BizPort

After having launched in October 2016, BizPort has come a long way and now officially can claim national recognition nearly a year later. The city’s online business portal, BizPort, was awarded a national Government Award in the Government-to-Business category by the Center for Digital Government on September 15 in Austin, Texas.

Since its conception, there were 12,500 users by August 2017. BizPort connects users to more than 100 different government resources, as well as provides easily accessible information in multiple languages for getting a business started.

It also directly links to the following areas: applying or renewing business licenses, scheduling a building inspection, or registering to become a vendor with the city.

“BizPort is literally a one-stop shop for every entrepreneur in Long Beach,” said Mayor Robert Garcia in a statement. “More than 200 entrepreneurs with all sorts of experience helped us create a tool that they themselves would like to use.”


 

The idea behind BizPort was to increase businesses operating in Long Beach by helping entrepreneurs easily find information required to start a business.

“Opening a business can take a lot of time and energy,” said John Keisler, director of Economic and Property Development, in a statement. “We are leveraging technology to simplify the process and make Long Beach the city of opportunity for entrepreneurs.”

BizPort was created by the city’s Innovation Team (i-team) and is implemented by the departments of Economic and Property Development and Technology and Innovation, city officials stated.

The city recently teamed up with Cal State Long Beach’s College of Business Administration to find new ways to improve the information and to stay regularly updated.

This award was created to celebrate achievements and learn best practices from states, cities and counties that have gone to the web and beyond to radically improve upon the experience of government, and push the boundaries of how services are delivered, according to a release from the city.

Entries for all awards were judged on the following criteria; Accessibility; Actionable; Citizen Feedback; Consistency; Cross-Platform Approach; Data Integrations; Design/Interface; Development/Standards; Impact; Innovation; Partnerships; Use of Content; and User Flow.