Technology Indices Measure Vitality of Regional Technology Sectors

Two organizations with seemingly the same goal in mind recently released statistics on the health of their region's technology sectors. Relying on different methods, the Pittsburgh Technology Council (PTC) and the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance (SARTA) both analyze and report the impact of technology clusters on the local economy.

PTC's annual State of the Industry report gathers growth indicators from state and federal resources to track southwestern Pennsylvania's employment statistics, number of tech companies, and total annual payroll for information technology, life science, advanced manufacturing, advanced materials, and environmental technology industries. According to PTC, the goal is to quantify the impact and draw attention to the region's significant technological resources.

The 13-county analysis also features an overview of eight emerging clusters such as robotics, supercomputing and nanotechnology. In addition to industry-specific measurements, the report also provides numerical data that include R&D expenditures at universities, average annual SBIR funding, and venture capital disbursements.

While PTC utilizes several outside and existing sources to gauge regional technological growth, SARTA created its own tool that measures both private and public companies. The SARTA Technology Index tracks the 50 leading high-tech and life science companies driving growth in the nine-county region. Based on proprietary software developed by SARTA, the numerical value of the index is used to calculate movement in the financial metrics of revenue, employees, and equity capital raised. The index originally was set to a base of 100.00 at its initiation in 2003 and is updated on a quarterly basis, SARTA said.

Through the index, SARTA is able to monitor the tech sector within the region and identify companies that demonstrate success in order to attract venture capital to the area. In 2004, a deal to license the software was made with the Greater Dallas Chamber so the alliance could customize the index for the city. The index is the first regional index of its kind, according to SARTA's CEO Oleg Kaganovich.

Both PTC and SARTA reported overall growth for their respective regions. According to PTC's year ending 2003 report, technology firms represented more than 10.3 percent of all companies in the region and average wages for tech industries increased by 8 percent. With a value of 149.79, SARTA's Tech Index for the fourth quarter of 2004 reflects a 14 percent increase from the preceding quarter and a 32 percent rise for the full year.

The Pittsburgh State of the Industry Report 2005 is available at: http://news.pghtech.org/report.cfm. More information on SARTA's Technology Index is available at: http://www.sarta.org/TechIndex.aspx