EDC an ‘innovative partner’

ALBANY — A partnership between the Albany-Dougherty Economic Development Commission and Georgia Tech is continuing as the EDC embarks on a trailblazing benchmarking process.

As part of a program first started earlier this year, the EDC approached Georgia Tech’s Enterprise and Innovation Institute to help establish clear quality management tools used to recruit and retain businesses.

Calling the EDC “an innovative partner,” Georgia Tech’s Joy Wilkins said that the partnership is helping the university develop a first-of-its-kind software that will be used at economic development organizations across the country.

“They have been an extremely innovative and progressive partner throughout this process,” Wilkins said. “It takes incredible foresight to approach this subject the way they have, and we’re seeing the benefits through the development of this software program that will be used both in Georgia and nationally.”

The current phase of the project allows EDC President Ted Clem and his staff to quantify their efforts and then determine whether they, as an organization, are meeting expectations or are falling short.

“It has the opportunity to be a huge tool for us,” EDC spokesperson Barbara Rivera Holmes said. “It’s a lot like a road map. If you don’t have one, then its hard to determine where you’re going.”

The current product allows the EDC to keep track of how many times its staff visits existing companies, how many calls staff makes to prospective companies and how it is bolstering recruitment and development of manufacturing jobs and entrepreneurs.

One benefit to the software is that it compiles and updates different sources of data into one program that will then be used as a resource for the EDC. Preliminarily, Georgia Tech compiled economic data from Dougherty County from 2005 through 2008 that suggests despite the job losses and the impact of the recession, some figures, like the tax base, have grown by as much as 15 percent.

“In the end, it’s a quality management tool that will help the EDC take a fact-based look at themselves to ensure that our investors are getting what they pay for while simultaneously pushing us, as a staff, to actively get out into the community and be aggressive,” Holmes said.