Bringing in the jobs - NCS International aids business development through telecommunications

Nation's Business, March, 1994 by Sharon Nelton

There's economic development. Then there's "teleconomic development," a phrase coined by James Beatty, president of NCS International, in Omaha, Neb,, to describe the business in: He uses telecommunicationa as a tool to spur econofree development in such untapped markets as small cities and rural areas.

"I can honestly state that this is the work I was meant to do," says Beatty, 45.

A former employee of Northwestern Bell Telephone Co., which is now part of US West, Beatty went out on his own in 1982, at first starting a telemarketing company and then moving on to telecommunications consulting, helping businesses develop private networks and acquire equipment.

He changed direction again several years later when an executive with the privately owned Hamilton Telephone Co., in Aurora, Neb., called and asked if Beatty could use telecommunications to help bring jobs to Aurora, a town of about 3,800.

Beatty, who had attracted telecommunications and information-related businesses to Omaha in his last assignment with Northwestern Bell, said that he could. Over the next six months, he assisted Hamilton (now Hamilton Communications) in setting up a telemarketing subsidiary and helped it get a subcontract with a large, Omaha-based telemarketing firm that wanted to expand. The project initially created 100 jobs.

"That news spread like wildfire around Nebraska," Beatty says, "and I started getting call after call from communities saying, "We'd like to have jobs. Can you help us get some of these telecommunication jobs?"

Beatty's company, which employs six people, including himself, has since expanded its efforts well beyond Nebraska's borders, working to bring job-creating industries such as reservation centers and data-processing operations to places like Minot, N.D.; Bangor, Maine; and Madisonville, Ky. "We've had a very good success rate--70 to 75 percent of the time," Beatty says, "we've been able to bring jobs in when a community has contracted with us to do so."

Generally, NCS is hired by local, state, or regional economic-development organizations. It provides a variety of services, including devising strategies for attracting telecommunications and information-intensive companies to a community, and linking a community with companies interested in relocation or expansion.

NCS can also assist in the development of "tele-business centers"--mixed-use facilities of 10,000 to 15,000 square feet that offer, under one roof; such resources as telemarketing operations, videoconference rooms, distance-learning opportunities, and even telemedical examining rooms.

Beatty expects sales of $1.5 million to year. And he's addressing the future a ggressively, setting up joint ventures with other economic-development consulting groups and seeking investment for expansion. He recently secured $150,000 from private investors and is looking for an additional $300,000.

Born and raised in Chicago, Beatty wants to help with the economic development not only of rural America but also of the inner cities, and he sees similarities between the two. In both arenas, he says, the labor market is "vastly untapped," a willingness to work exists, and land is available.

Ultimately, Beatty is reaching for a global market, hence the company's just-completed name change to NCS International from National Consulting Systems, Inc.

A man who thrives on challenge, Beatty attended Doane College, in Crete, Neb., on a track scholarship and majored in math "because no one black at school had ever done that before." He also overcame shyness and became a lively public speaker.

A believer that one has to "turn everything into a plus," Beatty advises others to "work at releasing that genius in you. It's there."