The heart of economic development is the creation and retention of sustainable jobs and higher quality of life in vibrant communities. Haisley Millar’s economic development focus is firmly on ensuring this economic success. One basis is a well-crafted Strategic Plan grounded on local strengths, natural assets and resources. A necessary precursor to developing a Strategic Plan is a thorough understanding of regional capacity (or Asset Map) in education and training, human resources, natural resources, and infrastructure. Once the regional economic development foundation is understood, specific programs such as Haisley Millar’s Grow Your Own Business, Boost and Ignite programs for business start-ups can be put in place to address opportunities and challenges. Boost and Ignite are targeted especially at the 16-30 age groups.

“The typical company rushes along from year to year in frenzied activity without a clear vision of the future and lacking distinctive or superior propositions.” Hugh Davidson, Even More Offensive Marketing

Strategic planning means defining the organization’s vision and mission, assessing the key challenges, setting concrete goals and objectives and spelling out what specific tactics it will take to achieve its mission and goals. Strategic planning defines the goal, describes the process, examines the challenges and maps the path forward. It applies to all organizations – public or private.

Technology commercialization is the process of translating a research discovery into a product with a defined and sustainable market that will benefit customers and return a profit to its owners. It includes finding the best blend of people who are able to manage the opportunity while achieving technical milestones and it means partnering with a mix of public and private sector investors who can provide funding at each stage of its development from research and development to market and production
expansion.

There are four key components to marketing planning – research, analysis, planning and execution. It incorporates history and experience with current circumstances. At the core of marketing is the concept of competition – how much do you know about your competitors, what makes your company and/or technology better, and how do you communicate that effectively to potential customers? Also, many organizations become surprisingly vague when asked to measure the effectiveness of their marketing – what is the profit impact of your investment in marketing?

“I remain constantly surprised that many companies can have wonderful marketing plans but get 'Marketing 101’ wrong. What use is a costly promotional campaign or stunning website if you do not inform the customer or you make it difficult for them to find or contact you?” David Millar, Executive
Chairman, Haisley Millar

Funding will remain a challenge for the medium term – government budgets are shrinking and private equity has reached its risk limit. There is a need for creativity in funding a research project or bringing a technology to market, but the fundamentals remain essentially the same. The technology developer must present his or her idea in a way which explains the benefit of the technology or idea to industry, or how the idea has value for people’s lives. There must be a clear path to market and an accurate assessment of the challenges; and there are several stages and types of funding which may be appropriate, depending on the company and where it stands in the startup process. The process is highly competitive with many projects looking at shrinking funds.