LED-Local Economic Development

TOOLS TO SUPPORT BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
AND A GOOD BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

BUSINESS CALLING PROGRAM / SURVEYING LOCAL BUSINESSES

THE CHALLENGE

One of the most important but often forgotten parts of LED is assistance to existing businesses. Local government should better understand the needs, problems and demands of local businesses. Also, the private sector representatives need a tool to express their views and opinions. In this way, a program of regular meetings between public and private sector representatives and a business survey following from this program creates the premises for effective communication between local government and the business community.

WHAT IS A BUSINESS CALLING PROGRAM?
WHAT IS A BUSINESS SURVEY?
HOW TO PROCESS AND INTERPRET DATA, HOW TO PREPARE A FINAL REPORT?
HOW TO USE THE BAS RESULTS
USEFUL INTERNET ADDRESSES

WHAT IS A BUSINESS CALLING PROGRAM?

It is necessary to understand that the number of jobs and size of investments created by existing companies is often as important as the number of jobs created by new investors. For each city, it is also easier and less costly to create an environment supporting the growth of existing businesses than it is to attract new firms. And finally, managers of existing companies often become the best promoters of your city. Site selection managers often contact managers of existing companies and are interested in how a city behaves toward its businesses.

It is very useful to have:

communication and information channels between city hall (public institutions) and companies
regular meetings on which business leaders can discuss with local government its problems and barriers of further development
regular contacts with Chamber of Commerce or other representative of businesses

However, the most welcome way (by company managers) is a system of regular visits to businesses. It is very much appreciated when the mayor (or his deputy) visits the most important businesses at least once a year, meets with their management and discusses the issues important both for development of the specific company and business in general. In addition to these leadership meetings, an even more specific and focused example of a business calling program is called “business surveying” when visits by city staff to companies are used to fill in a questionnaire that can be evaluated so that overall problems of companies are better identified.

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WHAT IS A BUSINESS SURVEY?

Business Attitude Surveys (BAS) collect and analyze collective and individual attitudes and perceptions of firms that create jobs and employ the community’s citizens. Basically, a BAS is a survey for collecting data from the local companies concerning two main issues: businesses dynamics and their opinions vis-à-vis the performance of local governments.

In developed free market countries, the relationship between the public and private sectors, and its cultivation through business calling programs are an essential part of every city’s economic development program. However, Central European communities, as yet, have not organized such programs, and most employers have never been asked what they think about municipal services, labor force productivity or the future of the community. Evaluating the city’s existing business climate through a Business Attitude Survey is an opportunity to learn what business thinks, and at the same time, to inform a key segment of the business community about the City’s interest and dedication to overall business prosperity. The best way to learn what employers think about the community is by meeting with them individually to seek answers to carefully crafted questions.

Because of the above, BAS is an important LED exercise. City halls can grasp better the critical elements of the local economy (dynamic, key sectors, vital elements for further development, etc.). Data collected can help city administrators to improve their services offered to private companies, to create active communication channels, to create private-public partnerships and to integrate them into city development plans or strategies.

The process of BAS should be repeated over time, with data updated on regular basis - every two or three years. A database can be set up so that the development and progress of the local economy can be observed.

Survey results are of course not only useful to Local Government. They also represent a valuable source of information for business associations, Chamber of Commerce, vocational schools, training providers or labor offices for adjusting their services and performance. BAS can also be very useful to foreign investors who want to analyze the local business environment as they make investment plans.

a. Organization for the BAS

It is expected that orchestration of the BAS will be initiated by one person (e.g., the mayoror economic development director) dedicated to improving relations between the business community and local government. The success of the survey, however, depends on the level of involvement and of cooperation among several interest groups. That is why a working group including representatives of the local government and of the business sector (local employers, associations or the Chamber of Commerce) should be created. This group will plan all activities, decide on a list of participating companies, design a survey form, identify operators, process data, create the report and especially distribute, communicate and disseminate the findings of the BAS. This group will also propose actions to improve the business climate in the city/county.

Recommendation: Since BAS reflects the overall challenges, issues and problems that impact public – private relationships, those involved in designing and conducting the survey should represent both sectors. An active working group is essential to conducting, communicating and reporting the findings of the BAS.

b. Survey’s preparation

Design of the survey should include the following steps:

I. Decide WHAT you want to find out from the respondents. Identify the most important areas of interest. Don’t ask too many open questions and do not discuss too many topics. Remember that business people have very little time for answering such questions, even if they think the topic is relevant. Avoid questions that suggest an answer and avoid redundant questions that will be only be seen as a waste of time.

II. Design the survey as simply as possible. There are two types of questions: closed questions, that the respondent must answer yes or no, and open questions such as why? that require a more detailed answer. Closed questions are easier to evaluate. But in any case you will need to include some open questions.

III. Avoid using special or technical terminology that the respondents may not necessarily know, and be very specific in the questions. Remember: not everybody understands legislation, technical terms, or short-hand references to general terms.

IV. Establish what kind of and how many businesses you want to interview. If you target a large number of respondents, decide how many to interview in each category.

All BAS related activities should be scheduled. An action plan should be created in order to assure an effective monitoring and controlling system for activities implemented. Generally 2-3 months should be enough time for a well-conducted BAS.

a. Questionnaires preparation

The questionnaire used by USAID’s LED project for surveying businesses in many Ukrainian cities in 2005/2006 is attached as Annex 1. This questionnaire may be adjusted according to specific needs for a certain type of information, and for the specificity of the community, such as specific economic sectors or major events (substantial downsizing in important companies, massive inflow of new investors) in the local economy. Working groups can adjust the questionnaires, emphasizing some of the questions or eliminating some parts of either the questions or choices for responses. In general, each BAS should discuss these issues: basic information about companies and their problems, sales and customers, current and future employment levels, future investment plans, need for public improvement, and opinions about local business climate issues, including local government services. An opportunity for respondents to express both positive and negative attitudes should be offered.

(See more details in the paragraph below entitled “Questionnaire and data collection”)

b. Preparation of companies list

The survey should include all major businesses and entrepreneurs in the municipality and also in surrounding areas, which employ residents of the municipality. The number of interviews will depend upon the size and nature of the employment base, but the minimum number is at least the twenty-five largest employers and several entrepreneurs.

Companies should be selected by:

Type of companies: industrial, transportation, construction and service companies should be interviewed preferably. The survey should not include public sector and not-for profit companies (city hall, schools, state institutions, hospitals, etc.) even if many of them may be the major employers in the area. Generally we are interested in all those companies have the power to make a decision to leave the city for economic reasons.
Size of companies: all the major employers in the production and service sectors should be interviewed. The survey however should include representatives of all types of companies - micro (up to 9 employees), small (9 - 49 employees), medium (50 – 249 employees), large (250 – 499 employees), and very large (more than 500 employees).
Most dynamic and important economic sectors in community
Ownership of companies: The sample should include all important foreign companies that are active in the community.
Geographical distribution of the companies (if doing the survey in district, the survey must not include only companies from the capital city; on the other hand if there is only headquarters in the city and production plants are in adjacent rural area, you will want to include such a company).

A significant matter when selecting companies is their level of activity. As we know, there are many companies registered but not all of them are active. We need to include only active companies in our sample. A relevant indicator of a company‘s level of activity is the annual declaration of revenues and expenses.

A reasonable pool of companies at the community level shall have 50 companies for an area of 200,000 inhabitants. The selection should be made by the working group from the database available to the local Commerce Registry. The selection should be made using a systematic sampling.

Recommendation: The sample should follow the structure of the active companies registered at the Local Commerce Register. The sample should reflect a community’s business structure regarding its size, geographical distribution and sectors of activity.

a. Training of operators

Members of the working group and representatives of local government may do all the interviewing. Business owners and managers usually appreciate the visit of an appointed or elected city official. However, if there is a large number of companies in the sample, it may be practical to use other operators. We strongly recommend not to send the questionnaire by mail! In such a case the return rate would be about 10 %. The number of operators conducting the survey depends on the size of the sample and the time frame for the survey. Operators can be members of employers associations, public servants, students, etc. It is essential that, prior to the data collection, they are trained in all elements of the survey: purpose and finality, organizations involved, questionnaires’ structure, how questionnaires will be handled, confidentiality matters, etc. Because of natural logistical and organizational limits, one operator usually cannot conduct more than 5-6 surveys per day (20 – 25 surveys per week).

It is important that all operators have a proper understanding of the survey (purpose, methodology, outcomes, clients, deadlines, etc.). They should be able to respond to any questions related to the survey. They must especially be able to guarantee to the interviewed business person that all answers will remain confidential, and will be presented only in aggregate form.

A special emphasis should be made on using similar methods in collecting the data. Operators should use similar badges, should have fixed texts for making introductions and should have uniform methods for, filling in the questionnaire.

Recommendation: Operators should be carefully selected and trained since they are the interface with the clients. It is highly recommended not to send for data collection operators who do not fully understand the survey’s principles and finalities.

b. Interviews/ Data collection

Operators have to make appointments via telephone, to use similar introduction formula and to meet “the decision-making business representatives” - either managers or business owners - in person. No other techniques of collecting data should be allowed. It always helps the process if the mayor sends a letter explaining the purpose of the BAS to company directors and managers in advance.

When contacting business representatives on the telephone, operators should introduce themselves, present the purpose of the phone call and after that they should explain the purpose of the BAS.

In the field, operators should identify themselves through an ID issued by the organizations they belong to. When meeting business representatives, operators should be explicit on the goals of the BAS. Also, operators have to be clear and precise about confidentiality issues: no business‘ and no person’s name will be provided to anyone. No personal or company-specific business data will be provided in the BAS..

Recommendation: The interview shouldn’t be longer than 45 minutes since managers are very busy people. However, operators should insist on collecting as much information as possible, either quantitative, or qualitative data. All additional findings and comments should be noted. When the client is reluctant to provide data, operator should not excessively persist.

At the end of the interview, operators will remind managers that they will receive a copy of the final BAS report. They should also reinforce the confidentiality of the process and ask for the identification data of the company, which will be used only for statistical purposes.

c. Data processing and interpretation

One member of the working group comfortable with working in MS Excel and with understanding of basic statistics should be responsible for data processing. All collected data will be input into an Excel format (see Annex 2) that will generate the primary calculations automatically. The data will be initially processed based on the answers of individual questions (i.e., number of employees, most important barriers of development, rating of LG services)

An in-depth analysis will follow by looking for relationships between relevant elements, such as:

size or types of businesses and dynamics of investments or workforce,
size or types of businesses and plans to move, relocate, expand locally or expand elsewhere,
size or types of businesses and satisfaction with quality of public services, etc.

More details about data processing and interpretation are presented below in section “Data processing, interpretation and final report”.

d. Report development and presentation of the findings to Local Government Unit and business representatives

Main findings of the survey should be integrated into a report accompanied by a presentation to both private and public sector representatives.

The report should include an introduction, a short presentation of the methodology, the main findings, the status of businesses and general development of businesses at the local level, including sales and export orientation, labor and employment issues, business property and investments and especially local government services and satisfaction with relations between business and government, and most importantly, conclusions. The report should be accompanied with charts and tables. Results of surveys in other cities are available for benchmarking with results for your city at the USAID LED website, www.led.net.ua

Recommendation: An active working group is essential for communicating the BAS findings to the business sector, to the public sector and to the general public. The entire municipal community should be aware of the main issues of the business sector in connection with the public administration’s actions or plans. Also, the working group has the important role of proposing actions to improve relations and communications between the local government and business.

Finally, it is crucial that the findings are followed by recommendations and suggestions of how to improve the business climate and relationship between the public and business sectors. The findings of the survey should serve as premises for plans and actions that will finally lead to improvements of the business environment in the community and of the services provided by the local government.

A copy of the report should be sent to all respondents, and offered to local media and to other institutions that might be interested in the results.

More details about report are presented in section “Data processing, interpretation and final report”.

The questionnaire “framework” has 25 main questions, most of which are close-ended questions. Still, several questions are open-ended in order to allow respondents to make comments and express their views and opinions.

The questions have been formulated in order to identify trends in a company’s development, the quality of local government services, and the relationship between companies and LG.

The questionnaire is structured in five sections:

Basic information about business

General information on the company: type of business and year of set-up, headquarters location, equity structure, main barriers of development, export orientation - geographical distribution of sales, amount and prognosis of sales. We are also interested in finding what attracts the business to the municipality or region and why it might wish to stay here.

Employees and labor force

Basic data regarding the workforce: numbers and categories of employees (including women, university graduates and commuters) for the present, past and future, and average salaries. The employer is asked if he/she is satisfied with the quality of the labor force and, if supplementary qualifications are required, what kind of profession or qualification is missing. Also, the company is asked where and how they find new employees (University, high school, Labor Office?).

Property and investment plans

Information about investments: if the company owns or leases the location; if the actual properties are enough; if there is a need for additional space / building; what are the company‘s plans to expand in this location, elsewhere in country or if it plans to move, why is. Also asked is the planned amount of money invested and number of jobs to be created if expansion is expected..

Government services and relations

Companies are asked to express their opinion about the type and quality of services provided by the local government, about the type of services that should be provided in order to make the community more attractive for the business sector, and about what services should be improved first and how.

Innovation capacity, research and development

Provides information about R&D capacity of the firm, asks about the role of innovation in the company’s strategy and about the potential for involvement of the company in the modern economy.

Overall impressions

The questionnaire ends with questions about the company’s general opinions on strengths and weaknesses of the locality, positive and negative aspects of the local government‘s performance, and attitudes to the community as a business location.

The operators conducting the interviews will write down responses onto the questionnaire forms. They should go through all the questions, asking for detailed answers. Operators must also write down all comments made by the companies during the interview. This is because if we really want a rich and comprehensive image of the business climate, not only quantitative data, but also comments and suggestions of the business sector representatives are necessary.

Recommendation: It may be useful to provide the interviewed person with a copy of the questionnaire so that he can see the questions while the operator is interviewing him.

Depending on the type of the question (close-ended or open-ended), the operator will input the responses on the form in diffferent ways. .For close-ended questions, he/she has either to check the answers, or to write down the numbers (e.g.. number of employees). For open-ended questions, the operator should write down, as concisely as possible, the answer of the respondent.

At the end, the operator should ask for identification data of the respondent and of its company. He/she should make sure that the confidentiality of the responses are respected.

Recommendation: Do not forget that the survey has to be flexible and adapted to the specificity of the environment. The questionnaire LED is presently using can be adapted. Additional questions can be added to a specific section, or some of the existing questions can be adapted according to the information needs of the organizations that conduct the survey.

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HOW TO PROCESS AND INTERPRET DATA, HOW TO PREPARE A FINAL REPORT?

Data processing

Once the interview is completed, all the questionnaires should be collected in one place. The next step is to transfer the data from paper form into an Excel (Microsoft) sheet in order to facilitate the data processing. Data from each company are written into one row, and the results can then be calculated in individual columns. Data processing can be done by anyone on the team who is familiar with the basic capabilities of Excel.

Recommendation: Ideally have one, but no more than two, persons inputting the data from questionnaires into the worksheet. Otherwise the risk of losing data is increases.

A trained person can input data from 1 questionnaire into an Excel sheet within 5-8 minutes, so it is useful to have one person trained for this purpose. Usually each row in the table should start with the general information (name of companies, address etc.). The answers to the individual questions will be input according to the type of question and answer (closed or open)..

You will have to pay particular attention to several issues:

For all questions concerning the percentage (such as “percentage of sales” or “quality of workforce”) – it has to be checked whether the sum is 100% (and corrected, if necessary);
Wherever the choice is yes or no, it is practical to write down Yes = 1, No = 2;
Notes should be written in comments for individual cells if necessary;
Number of Employees one year from now – if the company did not provide any estimate, it is recommended to fill in the same number as the current year;
If the company did not provide data for average salary, its employees cannot be calculated in total average salary;
All numbers (sales, salaries, investments, jobs) must be input in the same “number” form, i.e. answers such as “50 thousands”, “about 300”, “25-30” should be transferred into numbers (50,000; 300; 27.5);
Be careful when writing “0” if there is no answer or no opinion – in some cases this may lead to errors in evaluation. It is always better to leave the space blank.

Interpretation of results

Once all data are put in, we can start the interpretation operations. Interpretation should be done by those members of the team who are familiar with the more advanced functions of the BAS worksheet. In any event, the spreadsheet is set up to generate automatically a number of basic results. These results should be used to make connections between the variables on the questionnaire.

The first level of analysis is the so-called univariate distribution. Each question is evaluated separately. Frequency distributions and percentage distributions are included in this category. In addition to these simple distributions, we can calculate measures of central tendencies. The most common ones are the median (positional measure that divides the distribution into two equal parts) and arithmetic mean (measure of central tendency most frequently used). The worksheet can be set up to generate directly the primary results. In this step we receive the basic results, such as number of employees, ownership structure, average salary, rates for local government services, etc.

Figure 1: Distribution for the equity structure referred to companies and employees

Please note: The number of questionnaires (companies) is generally used as the reference number, and the worksheet provides for results such as “number (share) of companies planning to invest” or “number of companies missing specific professions”. However, there are questions where it is useful to have measures such as “number of employees” or “sales” as a the reference number. The evaluator should find out which characteristics are appropriate for the specific question. As an illustration see Fig. 1 where the equity structure from one and the same region is first referred to by number of companies (e.g., 4% of the companies interviewed were foreign) and then to the number of employees in these companies (10% of employees are employed in state owned firms).

In the second step at this level of analysis, the type of business is the important reference. For example, questionnaires (companies) are usually divided according to size (small, medium, large), ownership (state, physical persons, domestic legal persons, foreign entities, cooperatives), and industrial sector (machinery, textile, food, construction, transportation, etc.). Questions are evaluated separately in all these categories. Figure 2 illustrates possible results received in this second step.

Figure 2: Share of companies missing specific skills and professions

IMPORTANT: At the beginning of step two, the operator should code the business type. The allocation of the code (a, b, c, d, e) can be done by type of business (machinery, etc.) or by size of the business (micro, small, middle-size, large and extra large companies). It is practical to work with 4 – 6 subgroups so that each is represented by at least 10 businesses.

In the third step, a secondary level of analysis (or bivariate analysis) can be done looking for relationships between two or more variables (questions/answers) of the questionnaire. For instance, we can be interested in what type of businesses (sectors) are investing more and what is the correlation with new jobs. Similar operations can be made in the same way in order to analyze different relationships. Among the most often used are:

size or types of businesses and levels of sales per region or per employee;
size or types of businesses and desired public services;
level of investments and satisfaction with LG services;
average salary and satisfaction with work force quality;
export orientation and size or type of businesses;
average salary and problems with missing qualification;
level of investments and levels of exports or sales, etc.

Figure 3: Relationship between the type of business, level of investment per employee and relative number of new jobs (per 1 job existing)

To illustrate this step of evaluation, Figure 3 presents a chart that compares the level of investment and relative number of new jobs in different type of companies. It is obvious that new jobs are being created most often among small companies. At the same time we can see that comparable investment activity brings the largest number of new jobs at innovative firms (innovative firms are those with R&D departments).

IMPORTANT: With 25 questions, the survey provides for 300 different relations between two questions. The challenge for the evaluator is to identify the most important and valuable to be used for evaluation and conclusions.

Final report preparation

The numbers, charts and tables are interesting and useful, however the main output of the evaluation phase should be the final report. It should answer the question whether the survey has been worthwhile, sum up all definite conclusions that can be drawn from the general answers and mention any new findings and specific issues that we originally overlooked.

It is recommended that the report starts with an introduction and short presentation of the methodology followed by the main findings. This will attract potential readers to study the entire text. Each of the areas of interest then should have its own chapter in the report, so we usually end up with the following:

a) status of businesses and general development of businesses at local level

b) sales and customers, export orientation,

c) labor and employment issues,

d) business property, sites and buildings,

e) further investments and innovation capacity,

f) evaluation of LG services and relations,

g) conclusions.

The conclusions section could describe interesting factors which did not result directly from the survey:

trends or dynamic of sales, investments, and workforce,
quality of the primary positive elements that stimulate the economic life or negative ones that impede the community from becoming a business friendly environment;
services required by the business sector and some solutions that business sector foresees, etc…

An additional section of suggestions can be added if the working group considers it appropriate.

All statements from report should be sustained by facts and numbers. Also, the report should contain as much graphs as possible. It will help the reader to understand easier the entire report.

Response to BAS results – general

General problems with local business climate identified in BAS performed in more than 150 cities and regions in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine within last 5 years can be divided into the following areas:

City Hall services and bureaucracy

Improve cooperation in explaining, application and implementation of government regulations
Expand City Hall office hours; better communication and a customer orientation of the administrative staff
Reduce bureaucracy, reduce terms of administrative procedures,
Accelerate and increase professionalism in decision-making, set priorities of city needs and keep these priorities
Simplify administrative processes for licenses and permits, make them transparent, remove corruption

Business Support

Support local firms at tender offers issued by the city
Improve access to financial resources for businesses
Improve terms for offering city-owned land for sale or lease
Support local businesses against market sellers
Better communication between businesses and City Hall
Create better conditions for start up businesses
Make available long and short term financial resources for purchase of land and buildings for businesses
Differentiate rents charged for city-owned property to encourage wanted but less profitable services

Road Maintenance and Technical Infrastructure

Bring technical infrastructure into specific areas
Prepare sites for investors by providing infrastructure to those sites
More efficient snow removal from roads, better maintenance of roads
Increase financial resources for road maintenance, overall road upgrading and modernization of the road network to improve traffic safety
Increase number of public transportation routes; guarantee transportation for second shifts
Improve transportation in the city, implement better functioning parking system

Labor force and Human Resources

Match the curriculum of local education institutions with needs of employers
Increase number of technically educated people in the area
Improve language skills of work force

Responses to these problems:

Since many surveys were already performed and in many cases the conclusions of BAS reports become objectives of Strategic plans for economic development, many cities in Ukraine are just implementing measures to react to the findings. Common responses are:

Business oriented ”one stop shops” at City Halls
Regular meetings and cooperation between public and private sector representatives
Construction of sites and buildings for businesses
Regeneration of brownfields
Joint financing of infrastructure improvements
Better organized public transport
Public private partnership for labor force preparation

and many others.

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HOW TO USE THE BAS RESULTS

The survey results can be used in many ways. Among the most important the following should be mentioned:

Continue in communication with businesses!

Businesses usually like participation in BAS and appreciate that local government is interested in their problems. Once the results are collected and final report is prepared, all participants should be informed about the results and plans of local government to improve the local business climate.

Make the positive results public and attract new investors to your town (region)!

Each community has its strengths, and these make it worthwhile for a business to locate there. An active approach of local government towards the needs of businesses is one attractive plus for a community. Positive results of the survey, together with recommendation signed by important local business leaders, will always become an important part of local promotion materials attracting FDI.

Be aware of the negatives and prepare a plan for how to remove them!

General problems identified in the survey (with infrastructure, transportation, local work force, quality of life and many others) should be addressed in a community-based economic development strategic planning effort. Public and private sector leaders together will have to find a consensus on the best economic future of the community and identify realistic actions about how to reach it. The conclusions of BAS should be the base for further decisions in the community. They can be the fundaments of further local economic development strategies or action plans. All action in a community should be based on data. BAS can offer essential information of the business sector, its basic needs and development plans. A smart planner should take all of these factors into account.

Start working with specific companies on their specific problems!

The BAS will identify companies thinking of terminating operations in a town, and will provide the city with notice so that it can take measures to help troubled businesses and to prevent such closures.

Start collecting data about the local economy regularly, create time rows, and identify important trends!

The BAS process should not be abandoned after just one survey. In an ideal situation, it should be repeated every two years so that the city-hall can see the changes both in hard data (employees, salaries, sales, investments) and in attitudes of local businesses. It is also a possible way to benchmark your community against other cities if the survey is performed for a larger area.

Best practices in conducting BAS

One lesson is that the BAS has to be conducted by a local organization that works in cooperation with other organizations from the community. Working jointly, organizations must create a recognized and active working group. All successful BAS‘s have been handled by actively and involved working groups. Very often the main organization was a business association or the City Council. Most imporatnat is that the community stays interested in collecting data about the dynamics of the business sector.

An essential activity is creating a relevant list of the companies. The activity should be done according to the distribution of the companies in the community.
Very important is to ensure that operators master all the procedures related to conducting the collection of the data and of the survey: purpose, results, confidentiality, protocol manners in asking questions, introducing data, etc.
Data processing should be done by persons with computational skills, Word and (especially) Excel abilities. Data input in the spreadsheet should not be a problem and the data analysis is not very complicated – it requires mostly logical thinking.
In creating reports, analysts should focus on relevant issues for community.

The Business Attitude Survey is a powerful tool. It enables local governments and the business sector to collect information about business health and attitudes in the community and also about the performance level of public institutions. The BAS can help to acknowledge the critical issues that obstruct the community’s economic life and the quality of the local government‘s services. BAS is a flexible and easy to use tool. It can be adapted to serve the best interests of all users. The questionnaire can be redesigned in accordance with the information needs and specificity of the local community.

The BAS results can be transformed into objectives of the local action plans or of the local economic development strategy. By taking measurments over time, BAS data can help in monitoring the success of strategic plans for economic development or of other development strategies that the city may use..

The BAS findings can lead to many actions and projects, such as public - private partnerships (improvements in local transportation, water systems, waste selective collection, tourism development areas, parking systems etc.), and improvements in communication between LG and private sector, etc.

The BAS can also help vocational schools, training providers and universities in providing educational services adapted and connected to the real trends of the workforce and in accordance with the local companies’ development plans.

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USEFUL INTERNET ADDRESSES

http://www.bizminer.com/business-research.asp

Web page containing quality industry research and data development. The company pioneers online delivery of detailed industry analysis to small and large businesses and entrepreneurs through its local and national Marketing Plan Research Profiles, Financial Analysis Profiles, Local Business Summaries, State Market Index Profiles, Franchise Profiles and Business Risk Index series.

http://www.2ask.net/

Web page with online surveys which make you possible to: create questionnaires quickly and easily; conduct online surveys at a low price; analyze survey results already during the survey and direct data exchange with Excel and SPSS.

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