Auckland’s small to medium-sized businesses employ more than 300,000 Aucklanders, and many of those businesses and employees were seriously affected by COVID-19. As the Government’s delivery partner in the Regional Business Partner Network programme, we have been extremely busy responding to these businesses’ most immediate needs during the pandemic crisis. We have been the regional face of government support, including the COVID-19 Business Advisory Fund, for Auckland businesses.
The Government’s announcement last week of a $40 million boost to the fund (with about 30 per cent of that to be allocated to Auckland businesses) was good news for Auckland SMEs.
From 23 March to 5 July, our business team engaged with 3433 businesses and issued 2642 vouchers for professional services worth $5.1 million. That compares with the entire 2018/19 year when the team engaged with 850 businesses and issued 1532 vouchers worth $1.7m.
We responded to the huge demand by temporarily redeploying staff from across the business and implemented process improvements to try to reduce waiting times. We are now doubling the team by redeploying staff to help deliver the newly funding support.
We created a dedicated section of our website, guided by feedback from more than 1200 businesses which responded to our COVID-19 impact surveys, where we collated useful tools, information and resources from our regional and national partners.
We have kept an average of 13,000 businesses informed with our regular updates about practical support, including the launch of a free digital assessment tool in April that has seen more than 600 businesses get customised action plans to improve their website, boost online marketing and use other digital business tools.
We supported webinars targeted at helping businesses through Alert Levels 4 and 3 with partners including RBPN, EMA, Whariki Māori Business Network, Auckland Screen Alliance and The Icehouse.
We have joined the wider Auckland Council group in coordinated support for businesses and communities across Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. A new Together we can support local initiative encourages Aucklanders to become social champions for our great local businesses by ‘checking in’ or ‘tagging’ their favourites on social media and using the hashtag #togetherwecansupportlocal. Campaign assets and further information is available on the ATEED Covid-19 Business Resources page.