A new index designed to look at the vibrancy of small business in Daviess and several other area counties finds the region struggling to keep up with the rest of the state. Radius Indiana, an economic development organization that works with Daviess, Martin, Dubois, Lawrence, Greene, Crawford, Orange and Washington Counties has released its first Small Business Index comparing the region to others in the state.
The initial finding is that the rural counties in the Radius region are not competing well with more urban counties and lagging in some statistical areas against other rural counties in the state. The statistics reveal that while some economic factors impact urban and rural communities in similar ways, smaller population centers and subsequently a lower number of potential consumers, present specific challenges for rural areas.
"We developed the SBI because we needed tools to measure how our businesses are doing," said Radius Indiana CEO Jeff Quyle. "We wanted to increase the awareness about small business in the area. What we found was a huge disparity between small businesses in urban areas compared to rural ones."
The Radius region is home to 9,000 small businesses and represents a significant part of the area economy.
"While we know there are challenges for rural communities, we also know that our area is committed to helping our small businesses succeed," said Quyle.
The Radius Index is a collection of 13 statistics for all of the counties and compares them to 70 other rural Indiana Counties. The statistics measure the number of small businesses in a community, their revenues, innovations, employment and earnings.
The overall Indiana index is 138.18. The rural counties have an index of 52.59 and the Radius Region was 39.41. One of the reasons Quyle believes that the region is ranked so low is a lack of innovation.
"So much of the innovation and patents that become small business opportunities come from research universities and large medical facilities," he said. "We don't have those in the Radius Region."
Patent registration is one place where the Radius region trails the rest of the state. Radius counties are below the average for all of the state including other rural counties. The difference in patent numbers accounted for more than 50 percent of the difference between local small business and others around the state.
"We rely a lot on the guy that tinkers around on the farm or garage to come up with innovations and patents," said Quyle.
That is not to say that there is no innovation in the area. The Naval Weapons Support Center Crane holds thousands of patents. So do the companies that are located at WestGate.
"The Crane patents are all registered in Washington D.C.," said Quyle. "Many of the patents developed by the companies in the Tech Park wind up being registered out of their home office. For instance, SAIC's projects would be registered from San Diego.
"One step Radius is investigating is the development of a regional network to help aid entrepreneurs in the region. Radius will call together a collaborative group of local economic development leaders and others to explore formation of such a regional network."
That comes about at the same time WestGate at Crane has announced the formation of deal with Purdue University to set up operations at the WestGate Academy. Under the agreement Purdue will help people build companies utilizing patents from Purdue and Crane for civilian application.
"The Purdue University agreement could be two pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle coming together perfectly," said Quyle. "We know Purdue has experience and success at helping build new companies with patents. We are very excited about them opening at WestGate and the potential they can provide for new business in this area."
Officials say the index now shows them where the area may be lagging behind other parts of the state. Now, the task is to find a way to turn the numbers around.
"We know that we need more broadband in our area," said Quyle. "There are discussions about co-working spaces where people working on tech projects can collaborate and develop ideas. We now know the situation. Our obligation is to think of how we can help small business. We all want to see them succeed. We all want to see the small town downtowns succeed. This is a new tool and the beginning of a conversation."