Business owners may receive a call from a Chicoutimi-based company called Segma Recherche, collecting basic information about their business such as its name, address, what type of business it is and how many people it employs.

The company was hired by MRC Pontiac in May to create what the MRC calls a territorial development plan, and building a registry of all the businesses across the region is part of this work.

“It was important for us to be able to create a tool that would allow us to have an understanding of all the local businesses to facilitate our strategic planning,” Moïse Mbikayi, economic development commissioner with the MRC, told THE EQUITY in French.

He explained creating a portrait of the business landscape in the region is critical to . . .

helping the MRC identify growing sectors, potential new sectors, and sectors that aren’t doing as well that may need greater support from the MRC.

Mbikayi said understanding which types of businesses are operating in which areas of the Pontiac will also help the MRC direct new businesses to areas where they will be more likely to thrive.

This work is all part of the MRC’s larger economic development strategy of organizing the region into several economic poles, which Mbikayi likened to hubs.

He said the MRC plans to identify a few municipalities, maybe three or four across the Pontiac, as economic hubs with which surrounding municipalities would be grouped to create focused sectors of economic development.

“The idea is not to just focus on the municipalities that are considered to be growing, because we also want to develop the other municipalities that have fewer businesses,” Mbikayi emphasized, noting the goal is to direct services to municipalities where they don’t yet exist.

“If we want to draw businesses to our region, we have to be able to guarantee them a certain growth.”

He said the poles have yet to be identified, but the economic development team is working with the MRC’s planning department to determine how best to organize them.

Also this summer, the Pontiac Chamber of Commerce has begun developing its own business directory, inviting local entrepreneurs to register their business on the Chamber’s website.

“We aim to gather similar information to what the MRC is collecting in their survey,” Chamber president Sébastien Bonnerot wrote in an email to THE EQUITY.

“As a non-profit, mostly volunteer organization, our capacity to undertake this task is limited. That’s why we’ve opted for a ‘grassroots’ approach, encouraging small businesses to register themselves on our website.”

Mbikayi said the MRC was in touch with the Chamber before it began its work creating a territorial development plan but at the time, the Chamber had suspended its plans to develop a directory because it hadn’t received the needed financing.

“It’s at that moment that at the MRC we decided to go ahead with this elaboration of the business registry,” Mbikayi said.

He explained the vision is for the two separate business directories to be merged into one that is managed by the MRC but lives on the Chamber’s website, a collaboration the Chamber said it welcomes.

“We have many exciting ideas for the directory’s future and look forward to collaborating with strong partners like the MRC,” Bonnerot wrote.

“Segma may not be able to reach all businesses on the territory, but maybe the Chamber will have them in their directory,” Mbikayi said. “The final findings can complement each other in creating one registry.”

The MRC is paying $37,000 plus taxes to Segma for it to complete the territorial development plan, money it sourced from Component 2 of the province’s Fonds régions et ruralité (FRR) funding.

Segma Recherche is scheduled to submit its final report to the MRC on Oct. 7.

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