|
Industry
Partnerships and Strategic Planning
|
Purpose
without action is a daydream; action without purpose is a nightmare.
–
Anonymous
A cluster-based approach to thinking about economic and workforce
development has become increasingly popular since the late 1990s.
Industry clusters — networks of geographically concentrated firms
and the infrastructure that supports them — bring the private, public,
and quasi-public sectors together to catalyze action at the international,
national, state, and local scales.
The concept behind this approach is
that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts — that regions and
individual firms can capitalize on their competitive advantage when
companies that usually are competitors create collaborative solutions to
common problems and collectively drive policy decisions and economic
growth. Successful industry
clusters are guided by a strong purpose and create and measure change.
The functions of successful industry clusters are threefold:
1.
Understanding and
benchmarking a regional economy
2.
Gathering key industry
stakeholders together to address specific issues
3.
Providing high-value,
specialized services to key industries
Strategic planning, usually reserved for individual firms or
organizations, can be an invaluable tool in creating the vision of an
industry cluster and focusing its and the region’s resources to have
maximum impact. Both the
strategic planning process and the document itself provide benefits to the
industry cluster.
The strategic planning process builds the required social capital among
competitive firms necessary for success and provides the opportunity for
partnership members to objectively analyze their situation and formulate
appropriate strategies. The
strategic plan itself provides the roadmap for the industry partnership to
implement its strategy.
One example of a successful industry cluster strategic planning process is
the South Central Workforce Investment Board’s (SCWIB) 2005 healthcare
industry planning process. The
Hill Group facilitated the SCWIB Healthcare Regional Steering
Committee’s strategic planning process by soliciting input from key
stakeholders including the SCWIB and CareerLink staff, health care
providers, and educational institutions.
The plan outlines goals, objectives, and measures for each of the
strategic areas identified through the process including examining the
region's educational system capacity and developing and retaining the
incumbent health care workforce.
The strategic plan
provides the Steering Committee and the industry partnership with focus,
direction, and a framework to produce tangible results in the areas
identified including:
-
Providing
training for 760 front line supervisors representing 110 employers with
incumbent worker training funds
-
Creating four geographically-based
sub-consortia to implement the initiatives of the strategic plan at
the local scale
-
Developing a
regional education team of five colleges and universities that
collectively work to meet the training and education needs of area
employers
-
Providing a
first-ever coordinated outreach to high school students and
prospective employees during Health Careers Awareness Week
-
Encouraging
competing organizations and individuals to leverage their strengths to
collectively improve the region's healthcare workforce
To learn more about
industry
partnerships strategic planning processes, please contact
our consultant specializing in workforce and economic development initiatives,
Kelly L. Glass. Kelly can be reached at
412.722.1111 or via email at kglass@hillgroupinc.com.
Insight and Innovation Home
These materials have been prepared for educational and information purposes only. They are not consulting advice or opinions on any specific matters. Transmission of the information is not intended to create, and receipt does not constitute, a consultant-client relationship between The Hill Group, Inc. and any recipient of this material. Readers should not act upon this information without seeking professional advice.
| 
