North Carolina’s Southeast (NCSE) launched an updated three-year strategic plan in May 2024 to advance regional prosperity. The plan is a commitment to decisive and collective action based on decades of prior success and adhering to and expanding on the organization’s strengths of marketing, product development, advocacy, and regional-focused initiatives. The actions called for in the strategic plan include deploying innovative strategies, building local capacity, and enhancing intraregional collaboration that will result in investment, job creation, and prosperity.
NCSE is a public-private partnership that facilitates economic development in a 20-county region in southeastern North Carolina. The region is anchored by Wilmington and Fayetteville and connected through a robust transportation network. Almost 1.9 million people live and work in the southeast. The region has many assets and opportunities that create a dynamic and competitive economic landscape. Industries such as advanced textiles, agri-business and food processioning, metalworking, logistics and distribution, and aerospace and defense have a competitive advantage in the region.
The strategic plan has four goals aimed at five target sectors: marketing, supporting local economic development efforts, regional collaboration, and strengthening NCSE through investing in staff and leadership. A brand refresh and the implementation of innovative marketing technologies and approaches will support a vibrant regional brand. One strategy to support local economic development efforts is improving the quality and readily available stock of industrial sites and buildings. Creating an industrial development loan program and spec building construction templates are two ways the region can support local product development.
Regional collaboration is the key to prosperity. As the saying goes “a rising tide lifts all boats” and this is truer now than ever before in an increasingly competitive global economy. With NCSE as the thought leader advancing regional initiatives, collaboration, and leading-edge trends and data, the southeast region will be more unified. This will also allow for collective advocacy for public and private investments, funding, and resources that will support these regional initiatives and strategies.
Poised to be a best-in-class regional organization, NCSE seeks to invest in its staff and leadership through training and capacity building. Investing in the organization will allow for new initiatives and the expansion of existing ones. A survey launched during the strategic planning process reported that both public and private investors believe their investment in NCSE is worthwhile and are likely/very likely to continue their investment.
NCSE is a results-driven organization and has long tracked defined metrics. The strategic plan calls for NCSE to track both organizational and program metrics. The latter is oriented around program activities such as the number of new businesses, prospect visits, sites created, etc. The former is oriented around the organization’s success such as fiscal stability, employee and investor retention, and stakeholder satisfaction. Measuring the success of programs and the organization supports continuous improvement and transparency to investors.
The strategic plan is a vision of a united region seeking economic resilience and progress for NC’s Southeast. The targets are understood, goals set, strategies in place, and with successful implementation and support the vision will be fulfilled.