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Presidential Initiatives

Business Gateway (formerly Business Compliance One-Stop)

Program Managers

Nancy Sternberg

Managing Partner

Small Business Administration (SBA)

Progress to Date
  • May 2004: Launched www.business.gov
  • Merged/consolidated Federal cross-agency legal and regulatory information into the new www.business.gov site
  • Built a catalog of 6,000+ Federal forms
  • Launched a pilot for a streamlined data collection interface in the Surface Coal Mining Industry, which can be used as a model to streamline data collection throughout Federal (and state and local) government
  • June 2006: Published in partnership with the Office of Management and Budget, compliance contact information to support the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act
  • September 2006: Re-launched the Business.gov site with a new focus on providing easy access to regulatory compliance information, forms, contacts, and related information
  • February 2007: Refreshed the Business.gov site to provide features with more intuitive navigation, cleaner content presentation, and a modern, professional graphical layout
  • July 2007: Added functionality to Business.gov including the “Permit Me” feature that provides a single source for obtaining federal and state permits and professional licenses for businesses. Also, began the Content Partners Program to establish a group of government and association stakeholders to develop compliance assistance tools and resources for small and medium-sized businesses
  • December 2007: Business.gov was expanded to include information from over 9,000 state, territory, county, and city government websites providing information on starting and managing a business while complying with regulations from all levels of government.

    The compliance site was also upgraded to incorporate a new search feature that is a “mashup” - a unique service created by combining content from separate web applications - of Google-based services that include Google's Custom Search Business Edition, Google Maps, the Google Search Appliance and publicly available compliance information culled from Federal, state and local government websites.

Next Steps
  • Conduct ongoing conversations with the business community and modify www.business.gov based on feedback
  • Improve www.business.gov to provide more comprehensive information and resources about how to comply with the most burdensome rules and regulations (i.e. organized links to plain-language, regulations, forms, agency guidance, tools)
  • Provide more comprehensive and better organized contact information and frequently asked questions
  • Continue to test and pilot ways for agencies to share data across agencies to simplify the reporting process for businesses
  • Themed release in Q2 to focuse on timely business topics

Web Site

www.business.gov

Performance

Business Gateway Metrics

Exhibit 300

Business Gateway BY 09

 

What is Business Gateway?

The Business Gateway, Business.gov site, saves businesses time and money by providing a one-stop resource for compliance information, forms and government contacts. For the first time, businesses can go to one web site to search for compliance information from multiple U.S. Federal government agencies. It includes:

  • Tens of thousands compliance-related documents from numerous government web sites
  • Relevant and official government resources
  • Quick and focused compliance search results
  • A comprehensive catalog of Federal government forms
  • Directory of knowledgeable government contacts
  • Links to key industry resources and “how to” information for starting, growing and managing a business.

Why do we need Business Gateway?

According to statistics compiled by government agencies, complying with laws and regulations costs American businesses billions of dollars each year. The Business Gateway Initiative reduces this burden on the business community by eliminating the need to search through multiple web sites to locate and access government information, services, and legal/regulatory requirements and forms. The Business.gov site is all about cross-agency collaboration. Creating a single access point for business to find compliance information allows businesses to grow their business, which helps the economy. This benefits everyone, government, citizens, and businesses alike.


Value to Business

Business Gateway saves businesses time and money by:

  • Providing businesses a gateway to Federal, state, and local compliance information-helping them to better navigate government requirements with the click of a mouse
  • Offering compliance-related documents from federal, state, and local government regulatory web sites makes it easier for small businesses to understand and comply with federal requirements
  • Collaborating across all levels of government to provide easy access to compliance information

Value to Federal government:

Not only does Business Gateway deliver value to businesses, it also provides value to Federal agencies. Business Gateway improves customer service to businesses by:

  • Serving as translator between the business community and the Federal government
  • Reducing the number of “misdirected” calls, saving time responding to unnecessary inquiries
  • Helping to reduce the paperwork burden on small businesses in response to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002

Fast Fact

Businesses are Excited about How Business Gateway Can Help.
As revealed in focus groups with businesses, the idea of business.gov is exciting to businesses: it promises to be a powerful search engine/portal that allows access to government, plain language assistance, and the right contacts within government to help them deal with their regulatory compliance issues. Businesses want to more easily find, understand, and comply with laws and regulations.