On Thursday October 29, and Friday October 30, 2015 the Town of Oliver and the South Okanagan Chamber will be hosting a local Business Walk program during Small Business Month in Canada. To date, more than 45 communities across British Columbia have expressed interest in hosting Business Walks during the month of October. For Oliver, the goal is to visit as many retail store front businesses over these two days. Each visit will involve a very short survey of five questions that should take no more than 5 minutes of business owner’s valuable time. This is a chance for business owners to share what challenges they face and what can be done to help them succeed.
According to the South Okanagan Chamber of Commerce, Business Walks are one of the most effective economic development tools for gauging the prosperity of our community. Simply put, it is a business retention and expansion function designed to identify actions to address business related issues and challenges and to capitalize on the opportunities offered by businesses already in our community. The objective of the Business Walk is to increase awareness of and foster business community links to business support services that will help to integrate intelligence into Town of Oliver, South Okanagan Chamber of Commerce and other small business service providers’ planning.
This year the Town of Oliver and the Chamber are working in collaboration with the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism, & Skills Training, BC Economic Development Association (BCEDA) and the Provincial BC Business Counts Program. These organizations have provided access to their web based CRS software program to input information collected during the visits. This will allow for follow-up actions to be taken and to run reports that can be shared with the business community.