What is an organization’s niche? How does it differentiate itself from competition? What is its unique selling proposition?
These are some of the typical questions asked to determine an organization’s edge in a given domain or technology. These continue to be valid questions, but what’s interesting is to look at the edge a city as a whole has.
We are not new to studies that tout lists—such as the top ten technology-driven cities in the US. While these largely focus on technology collectively, niche technologies and domains are also being tied to specific cities.
For example, Seattle not only positions itself strong in the top technology cities in the US year after year, but it has also started to emerge as a city that has its niche in specific areas too. On the technology side, Seattle is looked at as the hub for cloud computing and big data computing. On the domain side, it is strong in spaces such as food and culinary technology businesses and gaining a lot of momentum in digital publishing.
This specialized growth does not stop with top cities that rank in technological lists. Other cities are also silently building their niches. Indianapolis is beginning to be seen as a hub for technology businesses in the charitable domain.
There is a lot of awareness and community-wide involvement to help organizations build niches across the nation and globally, but why is it that some cities take the edge over others? There are several reasons that make specific cities such niche epicenters.
Some core reasons include availability of talent, strong university-industry linkage programs, a few large enterprises to trigger the research and innovation, support from local government, and the required empowerment from venture capitalists to support start-ups in the region—not only in the niche but also in businesses that are founded on the given niche.
Typically the support from local government flows in only after the city has shown some lead in the other areas. One can easily map these to see how Seattle has built its niche in the cloud computing area—not only with players such as Microsoft and Amazon but also through supporting businesses such as Skytap. In the case of Indianapolis, the niche in the charitable domain is primarily driven by the local presence of the most popular philanthropic school in the country, which helps the city bring in talent locally.
Niche growth in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities is good to see and empowers diverse expansions nationwide. With technology’s footprint in every imaginable domain and innovations that are taking user experience to a whole new level, it will be exciting to see what new cities emerge in the years to come.
