Using Salesforce for Economic Development In ChesterField county virginia
Historic Economic Development Success
The year 2014 was a historic one for economic development in Chesterfield County Virginia. Nineteen companies announced new or expansion projects worth more $2.137 billion. The announced projects will create 3,275 new jobs in the community. Those numbers were the highest ever recorded in the county for a single year.
Landing a Paper Giant
The biggest economic development announcement in the history of Chesterfield County was made by Shandong Tranlin Paper Co., Ltd. in June 2014. The company plans to invest $2 billion and create 2,000 jobs in its first U.S. advanced manufacturing operation. Tranlin will produce tree-free, non-chlorine bleached paper products made exclusively from organic agricultural field waste such as wheat and corn stalks. The operation will be located on an 850-acre campus in the James River Industrial Center in Chesterfield.
Working with Regional Partners Key to Success
That historic level of economic development success required a coordinated regional effort that relies on an important technology initiative that was started in late 2013 and was finished in early 2014.
Chesterfield County and three regional partners had been working with the Greater Richmond Partnership to explore developing a new cloud-based Contact Relationship Management system. The custom system would be designed to handle both the attraction and retention components of the economic development programs in all five organizations.
The Greater Richmond Partnership (GRP) works to globally market the Greater Richmond region as a preferred business location, generate domestic and international prospects, and support the localities’ business retention efforts.
When an interested prospect is identified, the four local government economic development offices work with GRP to find properties, sites or buildings that meet the prospect’s requirements. This relationship between GRP and the localities depends on real-time coordination and information sharing.
Salesforce Selected for New Custom CRM
Data sharing and communication between the five economic development organizations was being hindered by an old legacy system with usability and functionality issues.
After a RFP process and presentations from four vendors, a unanimous decision was made to move forward with the development of a new system.
ACF Solutions proposed a custom Salesforce Solution and was selected to develop an application tailored to the organizations’ specific economic development processes.
Data migration from the legacy system to the new Salesforce application included the following:
- 9,000 Contact Records
- 12,000 Organization (Company) Records
- 3,200 Business Retention Surveys
- 7,300 Prospect Surveys
- 650 Document Files
The new application was set up with component sections that included; Leads, Companies, Contacts, Projects, Surveys, Cases, Properties, Campaigns, Reports, Dashboards and Documents.
The final version of the new application was launched in February 2014. The app was designed to be easily used on a desktop computer as well as on mobile devices.
Screenshots of the Desktop Interface
Screenshots of Mobile Inferface
The mobile version of the application makes it very easy for project managers and other staff members to access information from any location. This is especially important when on the road and away from the office.
Salesforce Provided the Right Solution for Economic Development
Using Salesforce for economic development has helped Chesterfield County overcome challenges by:
- Providing more accurate visibility to forecasts, activity, and the project pipeline
- Increasing the productivity of project managers and existing business teams
- Allowing better collaboration internally and between economic development offices
- Providing quicker access to vital information
The move to a Salesforce application has been a valuable initiative and an important enhancement to Chesterfield's economic development program.