As the lead economic development agency for the state, the Oklahoma Department of Commerce focuses extensively on growing existing businesses through a collaborative and coordinated Business Retention & Expansion (BR&E) Program. To support county and regionwide BR&E efforts, Commerce recently purchased a Master License for Executive Pulse--a business retention tool--to be made available to communities across the state. Economic development groups and communities interested in learning more about Executive Pulse can contact Commerce at 800-879-6552 to let us know how we can help.

BR&E, also referred to as an existing indusry program, is arguably the most effective economic development activity the state or local communities can undertake. Considering that up to 80% of all new jobs come from existing companies and that it costs a lot less to keep a company that it does to recruit a new company, it makes sense that Commerce commits signifciant resources to help existing companies stay strong and grow.

The ExecutivePulse™ Business Intelligence/Retention System

Developed by business retention professionals, the ExecutivePulse™ system is a database/communications platform that facilitates the retention of existing businesses and jobs by encouraging economic, community and workforce development organizations to work together. Easy to use, the platform is strategically designed with features and functions that:

• Foster communications and collaboration among individuals and organizations.
• Enable personalized responses to a company's request for assistance to be easily created and tracked.
• Provide an in-depth understanding of the business climate and challenges facing the business community.
• Create a unifying tool for program partners that enhance collaboration.

An Indispensable Tool

The ExecutivePulse system is designed to be an indispensable tool in every community.  It enables economic, community and workforce development professionals to:

• Create detailed profiles of individual companies.
• Monitor the status of a company and key company metrics. 
• Share some or all of a company profile with partners on an as needed basis.
• Generate referrals (action items) to partner organizations.
• Track the progress of each referral as it is being addressed by a partner.
• Log entries to track all contact with a firm.  
• Generate a wealth of pre-defined and user-defined reports.
• Conduct customized searches of the database.

Key Features/Functionality

Individual Company Visits: Using a carefully-designed survey, a comprehensive profile of each company is created that:

• Contains extensive data about the firm including workforce, sales, e- commerce and facility and equipment data.
• Also includes knowledge and intelligence - the owner's attitudes and opinions about the community, the local and state business climate, municipal services and future economic conditions and business plans.

This database provides over 150 predefined buisness intelligence reports including:

• Quick Lists (Frequently Asked Question-type reports)
• Predictive Reports (Strategic and Predictive reports)
• Geographic Analysis (Comparative Analysis Among/Between Geographic Areas) 
• Aggregate Trend Analysis (Timeline Analysis of Market Trends and Opportunities)

Other Key Features

• Our systems also features an extensive set of user-defined reports that allow searches based on data and key words.  Users can search single or multiple variables in the survey to find companies that match their criteria. 
• ExecutivePulse systems provide a powerful, yet easy to use set of Administrative Tools that enable local, regional and/or state officials to manage outreach to staffs, team members and the entire customer service/customer satisfaction process with ease. In a few minutes and with a few clicks of a mouse, the administrative tools provide a comprehensive analysis of a local, regional or state business retention effort. 
• The system also includes a full-fledged contact management database. It allows designated users to detail customer contact activity and add further knowledge and intelligence about the customer to the database.  Equally important, it keeps everyone on the same page about client companies through automated ticklers and updates.  
• Communities can create an electronic referral and send it to the appropriate providers with "information only" copies to select individuals on the retention team. This feature enable the service provider to respond to the referral, keeping the community informed.