Website guide to business mentors

By ELLEN READ

Business in the Community (BITC), the nationwide charitable trust that provides a free mentoring service for small businesses, has launched a new web-based database system aimed at more accurate matching of small businesses with appropriate mentors.

"The website will help BITC, which has grown rapidly over the last three years, deal with an increasing demand for our services," said chief executive Ray Schofield.

Last year the 22 agencies and more than 1300 mentors of the trust throughout New Zealand helped nearly 5000 small businesses.

"KPMG research of our performance with our clients has consistently shown that we could improve our performance if we more accurately matched the needs of small businesses with the most appropriate mentor," Schofield said.

He said to do this BITC had to know more about why a client required a mentor and had to improve the matching of mentor skills with client needs.

"BITC felt that if we took the significant step of web-enabling our business, that we could improve communication at every level of our process," Schofield said.

After several months of trials the website went live on February 1 - providing a system with paperless administration between clients, mentors, agencies, and BITC's Auckland national office.

"Personal contact is still very important, so the system ensures that telephone contact is made before any mentor visits. Confidentiality must also be adhered to so we have tight security and legal protocols built into the system," Schofield said.

He said that despite the web system's set-up cost, its introduction could only improve the trust's levels of assistance to New Zealand small businesses.

Business in the Community