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July 2002 - NGP launches eBusiness Workforce Training
2007-11-04
July 29, 2002- Northern Great Plains (NGP) has launched a pilot project entitled “Building an eBusiness Ready Rural Workforce in the Northern Great Plains: Developing a Model Program for eBusiness Training.” Funded by a $468,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, the project seeks to address growing concerns in the Region’s rural economy regarding workforce skills to serve the developing eCommerce needs of rural businesses. NGP will work with ten communities of interest (geographic or industry group) and at least five companies in each community to provide eBusiness training to 200 incumbent or underemployed workers. The trainees will develop human, information, and transaction resources that will assist the community of interest and each business (50+ total companies served) in the deployment of information technologies that will lead to rural business survival, retention and expansion, and increased value employment for the workers. This project will begin in late 2001 and run for 15 months.
Project activities will include the creation and delivery of a practical eBusiness curriculum to each participating trainee, one-on-one technical support for project participants, and the creation of a model sustainable “Rural Technology Support Center".
Services to individuals/trainees, businesses, and communities will be delivered through a combination of instructor led classroom sessions, personal consultation, online web-based supplemental training and research, and will use of a combination of telephone and electronic mail technical support. Participant will be encouraged to engage in online communications with peers in other rural communities through listservs and discussion centers.
Critical to the future of maintaining a skilled workforce in the rural communities of the Northern Great Plains will be their ability to understand the new economy, the developing technology that is driving change, and the creation of an atmosphere of innovation that will allow workers, technology professionals, and the youth of the region to feel at home. This project addresses these issues and seeks to develop a model that can be replicated throughout the region and across the country.
The emergence of the Internet as a dominant communications media has powerful employment and business implications for rural regions, cities and towns, businesses, and individuals on the Northern Great Plains. The Internet has developed at a pace that has resulted in wide gaps in the availability of strategic, technical, and educational help for businesses in rural areas. While urban centers are well equipped to provide comprehensive services, most rural cities, towns and communities of interest are not. Failure to proactively address this technology challenge in a timely manner will lead to accelerated rural out migration of workers and continued rural job loss as businesses across the globe execute online transactions with companies that are connected with more than just a wire. Our rural companies must have employees with the skills needed to enable, rather than diffuse, business processes of the 21st century.
Many areas of rural America are making strides toward closing the digital divide - a gap in telecommunications infrastructure availability identified as critical in the late 1990’s. Broadband access in small towns and even rural homes through the deployment of wireless, satellite, cable modem, and DSL is expanding at a steady pace. But as a result of this connectivity gap, businesses and citizens of many rural areas have fallen behind metropolitan regions in their adaptation to electronic business. It is imperative that this gap does not become the new digital divide.
Once online, users have a ramp-up period of several years until they fully reap the benefits of the Internet. For workers to understand and be able to use new Internet based business models, training and support services are essential. The Internet presents a technical platform that continues to evolve. Workers/employees with the technology talent to support Internet business models have located in urban centers where their abilities are often shared by a number of businesses and where high paying jobs and frequent professional opportunities for growth and interaction are available. Rural markets have seen their technology innovators migrate away, thus increasing the experience divide. An extensive rural eBusiness training and support system is essential to meet the employment needs of rural businesses if they are to create sustainable online presences that will continue to provide jobs in rural areas.
According to the Gartner Group, an Internet research and statistics firm, the economic impact of the Internet and the rural/urban divide will continue if training programs to support the use of eBusiness technologies are not fostered. Forester Research, another research firm, reports that in 1999 the average U.S. household spent $1,167 online. They project that number to rise to $3,738 by 2004. Capturing a portion of this new market will be essential to rural job retention and job creation.
Despite the recent shift in the economy away from “dot-com” strategies, research still promotes eBusiness as a powerful tool to grow businesses and provide jobs. PriceWaterhouse-Coopers (March 2001) published results of a survey of almost 500 top executives that indicates those using the Internet aggressively in the last year scored productivity gains (measured by increases in revenues per employee) 2.7 times greater than those of businesses that had not. Forrester Research reports that eCommerce sales are expected to hit $6.8 trillion in 2004, with 90 percent coming from business-to-business sales. While some of these revenues might reflect “new” sales, much of it will be revenue that shifts from other (current) avenues for sales. If rural businesses are not conducting business online they not only may not share in these “new” revenues, but they may also lose current revenue streams.
To begin the process of facilitating the shift to an “eEconomy,” employers throughout the Northern Great Plains states are seeking guidance, vision, and leadership in addressing the obvious workforce training needs in order to be “eBusiness ready.” While much activity has been focused on making broadband services available, the awareness of the role of a trained and informed workforce is assuming a higher priority than in the past. While the small rural towns of the Northern Great Plains may not be able to duplicate the full functionality or information content of larger metropolitan based businesses, they do need organized and planned eBusiness training and development effort and not one that simply evolves in an unplanned fashion.
Employment in the states of the Northern Great Plains is fueled by agriculture, small manufacturing enterprises, innovative Main Street businesses, and home-based companies. As employment in agriculture has declined, manufacturing has provided the lion’s share of employment opportunities and hope for sustaining rural communities of interest. The past decade has seen significant growth and expansion, but late in 2000 and through the first half of 2001 the region is seeing a downturn and decline in the number of jobs in the manufacturing sector. According to the June 2001 edition of the Minnesota Employment Review, the manufacturing sector continues to suffer job decreases. Job losses in durable goods manufacturing have averaged 900 a month from January through May 2001 compared to average losses of near zero for the same period in 2000. In May, employment declines in durable goods were estimated at 1,500 jobs. May estimates show manufacturing jobs slid by 6,800 over the previous year.
South Dakota has seen a similar drop with 1.5% fewer manufacturing jobs in May of 2001 than in May of 2000. The Iowa Workforce development reported a loss of greater than 1000 manufacturing jobs and a downward trend that has now lasted 12 months. In Nebraska, the story is the same with the Nebraska Workforce Development office reporting 1147 jobs lost from April of 2000 to April of 2001.
In addition to the concern about the emerging trend in the loss of manufacturing jobs, rural cities and towns of the Northern Great Plains states have experienced significant decline in Main Street business activity and related job loss. As regional shopping malls and urban centers have expanded and travel to a shopping experience has become more acceptable, independent/local business operations have been replaced by regional/corporate conglomerates. Can we maintain our existing workforce and at the same time recapture some of our lost local business activity by building local information centers that will also serve as online community shopping malls? This model needs to be explored. Pride and loyalty in a rural town is still evident as we examine efforts with our schools systems, as well as with the arts and entertainment. Can we build off this feeling again within an online business community served by a trained workforce? This project will work to bring answers to these and other rural workforce and employment questions.
This project will develop a comprehensive process for assisting the incumbent employees or underemployed workers in rural businesses, cities and towns that are seeking to influence their online economic future. The project will include an assessment process, strategic planning, comprehensive workforce training, and technical support. Our goal is to stem the decline in the rural job loss and to develop an eBusiness trained workforce capable of helping business survival within the region
