Local economic developers across Kentucky have a new platform that enables them to communicate more effectively and efficiently with local businesses within their counties.
Bludot, a web-based customer management system, will provide all 120 counties in the commonwealth access to intelligence, market research and competitive analysis. The objective is to focus efforts on business retention and expansion and position Kentucky to be competitive with surrounding states while recruiting new businesses and retaining established ones.
“About 70 percent of all the new jobs created in Kentucky are done through business expansion and retention projects,” said Beka Burton, economic development extension specialist at Community of Economic Development Initiative at the University of Kentucky (CEDIK). “The Bludot platform was built specifically for economic developers and has tools available to be able to sort your business through NAICS [North Industry Classification System] Codes.”
Bludot is the second phase of a two-phase project with the first phase being SizeUp, a large data source tailored specifically for individual Kentucky businesses and designed to increase Kentucky enterprises. Bludot is part of the Kentucky Economic Recover and Resilience Project in collaboration with CEDIK and the Kentucky Association for Economic Development (KAED).
“For the first time in the commonwealth’s history, Kentucky’s economic developers and business leaders will be universally connected,” said Matt Tackett, president and CEO of KAED. “This step demonstrates our commitment to providing enterprises with a world-class business experience and will encourage a new level of interactivity to address issues and seize upon growth opportunities. Industry expansion is a leading driver of Kentucky’s investment generation and job creation and will … at no cost to users, accelerate economic momentum in the commonwealth.”
Bludot was developed initially in California in early 2019 because certain cities recognized a need to streamline communication with various businesses within their boundaries. The intention was to focus on economic development as a means to increase city growth and provide local businesses with information and data points. The platform has expanded from the West Coast and now includes multiple cities throughout the country. Kentucky is the only state that has implemented Bludot statewide.
The system is not designed for businesses to communicate with other businesses. The intended users for Bludot are the primary economic developers or the chair of the chamber of commerce in each county. Smaller counties without a budgeted officer in either of those roles can select a tourism director, manager or elected official who focuses on business retention and expansion to serve as lead contact. These individuals are tasked with recruiting members to their development team. Although the platform allows for multiple users, only one person from each county may serve as the lead.
Regardless of the county’s size, all counties will have access to the same data for their specific county, but users will only be able to retrieve data for the county where they reside. The site is confidential and the university will not be able to access any county’s information.
“While each person in leadership within a county can only access their county’s information, through the same platform, they will be able to talk to other economic developers across the state.” Burton said. “We can now have collaboration between different regions within our state.”
CEDIK has uploaded to the site all businesses registered with the Secretary of State’s Office along with those businesses’ contact information. Once a county signs up to use the platform, the lead person will be given a login to access the data.
Users of Bludot will be able to utilize data points that categorize the number of businesses within the county, classify businesses by industry, denote the size or age of businesses, and list the businesses’ geographical area. A key feature of the platform will include a tag specifying if a company is owned by a minority or a woman. Another benefit of Bludot is multiple users within a county will be able to communicate back and forth with a specific business in one central location.
“Kentucky’s businesses now have direct and seamless communicative channels with professionals dedicated to assisting with their growth.” —Matt Tackett, president and CEO of KAED
“Kentucky’s businesses now have direct and seamless communicative channels with professionals dedicated to assisting with their growth,” said Tackett. “Thru Bludot, economic developers can better assist existing industry. Via consistent communication, private enterprise and economic developers can address any issues or barriers to growth, analyze data, and capitalize on opportunities to inform operation, identify expansion opportunities and much more.”
The platform will assist in tracking upcoming projects for businesses as they expand or as economic developers recruit new companies to their area. Bludot also has the capability of creating reports to track those expansion projects and to calculate sales growth.
Anyone wanting to utilize the Bludot system is required to attend a webinar hosted by CEDIK. These hour-long webinars will include a live demonstration of the platform and will present an opportunity for economic development teams to ask questions. Upcoming webinar dates are Aug. 24 and Sept. 21.
Visit www.cedik.ca.uky.edu/bludot for more information.