Enterprise Florida, Inc. (EFI) is a public-private partnership between Florida’s business and government leaders and is the principal economic development organization for the state. EFI’s mission is to expand and diversify the state’s economy through job creation. The EFI team selected GIS WebTech as their technology partner in 2018 to champion Florida as the premier location for business expansion and relocation and to provide easily accessible data analysis to national and international prospects.
Trent Shaw, Research Director at EFI, recalls the easy and efficient onboarding process, “From the moment we first signed on, great communication combined with GIS WebTech’s insistence on getting every detail right simplified the onboarding process. It could have been a complete nightmare if it hadn’t been for the transparent way GIS WebTech’s team operated and communicated. Our properties are inclusive of the entire state and come from a variety of sources that we don’t touch on a daily basis. Our stakeholders, which are local communities, have buy-in as well because they don’t feel like they are left out in the cold. There was a lot of set-up work and GIS WebTech took care of everything for us. We are a relatively small team of business developers who have an entire state to cover. GIS WebTech’s Recruit allows us to punch above our weight class when it comes to presenting these properties. “
EFI went through an exhaustive selection process when searching for a sites and buildings technology partner. Trent explains why they selected GIS WebTech’s Recruit as the new provider for the state of Florida. “Recruit offers the industry standard for displaying and editing properties. Recently I’ve noticed that older vendors have begun adding features, such as increasing the size of their maps, that have been standard in Recruit since day one. We have benefited from advanced features throughout the entirety of our experience with Recruit. Clearly the solution is one of the most technologically advanced site selection databases that economic developers can buy, and the innovation never stops.”
Trent describes why EFI’s partnership with GIS WebTech has been so successful; “GIS WebTech is proactive. Oftentimes the team will design a solution for a problem before it even presents itself to me. They created a layer highlighting Florida’s opportunity zones prior to it becoming a fire drill for the State of Florida. GIS WebTech was already working on it, so I was able to give it to the state on a silver platter because GIS WebTech had already created the solution for us a week prior. This level of service has been true across the board. They have added layers detailing HUB zones and multiple layers for our mega site listings. There is huge flexibility around layer creation. I never feel like I’ve reached the ceiling of what we can do with Recruit. GIS WebTech’s proactive development is worth the entire price of admission alone.”