The growth of programs that favor purchasing fruits, vegetables and meats produced by close-to-home farmers rather than large, national purveyors — by community-supported agriculture buying programs and restaurants that adopt "farm-to-table" menu items — is a response to a belief by consumers that local food tastes better, lasts longer at home and may even have some health benefits.
Even beyond food, the region is also home to a number of businesses that focus on locally sourced products. A Piece of Cleveland, for example makes furniture, shelving and paneling out of wood reclaimed from old buildings. Other businesses sell the work of local artisans.
Consumers of these locally sourced items may also understand they are helping entrepreneurs, who may be their neighbors, to gain a foothold in a vast, international economy.
But a couple of local entrepreneurs say they believe that kind of buy-local attitude should play a greater role in the purchasing, and even investing, decisions of businesses in the region. They claim that supporting local businesses, especially young ones, is an important investment in the economic vitality of the region and the success of all local businesses.
One of the two is Charlie Lougheed, a serial entrepreneur who is currently developing a company, Axuall, that wants to digitally streamline the cumbersome process businesses face for proving the identity and verifying the credentials of potential employees or professionals with whom they work. Lougheed said he believes that buying locally, not just by consumers but by the business sector, is as important as more traditional forms of business development, such as supporting workforce training programs, or even becoming an investor through an angel or venture capital fund.
"Especially in the B-to-B (business- to-business) space, buy local, buy from the innovative companies that are building things in your own backyard," he advised. "It always drives me nuts when I hear, 'Well, we've got to put it out to bid.' I'm like, OK, I understand that, but I'm the only vendor who's local and these other vendors, you know, they're not 10 times better than me, they're probably not twice as good as me."
Kevin Goodman, managing director and partner of BlueBridge Networks, a cloud computing services firm, said he also believes buying from nearby firms strengthens the local economy. He pointed to studies showing that spending with local firms keeps three times as many dollars recirculating in the local economy.
The American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA), a nonprofit that supports and promotes local entrepreneurship, looked at more than a dozen independent studies of spending in various local communities. It found that, on average, 48% of each purchase at local independent businesses was recirculated locally, compared to less than 14% of purchases at chain stores.
Goodman said he practices what he preaches, from the smallest purchases to some of the major equipment bought for his firm's data centers.
"Where I get my gift baskets is a local company called Wine Spot in Cleveland Heights," he noted. "One of the reasons I do my gift baskets there is because they procure products that are predominantly from Cleveland or the state of Ohio. And even the equipment in our data center is predominantly from Eaton."
Eaton Corp. — which was founded in Cleveland and, while now officially domiciled in Ireland, maintains its operational headquarters in Beachwood — supplies BlueBridge's data center with the hardware for its power distribution network and the software that manages power usage. In turn, Eaton makes an effort to buy locally.
"Local suppliers have an advantage in terms of lower transportation costs due to their proximity to the Eaton site, as well as providing the ability to carry less inventory in many cases, as the transit times are significantly reduced between the supplier and Eaton's location," said communication manager Katy Brasser in an email. "These are key factors in the total cost of ownership calculation."
She wrote that the power management company purchases nearly $475 million annually from more than 1,000 Ohio suppliers. The company has 284 locations in 42 countries, including about a dozen in Northeast Ohio.
Michael Shuman, an economist and author who focuses on local economics, agreed that there is "unambiguous evidence that (local purchasing) does benefit the community it takes place in. The locally owned entity is going to generate two to four times the economic development income — that is jobs, income and taxes."
Shuman, whose most recent book is "Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Move Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity," argues that businesses and their owners and executives should move beyond a local purchasing strategy to being more local in their investment strategies. He said it's his hope that local purchasing will lead to a broader rethinking of economic development policy around local investing and entrepreneurship.
"Local purchasing is just a small part of the equation for shifting (a regional) economy in a positive direction," he said. "By having a consumer-driven local purchasing policy, that educates people in a way that opens them up to local investment activity."
Shuman added that people, not just businesses or business owners, could shift some of their retirement investments from global stocks and bonds to local companies, local projects and other grassroots investment options.
Shuman pointed to the Economic & Community Development Institute, which operates in Cleveland and Columbus and seeks investment and philanthropic support to make microloans to young businesses.
Lougheed said young firms in particular need the support of the businesses in their community, which are usually their first customers.
"Those early-stage customers, I want them to be investors, too," he said. "If a startup, instead of going out and raising $20 million on the coast, can raise $4 million or $5 million locally and then supplement that with revenue from local customers, that's revenue that's feeding the (young) business, that's creating local jobs."
"buy" - Google News
December 01, 2019 at 04:00PM
https://ift.tt/35OSxKp
Entrepreneurs' push: Buy local, invest local, benefit local - Crain's Cleveland Business
"buy" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2NAJYvh
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
0 Comments:
Post a Comment