The Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Lethbridge (EDL) are working together for a survey of the local business community.
This is the 4th iteration of the Lethbridge Brighter Together survey, which looks to poll local businesses to gather feedback regarding what is working well and what needs to be worked on in the community.
Both EDL and the chamber use these results to help develop strategies that will lead to success for small, medium and larger employers in Lethbridge.
According to CEO of Economic Development Lethbridge, Trevor Lewington, the results of the Brighter Together survey are used to evaluate how to make potential programs better for businesses to succeed.
“We use the results of the Brighter Together survey to evaluate potential programs to better help businesses to succeed. Over the past few years, for example, we’ve developed a Supply Chain Automation Pilot Program to help businesses investigate implementing new technologies, offered businesses options for energy aggregation to save on utility costs and created learning opportunities on topics including marketing, exporting, scale up & growth and much more,” says Trevor Lewington.”Bench marking is a key point of the Brighter Together survey and asking similar questions each year allows us to track trends and provide statistical data to confirm the work our organizations need to do to best help out local businesses.”
Results from last year showed that 74 per cent of business owners felt positive about their overall business health, top 3 advantages to doing business here in Lethbridge were quality of life, transportation infrastructure, and a collaborative environment and the biggest barriers were utilities cost, tax environment and workforce availability.
This year the survey is asking questions specific to businesses in the downtown area. The Brighter Together survey, in partnership with the Downtown Lethbridge Revitalization Zone (BRZ), will be asking businesses located downtown questions about intentions on keeping their business downtown and what their level of satisfaction on certain criteria for operating in the downtown area.
Community Director with Downtown Lethbridge BRZ, Sarah Amies, says “Having a safe and economically viable downtown is crucial for Lethbridge and this survey will help us determine the needs of businesses located in the heart of our city,” says Amies.
“We know downtown Lethbridge has a huge number of businesses, many are start-ups and family run businesses so it’s important for them to provide feedback as to where we can help the most.”
Results of the Brighter Together survey will be made available in January and presented at the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce State of the City with Mayor Blaine Hyggen.
The Brighter Together survey will be available until mid-December and can be found here.