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AEDC BRE Survey Results Summary 2014

A core goal for any economic development group is aligning their efforts with the known needs of the business community to encourage growth in the economy. To effectively achieve this, strategies and tactics to address barriers must be based in relevant information collected from business leaders in a wide range of industries. The process of collecting and analyzing this business intelligence, designing interventions to address the discovered issues and implementing the strategies is commonly referred to as a Business Retention and Expansion (BRE) program.

In 2014, AEDC launched a multi-year BRE plan designed to improve our effectiveness in serving our investors and the Anchorage community in general. The first year of the program was focused on collecting the relevant data from the local business community to gain an in-depth understanding of business conditions, impediments to growth and opportunities where AEDC could assist in overcoming these issues. 332 individuals responded to this detailed survey, resulting it one of the most comprehensive examinations of the Anchorage business climate to date. The initial findings of this survey are reported in the accompanying document and summarized in the sections below.

In the second year of our program, AEDC will be reconstituting our Board’s Economic Development Advisory Committee (EDAC) to assist the staff in the creation of strategies to deal with the issues discovered through this survey process. The data from this survey will be a key resource to inform the committee and ensure the plans created are relevant and effective. This report is intended to give committee members a general overview of the data to begin this process. It is expected that their feedback will stimulate deeper analysis of the survey results and the issues raised by them.