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Wanted: match-ups for small Mass. firms
Initiative seeks links with out-of-state large companies
The Boston Globe | February 21, 2006
Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff

Large and small companies that need each other have a hard time connecting, according to Massachusetts, so the Executive Office of Economic Affairs is starting a dating service.

This morning at the Federal Reserve Bank in Boston, Ranch C. Kimball, secretary of Economic Affairs, will kick off Massachusetts Business Connect. It's designed to make big firms, especially in other states, aware of the resources hidden in small Massachusetts companies.

''We're going after out-of-state companies that do not have the familiarity and material presence here, and we need to introduce Massachusetts and its riches to them," said Mitchell Adams, executive director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

Adams said the initiative could bring lucrative business deals and funding to companies and academic institutions.

Kimball said Massachusetts has a difficult time competing with other states because land is scarce, wage costs are high, and the regulatory environment is unfriendly.

''What we do have in Massachusetts is the deepest, broadest, and most diverse economy in technology innovation and manufacturing of any region in the US," he said.

One program will connect three Massachusetts defense firms to educational institutions so they can better tailor their curriculums. Lockheed Martin Sippican Inc., Textron Inc., and Dynamics Research Corp. all will participate.

The idea for Massachusetts Business Connect was Kimball's, but over the past year much of the work was done by the collaborative, the state agency for promoting economic innovation and renewable energy.

Last year, a large-scale pilot program involved Procter & Gamble Co., the Cincinnati firm that bought Boston-based Gillette Co.

Like many other companies, Procter & Gamble was in search of new expertise, especially in the areas of biotechnology and nanotechnology.

The state held four days of meetings in the fall that brought together Procter & Gamble executives, 50 representatives of small and entrepreneurial firms, and 30 people from seven universities.

''It served as the catalyst for the partnerships we have engaged in with several firms," said Eric Kraus, vice president of external relations for Gillette.

Because of confidentiality agreements, Kraus said, he could not identify the nature of the partnerships or even the companies or academic institutions involved with Proctor & Gamble.

Through Massachusetts Business Connect, the state hopes to identify a few more out-of-state companies this year that it can introduce to the state's small-business and academic resources.

Adams said the effort is driven by the fact that Massachusetts lags in the sweepstakes for research and development funding from corporations, even though it is among the leaders in the amount of money it receives in government grants for science and medical research.

He offered two possible reasons. First, ''The basic attitude of our well-established research and development, and certainly the academic attitude, is corporate money is unclean," he said. Second, the perception of companies elsewhere might be that ''you don't want to go to Massachusetts because the business climate isn't good, or they're too snooty, or whatever."

Kimball is expected to emphasize the program's goals of overcoming such obstacles, increasing the number of jobs in Massachusetts, and boosting the state's competitiveness.

The program will continue to be run by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative but will be expanded through the use of private consultants.

''I think it will be beneficial to small businesses and entrepreneurs," said April A. Anderson, director of the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship at Pioneer Institute, a Boston think tank. More than 85 percent of businesses in Massachusetts have fewer than 20 employees, according to 2004 state figures.

''A lot of these small business don't have the resources for outreach," said Anderson, who worked at Economic Affairs before moving to Pioneer, but who was not involved with the Business Connect program.