The study was organized by the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, the regional chamber of commerce. Their goal in this study is to examine the short-term and long-term impact of the pandemic.
“The timing of the survey was intentional to come out after all the SBA stuff is out in the marketplace,” Dottie Gallagher, President and CEO, said. “Now we can really start to identify where the gaps in support and what is it that businesses really need in order to recover.”
Questions will range from businesses being asked to list their concerns in the coming weeks and concerns over several months. Gallagher said businesses will be asked about what steps they’ve taken to manage the impact on their bottom line, readiness for this impact in preparation for a future pandemic, what impacts the pandemic has had on their workforce, and more.
“The whole survey is being designed to take less than ten minutes,” Gallagher said.
Last week, Erie County announced the creation of a business task force that will help local businesses that are struggling to respond to the pandemic. The task force is collecting data from businesses to help create short-term and long-term economic policy recommendations during and after the pandemic.
“Where we are right now is, as we begin to re-open the economy, we need to make sure we are really working together to do it in the smartest way possible,” Gallagher said. “That’s why we need to understand what kinds of help industries need to get past this. It’s going to be very challenging and it’s going to take time.”
The survey for businesses will close on April 24. After the data is collected, Mower, a third-party survey expert, will analyze the data. A free webinar will be held on May 5 to recap the findings of the data.