Coaxing the Wheel of Progress: Greg Parker’s Leadership on Mayor Jackson’s Business Roundtable
Tuesday, February 25th, 2014
Governor Nathan Deal set a goal to make Georgia the best state in the country in which to business. Our Mayor, Edna Jackson, wants Savannah to be the best city in the best state in which to do business.
The Mayor convened the Business Roundtable in 2012 to deliver on her inaugural promise to ensure the City becomes more responsive to the needs of the local business community. "We've heard for a long time that the City isn't doing enough to make Savannah more business-friendly," Mayor Edna Jackson said. "There's no reason that should be, and my goal with convening the Roundtable was to determine why.”
It was a bold stroke that pledged more than just lip service, or a lifeless report that would be tossed into a file. The Mayor hand-picked Greg Parker, President and CEO of The Parker Companies, to chair the Roundtable because of his visionary and no-nonsense leadership approach. Under Parker’s leadership and the earnest efforts of many of the City’s business luminaries, the Roundtable took, and continues to take, a solemn approach to making Savannah “the best city in which to do business.”
"I wanted specifics,” said Mayor Jackson. “Where do we fall short, why are we falling short, and what steps can we take to create an environment that promotes job creation. Greg Parker has decades of hands-on business experience, knows how to make change and isn't afraid to voice his opinion. He was a great choice to lead this important process."
Parker’s expectant energy is apparent when he asks of the Mayor’s overture to the business community: “How often do you think this kind of open forum -- this invitation for public investigation and dialogue between the city and the community -- happens anywhere?”
Raising the Bar and Defining Progress
The Roundtable defined progress by asking tough questions; questions for which they knew the City might not like the answers. How does Savannah currently stack up against other U.S. cities in Forbes, or other prominent rankings? They looked into the best practices of successful city/business relationships and made sense of Savannah’s own placement.
“What we want to do here is to bring a CEO’s mentality, a shrewd business mentality, to city government,” says Parker. “We want the city to be respected as a thriving organization, so that we can attract other thriving businesses to Savannah.”
Strengthening Communications
Parker feels that developing a multi-faceted marketing plan and communication strategy for the City of Savannah is key. “Savannah has a strong brand - it’s known as a beautiful historic city. But is it known as a great city in which to do business? Not according to the surveys.”
Part of building up Savannah’s professional brand will also depend upon communicating small wins. Parker asserts that many useful resources are already available within the City that people are not yet aware of. “We’ve got to figure out what the things are that we’re doing wrong with our processes and our messaging, then we’ve got to toot our own horn.”
Customer Service: the Citizen as Customer
Customer service recommendations put forth by the Roundtable reflected a “customer first” culture based on the Parker’s model of hiring for emotional competency and training for customer satisfaction. Talk often revolved around the lack of client focus exhibited by city personnel, which would require an entire shift in hiring perspective. “In my own experience, I’ve found that it’s easier to take a happy person and make him competent than it is to take a competent person and make him happy,” commented Parker.
The group also recommended the addition of integrated online services (which the City is already beginning to implement), mystery shoppers, and mobile-accessible exit surveys. “If people know they’re being reviewed and monitored, the chances that their behavior is going to improve are huge,” Parker said. “So people respect what you inspect. What gets measured gets done. Those are adages we use in our company a lot and we want to bring that same idea to the City of Savannah.”
Streamlining Processes
Regarding processes (e.g. license and permit approvals, requests for proposals and procurement processes), Parker observed that “the left hand sometimes doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.” Purchasing practices, for instance, can be unclear and change quickly, costing businesses time and money in the preparation of their bids. “What’s going to happen over time is that people aren’t going to want to participate in the RFP’s if they don’t believe in the process."
Transparency and strategic, effective communication, as in all other key areas, are critical in the streamlining of City processes. “I think it would be a great idea for the City to try to go through the process themselves, and to try to understand if everything is making sequential sense and the entities are connecting in a linear fashion. If not, determine what we can do to improve.”
In addition to creating an Ombudsman position with the weight of the City Manager’s office behind it to shepherd businesses through processes, and developing a “Doing Business Guide” that clearly identifies resources complete with process checklists, the Roundtable also put forth the idea of creating a one-stop shop, with City licensing and development approval processes under one roof.
Stimulating Economic Development
The Roundtable agreed on the existence of statutes and policies within the City that are burdensome to businesses. Says Parker, “I don’t think a lot of people within the City government are even aware of all the obstacles faced by someone trying to open a new business in Savannah.”
When businesses are considering cities in which to set up shop, Parker specifically fears that Savannah often loses a place in the discussion because of its inventory tax. “This is being penny wise and pound foolish. If major players are building outside the city because each of their manufactured components are being individually taxed, we’re not collecting property tax or enjoying any of the other benefits of having relevant, big business in the heart of our community.”
Parker suggested to the City Council that a “master citywide plan” concerning the City’s economic development with clear and regular messaging needs to be put forth by the City. “The truth is that the cities continually ranking at the top of national lists are already doing this, and doing it well. We need to develop our goals, develop a scorecard with clearly defined and attainable metrics, and consistently track our performance and make it available to the public.”
Continuum of Accountability
Over the past two years, in an effort to make itself more business friendly, the City of Savannah has:
- Relocated its permitting and inspections office to a more central location with ample parking on Abercorn south of DeRenne.
- Moved to a new online development services portal that allows customers to apply for many kind of permits online, and then track the progress of that permit online.
- Improved customer services training at Development Services.
- Held special community permitting days, which allow the public to apply for a permit or ask questions about the process at off-site locations, such as Home Depot.
- Held regular development services open houses, which allow the public to meet one-on-one with professional staff after hours.
For Greg Parker, the satisfaction of knowing that the “living, breathing” report the group produced would continue to evolve and inform in perpetuity makes it all worthwhile. “I think one of the things that’s really great about this administration under Mayor Jackson,” said Parker, “is that her council and her people within the City, Stephanie Cutter on down, all want to do a fantastic job and make things better. There’s a lot of energy around this; people are so excited.”
To read more about the Business Roundtable’s concerns and recommendations, please read SavannahCEO.com’s story on Mayor Jackson’s Roundtable Report.
