Telling the Story of Opportunity: Ignite Fredericton’s FDI Strategy
Recently named one of fDi Magazine’s 2017/18 American Cities of the Future for foreign direct investment (FDI) strategy in the micro city category, Fredericton is in a unique position for its size and location.
The submission to the magazine for consideration was made by Ignite Fredericton, the community’s economic development agency, based on their FDI strategy described as a collaborative economic development strategy. The strategy is based on attracting business to the area by spreading awareness and encouraging collaboration between the University of New Brunswick, businesses and government.
The strategy’s focus is on a number of key industries including cybersecurity, digital product development, engineering and the biotech sector, among others.
Ignite Fredericton CEO Larry Shaw explains that for economic development in any region, there must be a number of parallel activities going on at the same time to have what he calls a holistic economic development strategy, one that looks at opportunities to grow and expand the existing market.
“That could be through things like export, startup communities, etc., but you also have to pay attention to what’s happening on a global stage,” Shaw says. “It has to be done in a way that you go through a bit of a process to understand what your value proposition or what your uniqueness is or your competitive differentiator is in a marketplace and from there you begin to build your strategy.”
“Once you understand what your core capabilities are, what your strengths are, who are the key players you need to partner with … all those things have to be taken in context.”
Shaw says this is what fDi Magazine would have evaluated when considering Fredericton as an award winner: Ignite Fredericton’s work with partners to create economic development through investment attraction.
“If there’s an opportunist looking in Fredericton, we would partner with ONB and we would figure out what we bring to that equation, what can we do to help that opportunity and then what can we do to make sure the company that potentially is going to set up has all the services and support they need,” Shaw says.
“We’ve done our homework relative to where we should be focusing. We understand what our core capabilities are, we understand what our strengths are and that indicates for us what are the most probable targets to go after.”
Shaw says part of the work still to be done is telling the story of Fredericton, what opportunities and strengths are particular to the area. He explains that Fredericton is competing on a global market despite the fact that few have heard of the small city outside of Canada or even New Brunswick.
“It’s really important to have a very refined, very concise story, understand our value proposition very well, understand the cost benefit, the return on investment companies need to have when they’re looking at expanding into jurisdictions or they’re looking to set up,” he says.
“What are those core values we can bring to their business plan and how do we improve their business?”
Shaw says to spread the message of opportunities in Fredericton globally, it must first be spread to decision makers, that more attention similar to that from fDi Magazine needs to happen. He says spreading this message requires the cooperation of everyone involved in economic development in the area.
“We need to ensure we’re always relevant and looking beyond our own backyard,” he says. “What I would like to see is that we make sure we continue down this path of collaborating with a large cross section of people that have an influence on the potential for success.”
“We’re focusing on companies that add multiplication into the job creation. Companies that have a tendency to add exponentially the value of what they bring.”