Business Community Gives Poway 4 out of 5 in Survey

On a scale of 1 to 5, with five being the highest, Poway's business community ranked doing business in Poway a 4 in a recently released survey.

The survey, sent as a follow-up to the city's first Poway Business Summit, also reported the current business and economic climate, marketing and employee recruitment as major business challenges.

The summit, held Jan. 26 at the Hampton Inn & Suites located in the Poway Business Park, was co-hosted by the Poway Chamber of Commerce and the city and examined ways Poway can strengthen and improve the business environment in the community. Representatives from about 70 Poway commercial, industrial, manufacturing and retail businesses attended.

The survey was sent to summit participants and other Poway business owners after the event. Responses came from 33 businesses, 84 percent of which were small businesses with 10 employees or less.    

The majority of respondents found the summit to be helpful, with 75 percent of summit attendees ranking their experience between 4 and 5. Respondents appreciated the city’s interest in learning business needs and said they enjoyed meeting with city staff, meeting with other businesses and sharing marketing ideas.

But as the recession continues and sales tax revenue remains low, both businesses and the city are struggling—and the city said it's responding.

The top three ideas and suggestions reported by all of the groups included better and more consistent communication between the city and businesses, an online directory of local businesses and a review of the city’s sign ordinance.

“I thought it was very successful and I thought it achieved the goals that we were hoping to achieve, which was to hear from local businesses about how Poway can support Poway’s business environment,” said Ingrid Alverde, the city’s Redevelopment Services manager. “With the economic climate being difficult, the council and the committee wanted to make sure that Poway and the Chamber of Commerce were doing everything they could to support the local businesses.”

The city is already working on an online directory of local businesses, which was one of the main ideas presented at the summit. For now, there is information on Poway’s website regarding businesses that have business certificates, Alverde explained.

City staff and Cal State San Marcos students are working to enhance that database to provide more information, including descriptions, about local businesses. Alverde said the data collection should be completed in May.

“We are hoping to provide descriptions about what each business does that might provide more insight to help businesses connect with each other,” Alverde said. “Hopefully, businesses will be able to look online and find other businesses that are either providing similar services, or providing services that they need to get, so that local businesses can get their services from other local businesses, if possible.”

In addition, the city of Poway and the Poway Chamber of Commerce are partnering for a series of focus group meetings with Poway businesses.

The first focus group was held on March 10 for manufacturing and distributing businesses. The next focus group will be help on April 21 for retailers and property owners.

“The city and chamber are going to continue to work together to get more information from the focus groups and also work together to implement any additional ideas or thoughts that come up as a result of this process,” Alverde said. “It will be an ongoing process to take this information and continue working with local businesses to strengthen their growth and their success here in Poway.”

“I thought the contributions were extremely important, for the city and for the chamber, for hearing from a diverse population of business owners,” said Poway Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Luanne Hulsizer. “The feedback from the survey represented the majority of the comments that were shared that evening. It was encouraging.”

At the summit, attendees selected from four discussion topics: city services and communications, business-to-business opportunities, marketing and training, and networking. Participants held discussions in topic-specific groups. After the group discussions, a member from each group presented the top three ideas or suggestions from the group to all of the event participants.

Hulsizer expects the focus group findings to be published on the city and chamber’s websites in June.