Area companies making important business choices for northern projects will soon have a menu to select from.
Initiatives Prince George has worked with hundreds of Prince George-area industrial suppliers, as well as dozens of catalyst companies leading the area's industrial activity, to help define their products and services so they can more easily find each other, according to IPG's chief executive officer Heather Oland and the industrial cataloguing co-ordinator Charles Scott.
"It helps us internally at IPG to be that much more familiar with our local capabilities but externally it will help link our local companies up with the firms out in play in the industrial sector," said Oland. "This is a roadmap through all the ways we can do business in those very exciting sectors that are driving the entire provincial economy right from our own back yard."
A lot of the activity is comes from mining, petroleum and forestry companies based in other cities or even other countries. It's IPG's role to let them know what products and services they need that are available in the Prince George area?
You have to give them that knowledge, and if possible make the introductions between those parties, said Scott, and it has already been done during the research phase of this cataloguing process.
"Each of the major firms in the key sectors told us 'here are the crucial things I need' when they go shopping for the things they need on a project," said Scott.
The result was one page per local firm that lists their assets and abilities for major industry's purposes, including the standards evaluations they've had, the safety certifications they have achieved, the professional associations they've been accepted in and so on.
The second aspect of this project's benefits is spotting holes in local companies' business framework. Oland said IPG was sensitive to the places these local firms were almost hitting the mark. These firms can now work with IPG or on their own to beef up their resumes in the areas the major firms find important.
"If you aren't in this directory yet, we have a system to bring you along, if you want, to that next level," she said. "We will help you close the gaps that will enable you to diversify."
The 105 first companies to make it into the directory are called 'key enabling firms' by IPG, so named for their position in the industrial supply chain. If a major pipeline company or mining firm hires them for northern work, it triggers an economic cascade of employment and sub-purchasing that stimulates the entire community.
"A lot of this is first-dollar stuff - capitalizing locally on outside investment," said Scott. "It isn't eventually, it's now; it isn't coming, it's here."
The provincial minister responsible for job stimulation and economic innovation, Prince George MLA Pat Bell, said this was a smart project for IPG.
"When you look at the amount of economic activity that will take place in northern BC, this directory becomes a real asset not only for the companies listed in it but also the companies looking to make major northern investments," he said. "A lot of those companies are very sensitive to local procurements, and it just makes financial sense in a lot of cases, so this positions Prince George well."
The directory will be made publicly available on Friday.
