Customer-centricity is the key. Businesses need help in many areas, including permitting, workforce acquisition and development, and obtaining economic and demographic data for use in developing business plans, site selection, and making projections. According to participants, help is on the way. North Carolina, for example, established a single point of entry for rulemaking. Eleven states are working with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and almost a dozen software vendors to help eliminate duplicate reporting, speed processing, and reduce errors.
Collaboration also involves new forms of public-private partnerships.
Participants said that such partnerships are complex, largely due to a lack of trust in government. Public trust has eroded by nearly 50 percent over the past 40 years, according to experts. No one argues that this trend needs to be reversed, and is key to establishing truly productive public-private partnerships. Participants talked about John Koskinen, who managed the successful federal Y2K effort, demonstrated the importance of this private-public partnership. Under his direction, there was collaboration with 25 working groups across the nation and 127 nations worldwide.