The Providence Business News regularly celebrates the best of Rhode Island’s business community. Our awards programs – from the 40 Under Forty, to the Best Places To Work, to the Business Excellence Awards (applications still being accepted!) – identify those individuals and businesses who are setting the pace in the state.
But they also help us take a measure of the health and vitality of the state’s business community. The mere act of applying for and receiving these awards helps the region’s businesses assess their performance, and ultimately to achieve their goals. And in the process, it raises the level of all enterprises.
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The most recent celebration, the 2007 Rhode Island Innovation Awards, is another example of PBN’s continuing commitment to the region. And as a pair of stories in this week’s edition shows, innovation is the hottest topic going these days.
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Quaker Fabric, that venerable textile manufacturer, closed its doors this summer when it could not stop the hemorrhaging of cash, despite a strong product line and reputation. It was a victim in many ways of globalization: with so many furniture makers shifting manufacturing to Asia, it did not make sense for them to purchase fabric from a Fall River company.
But the things that Quaker has done well – including the creation of textured fabrics, chenille and novelty yarns – were innovative enough to persuade Canadian textile maker Victor Innovatex to buy Quaker’s assets and start the business back up, albeit on a much smaller scale. The goal was to become more responsive to customer needs.
It is not enough to have good ideas. Businesses must be nimble enough to bring them online quickly.
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This week’s Main Street profile is on Schwadesign, a Pawtucket design firm with three full-time employees, but a network that reaches across the country. Owner Josh Silverman has put an Internet Age operation in place, using designers in ever-changing combinations to serve the needs of his clients. At present, the firm has 80 projects running, something that would not be possible without tapping into this extensive network.
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Readers will note that this week’s edition of PBN contains an insert that profiles all seven winners of Innovation Awards, a program the PBN co-founded with the R.I. Economic Development Corporation.
We presented the awards at the end of August, during a banquet held in conjunction with the Tech Collective’s Tech Laureates Night. Read about the winners. Their success is instructive, and a sign that this business community is sowing the seeds for continuing success. •
Hattie Bryant invites you to
watch a one- to four-minute video tip each day about best business practices from
the weekly television show, Small Business School.
