Upstate South Carolina Alliance

Organizational Strategic Plan (2008)

Because of history, geography and demographic dynamics, Upstate South Carolina has often been more of a region “on paper” than in practice.  The Upstate’s ten counties and five principal cities – including Greenville and Spartanburg – struggled to find common ground related to regional economic development.  While great progress has been made to bring the disparate communities of the Upstate together under a common banner, there is much work remaining to fully realize the vision of the Upstate’s potential as a unified entity.  

To determine how it can best facilitate the realization of this vision, the Upstate South Carolina Alliance retained Market Street to develop a Strategic Plan for the organization.  In its five-plus years of existence, the Upstate Alliance had grown from being a “start-up” regional marketing organization to serving as a key player in regional economic development.  The question was no longer, “Will the Alliance survive?” but “How can the Alliance more effectively impact regional growth and development?”  To that end, the strategic process assessed current Alliance operations, involved hundreds of regional investors and stakeholders, and identified best-practice models that could inform the Alliance’s future programs and processes.  

Market Street worked with Alliance staff and a representative steering committee of top Upstate constituencies to comprehensively review all facets of the organization’s operations, internal and external marketing, target sectors and intra-regional relationships.  Extensive quantitative and qualitative research supported the process and let to key recommendations to maximize the Alliance’s regional impact.  

The final Upstate Alliance Strategic Plan contained detailed, prescriptive actions to optimize the organization’s capacity to be competitive.  This included a reworked, enhanced staff and operational structure, a renewed list of target sectors to pursue, more dynamic interactions with existing businesses in partnership with local development entities, and a new focus on talent development.  Ultimately, it was determined that the Alliance needed more capacity to increase its strategic impact on its ten-county region.  Five-year performance goals and activity measures will ensure that the Alliance is able to track its progress as it implements the Strategic Plan.  

After approval by the Upstate Alliance’s executive committee and Board of Directors, the organization’s staff has moved forward aggressively with strategic implementation.