Oct 18, 2019
Business Recruitment is a critical function of the Kansas Department of Commerce. Our team is on the frontlines of showcasing Kansas as a great place to expand or relocate their business. In this blog, I want to take a closer look at how this process works. It’s important for Kansans to understand what their state is doing on their behalf in order to grow our economy and bring new jobs to Kansas.
This week, I’m in Chicago attending events put together by our Business Recruitment Team. Our team has “boots on the ground” in several key regions, and they’re working to connect with site consultants, investors and company representatives to talk to them about the great opportunities we have in Kansas.
Building relationships across the country and around the world is an essential part of economic development. As Kansans, this is something we excel at naturally. But doing it in this capacity takes focus, resources and allies. We’re glad to be able to partner with Team Kansas—a group of private business leaders, economic development professionals and local and state entities—to help us attract companies, investment and jobs to Kansas.
When new project leads are generated, the Department of Commerce acts as the primary point of contact throughout the process of the project. We help connect the interested businesses and investors to opportunities that are available across the state and engage additional stakeholders when appropriate. These leads are presented to local economic development professionals so they can better determine if the opportunity is a fit for their community.
Connecting interest to opportunity is an important role for the Department of Commerce to play. One way that local leaders can help showcase the opportunities is through site selection. Our agency facilitates the Location One database that is used by site selectors to look into the available space we have to start or locate a business in Kansas. Local governments and economic development professionals help populate this database, which allows them to elevate the opportunities in each of their communities.
There has also been an exciting development that just launched for the Federal Opportunity Zones in our state. With support from the Kauffman Foundation, we have partnered with mySidewalk to launch a new digital portal to share information about these Opportunity Zones and the assets they currently have that provide opportunities for investment.
So far this year, our Business Recruitment Team has managed projects that resulted in 6,234 jobs and $443M in capital investment in Kansas.
From our recruitment team to the local elected officials and economic development professionals in Kansas communities, we’re proud to help facilitate the dealflow process to turn opportunities into jobs and investment in our state.
Ad Astra Per Aspera,
-DT
