Enterprise Florida: Growing the Future

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Enterprise Florida identifies strategic directions for how Florida can build a leadership economy by promoting the growth of a new enterprise. It was commissioned by the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation as an outgrowth of Project Cornerstone to focus specifically on new enterprises that can bring in or capture new income for the Florida economy.

Cornerstone found that new firms in the high-quality, high-value-added industries are especially important to Florida’s future because they create high-paying jobs, generate wealth for the residents of the state, and add to the states’s fiscal base. The creation of new high-value-added firms has significant spinoff effects on the rest of the economy, stimulating new jobs and income in other sectors and regions.

The Research Committee of the Florida Chamber Foundation selected three emerging industrial clusters important to Florida’s future to include in this analysis of new enterprise development: the information, biomedical and space industries. While the report focuses on these three industries and the regions of the state in which most activity is concentrated, the overall concern of the report is with the process of enterprise development. Clearly, new enterprise development is taking place through the state. Thus, the principles about new business formation and the strategies  for promoting the growth of new firms that are described here can be applied to other business sectors of the economy than the three industries discussed in this report.

The report is the product of more than 150 interviews with entrepreneurs, business and government leaders, and entrepreneurial support “network” people. Much appreciation is due to those individuals for their time, especially to those entrepreneurs for whom every minute counts, and for their insights into new enterprise development in the state.

Overall, Enterprise Florida argues that new enterprise development holds a key to Florida’s economic future. The report outlines a strategy and action plan for supporting enterprise; what is required now is a bold vision and the will to implement a strategy for achieving that vision.

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