Running your own survey on the net

By ADAM GIFFORD

Auckland human resources consultancy John Robertson and Associates (JRA) is setting up a separate company to take its online survey software to the world.

Survey-online.com is an application server provider (ASP) which enables subscribers to create any sort of survey, manage it and process the results via the net.

Director John Robertson said his company had developed its survey tools in-house over the past eight years. Early last year it started building the online survey tool, and outsourced software development to Auckland company Augen NZ three months ago when it became clear additional expertise was required to cope with expected growth.

"What we found lacking with many survey tools was the quality of the reporting - it's not the clever technology that's important but that the product is built with an end purpose in mind."

Because Survey-online is internet-based, it can be used by organisations with offices in multiple cities or countries to get consistent results. It is being used by Trade New Zealand to do "360-degree feedback" of staff and managers.

Other companies use it for training needs analysis, customer satisfaction surveys and benchmarking.

JRA is working with a multinational freight company to survey staff in Australia, Malaysia and Bahrain, using the multilingual capabilities of the tool.

Mr Robertson said the more organisations used survey-online.com, the more valuable it would be for benchmarking.

"We were able to catapult the size of the database by our involvement with the Unlimited magazine 'best places to work' survey, which uses our technology," he said.

"The innovative bit is the way it allows customers to set up their own surveys - which we believe should be part of any e-business strategy - and monitor the results in real time."