Austin, TX

Opportunity Austin Economic Development Strategy (2003, 2006, 2007, 2011, 2012)

The capital of the State of Texas and its five-county region experienced remarkable growth and economic prosperity in the 1990s, fueled primarily by the expansion of the Dell Computer Corporation and the semiconductor-manufacturing sector. However, the 2001 collapse of the technology sector, and ongoing global outsourcing of high-tech manufacturing, left the region reeling from job and income losses. In response, the area’s leadership retained Market Street in 2003 to develop a holistic strategy for long-term, sustainable development in the region.

With Greater Austin’s powerful local assets, Market Street’s challenge was to leverage the area’s many economic and demographic strengths to determine the most logical and compelling economic sectors for Austin to pursue, the most effective way to utilize the area’s economic development organizations, and also how to maintain the area’s competitive advantages in workforce and quality of life. The four-month process began with detailed economic and demographic research, a competitiveness analysis and extensive public input, and eventually led to the creation of the five-year, $14 million Opportunity Austin strategy. Opportunity Austin provided the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce with the capacity to build its economic development staff from one person to 14 and to develop regional and national marketing initiatives. Opportunity Austin was hugely successful, surpassing its four-year job and wage projections in only three years.

During the summer of 2006, Market Street was brought back to Austin to conduct a mid-term review of implementation efforts. Market Street’s work with Greater Austin continued into 2007, as we were retained to develop the next phase of the Opportunity Austin effort. Launched in 2008, Opportunity Austin 2.0 is a $21 million five-year plan designed to take the region to the “next level” of success. New strategies focus on pursuing greater international development for the Austin region, a more comprehensive emphasis on talent retention and attraction, pursuit of new target sector opportunities, a major effort to address the region’s transportation and traffic congestion issues, and other high-profile activities. In early 2010, the Austin City Council voted to extend its involvement in the Opportunity Austin effort for up to 10 years and $3.5 million.

Austin continues to attract and retain firms in high-wage job sectors. In 2009, VMware Inc. announced plans to add roughly 100 jobs at its Austin location, almost all of which will be professional jobs paying upwards of $50,000 a year. Another technology firm, HostGator.com, announced plans to open an Austin location in 2010. HostGator.com announced that it will be creating more than 200 professional jobs in the Austin area, which will start at $40,000 and extend to well over $100,000. In May 2011, Samsung announced a $3.6 billion investment in its Samsung Austin Semiconductor (SAS) plant, a significant increase to the capacity of its 12-inch semiconductor fabrication facility that will create as many as 500 permanent jobs. A month later, Austin was celebrated as Area Development’s most desirable place for doing business in the U.S. due to its business-friendly environment, investment, innovation, and high-tech workforce. The magazine recognized the critical role of Opportunity Austin and Opportunity Austin 2.0 for the region’s quality job creation, focused economic development targets, and visionary efforts.

Market Street returned to Austin in the summer of 2011 to conduct a mid-course review of Opportunity Austin 2.0 and assist the Chamber with prioritizing implementation efforts for the remaining two years of the initiative. The midterm update included stakeholder input, a competitiveness analysis of Greater Austin benchmarked against four peer metro areas, and an assessment of Opportunity Austin 2.0 goal implementation progress to date. The research components answered the questions:

• Is the Chamber doing what it committed to do in the Opportunity Austin 2.0 strategy?
• How well have implementation efforts been executed?

These findings lead to a set of strategy update recommendations, focused on the highest-priority changes that need to be made to the 2007 strategy and performance measures adjusted to the realities of the post-recession economic landscape.

 

In 2012, the Chamber again invited Market Street to facilitate a new five year economic development strategy. In recognition of the past two resource-development cycles, the latest strategy will take a comprehensive look at the full breadth of Opportunity Austin programming to best inform a strategic and valuable course forward. Targeted input from staff, partners, and stakeholders will provide key evaluations of the past success of Opportunity Austin and will inform every part of the process.

The process is scheduled in five phases and will be accomplished over the course of about eight months. The phases are as follows:

• Phase I – The Starting Line: Austin’s Competitive Position: Austin will be benchmarked against the United States along several key economic, demographic, and socioeconomic indicators. This evaluation will be supplemented with benchmarking Austin against nine high-performing metros. The benchmarking comparison will be presented in the form of a dashboard with each city ranked one through 10, on each measure.
• Phase II – The Road Traveled: Opportunity Austin Assessment: the programming of Opportunity Austin will be evaluated, with analysis focusing on recurring issues, opportunities, and ongoing implementation challenges. This analysis will frame prospects of leveraging new strategies and determining new competitive priorities.
• Phase III – Fuel for the Austin Economic Engine: Target Refresh: rather than recreating past target efforts, this phase will focus on the competitive position of the current roster of targets. Benchmarking Austin against top metros in each target and accessing site selector and corporate input, Market Street will provide a comprehensive view of target industries and make refreshed recommendations, if found necessary.
• Phase IV – The Road Ahead: Austin Economic Development Strategy: representing the culmination of the work to date, this phase will incorporate innovative strategies and fresh approaches to redefine Austin’s competitiveness for the next five years.
• Phase V – The Road Map: Implementation Guidelines: the final phase will focus on situating resources, staff capacity, funding, and priorities for timely and effective implementation.

The overall process is a departure from other project structures, but the resulting product will be a comprehensive and holistic strategy that leverages the past performance of Opportunity Austin into a strategic forward-looking plan.

 

For more information, please see the Opportunity Austin website.