1. A Wealth of Valuable Information. LEAP can be tailored to represent any community, county or region, as well as combinations of these areas. It provides a large volume of key information, which would take considerable cost and resources to assemble separately.

The core data on employment and business output (patterns and shifts over time) is provided through a cooperative agreement with Minnesota IMPLAN Group, Inc. (MIG). It is developed from information compiled by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Zip and County Business Patterns, and the Economic Census, with additional enhancement to provide full details for small areas without suppression. We update aggregate estimates using information from more recent Dun & Bradstreet.

Additional information on local concentration of international exports and local purchasing patterns is also provided by MIG under cooperative agreement. The export estimates are based on International Trade Administration data, while further analysis of local source purchasing is derived from calibrated IMPLAN models.

Local travel times, accessibility measures, delivery markets and labor markets are derived from highway network drive times along with business and demographic data, using a Geographic Information System (GIS) from ESRI.

Other local information includes: (a) Workforce characteristics, educational attainment and housing purchase and rental costs derived from the US Census; (b) Utility costs derived from the Energy Information Administration, Edison Electric Institute and Energy User News; (c) Local taxes and government revenues compiled from the Census of Government; (d) Airport, marine port, and freight intermodal facility locations and characteristics are based on inventories maintained by the US Dept of Transportation.

2. A Wide Range of Useful Reports. LEAP provides you with the capability to generate a broad set of reports that can be useful for internal decision-making and for outside dissemination and public relations.

Profile your local area in terms of the size and characteristics of its economy, as well as factors affecting business attraction such as the size of the labor market and delivery market, availability of transportation and broadband telecommunications facilities, and workforce education.
Track how your local area economy is changing over time, in terms of its gains and loses in employment and/or business sales in various local industries. Also identify local industries where local business sales are gaining while jobs are dropping as a result of increasing outsourcing and/or mechanization).

Compare the performance of your local area against adjacent or competing areas (or the state as a whole), to identify how the local area has been over- or under-performing in terms of its business mix and business growth performance.

Benchmark the competitiveness of your local area in terms of relative differences in workforce skills, educational attainment, transportation access, broadband penetration, and quality of industrial parks. Output Reports.

3. Unique and Incisive Diagnostics. LEAP applies EDR Group's proprietary "Regional Opportunity Diagnostics" (ROD) analysis engine to provide you with unique indicators to guide a business growth and attraction strategy for your area.

Barriers holding back your area's current economic performance: LEAP identifies the specific factors that are constraining local business growth and attraction, and the specific industries that are being constrained.

Target Industries that represent opportunities for business attraction. LEAP identifies the best industries to focus on, the magnitude of the potential opportunity and the extent of uncertainty associated with it. It also identifies mutually supporting and complementary industries that can also be part of a cluster development strategy.

Policy Actions that can affect the type and size of industry growth opportunities and targets. LEAP allows you to estimate how proposed scenarios for enhancing industrial parks, transportation infrastructure, job training and business support services may change target opportunities.