decided to do just that. It hired MCIC to assess past studies and literature, conduct key informant interviews, and analyze secondary data on business retention patterns.

What will keep businesses in Illinois? How can we help businesses grow and provide living wages and benefits for their employees? What sectors offer solid opportunities for new business startups? What business retention and expansion strategies are most effective? DCEO contracted with MCIC to help answer these questions and to identify best practices and techniques that would help local economic development agencies increase their effectiveness. Here we provide just a few suggestions on what we can all do to make the Illinois economy stronger and more competitive.

First of all, community residents, block clubs, social service organizations, health clinics namely everyone can support local economic development agencies and their programs at some level. The first three suggestions below refer to steps we can all take. The remainder of the action items are mostly carried out by government agencies and economic development groups. However, it is helpful to see the big picture, even if we are not directly involved, so that we can identify ways to support effective policies and partnerships.

• Buy locally. Do your best to buy products locally and to identify other ways to support your business community.

• Ask some basic questions. What industries have done well in your community? Which ones have done poorly? Why? Define sector and sub-sector priorities and related strategies. A focus on firms that are viable and growing will provide meaningful jobs and will support a diversified economy. No matter what you do professionally, learning about your local economy is important.

• Get involved. Are you a retired professional that could volunteer to administer business retention surveys, or provide pro bono business advice? Does your social service organization provide a free service or program that might be suitable for the employees of businesses in your area? For example, non-profits and banks have teamed to provide financial literacy training and information about free checking accounts at the workplace. This has helped many employees learn new skills and make better financial decisions. In turn, this also makes them better employees. Be creative in identifying win-win partnership opportunities.

• Foster areas of collaboration and information sharing among Illinois towns, counties, regions, and among neighboring states to minimize unproductive bidding wars and the overpaying of firm location decisions. For example, if you represent a chamber of commerce, work with other chambers to share information and insights. There are many roles to play and a wide range of contributions that groups in your area can make. Global dynamics means that we can't operate in vacuums.

• Use scarce resources effectively. We all become concerned when a local plant threatens to ship jobs overseas or there is an opportunity to recruit a new employer. In response, we scramble to identify what can be done to positively influence those decisions. Emotional, political, and economic stakes become heightened. But if we "over pay" for a location decision, we are, in essence, taking funds away from more strategic investments in the local and regional economy. We must use incentives and staff resources wisely. Locally developed guidelines can help in this regard.

• Help ensure that adequate facilities, roads, land, and communication capabilities are provided for firms. Develop measures to identify and track the most strategic infrastructure investments. Resources should flow to the areas with the greatest potential for positive impacts. Help decision-makers say "no" or "maybe later" to requests that would result in lower public and business benefits. We all need to remember that these are long-term capital investments that benefit more than one specific firm, stakeholder group, or town.

• Use proactive, not reactive, methods. Local economic developers who undertake reactive practices wait until a problem occurs or are alerted to a situation by a particular firm or members of the community. Reactive modes often produce short-term thinking and knee-jerk reactions that result in immediate gratification, but long-term losses. If you ask business support groups which style they adhere to, most would self-subscribe as "proactive." A review of their practices, however, suggests that most are actually reactive in nature, responding to "problems" and "political pressures." Clearly, there is an opportunity for all of us to become more proactive, to understand and listen to the needs of local firms, and to develop new methods of communicating with and supporting and strengthening business networks.

• Maintain positive relationships, trust, and credibility. After identifying and addressing genuine market forces, successful business retention relies on three key points: strong and positive relationships, trust, and credibility. The successful business retention staff we talked to attend trade shows. They maintain business directories. Marketing campaigns have been launched and the Internet has proven to be a valuable tool. However, the most important factor cited by nearly everyone we talked to was personal relationships between business owners or plant managers and local community officials. It is important to be in a position to anticipate business needs and help meet them. It is important to make repeat visits to the same plant to maintain the relationship. Know who is making decisions about operations and investments at the company and have access to that person.

• Inventory, evaluate, modify and publicize available educational and handson training programs that enable workers to master the new skills required by technological innovations.

• Evaluate local business retention programs. Develop a system of clear accountability and success measures, and support those programs that bring the greatest long-term economic benefits.

• Advance economic diversity, innovation, and the ability to adapt to, and manage, change, particularly among high-tech sectors and knowledge economy sectors. Nimble networks are needed and should be fostered and, as distance matters less, we should expect that many networks will expand beyond state boundaries to other states and regions and, indeed, the world.

All of us can do our part to advance Illinois competitive advantage in the global economy. For more information on DCEO's programs and services, visit www.illinoisbiz.biz