The Business Experience Initiative

The Business Experience initiative is a cross-agency effort - launched as part of the Governor’s 2018 Stronger and Fair Economic Plan - to make it easier to start, operate, and grow a business in New Jersey. To streamline a fragmented process and deliver a simplified, one-stop digital experience for businesses, OOI has launched several tools including Business.NJ.gov, the Business.NJ.gov Navigator, Business.NJ.gov Live Chat, and Business.NJ.gov Updates.

Challenge

Prior to Business.NJ.Gov, to start and operate a business in the Garden State, companies and aspiring entrepreneurs had to navigate a byzantine process, sifting through 15 State websites to find information and creating multiple accounts to file forms and regulatory filings. OOI was tasked with streamlining these processes, and began consolidating dozens of related processes spread across multiple agencies into a single, easy-to-use platform for businesses.

Innovation In Action

Rather than waiting to debut a large-scale solution after a multi-year development process, OOI used agile and iterative development to quickly launch a series of tools that provided immediate value to users and offered critical data that informed further development. By using this agile process, results were both faster and more effective as each stage of development was built with a data-backed understanding of the business community’s needs.

Impact + Metrics

With Business.NJ.gov, companies can now easily find the answer to any question they have, file critical forms, and get personalized recommendations – all in one convenient place.
Through the Business.NJ.gov Navigator, aspiring entrepreneurs can now develop personalized guides to starting their business, register their business and track their applications, find relevant funding opportunities, and get a personalized tax calendar.
Businesses no longer need to repeatedly provide the same information as OOI enabled data-sharing between agencies for the first time.
Businesses can access a centralized customer service experience in real time using the Business.NJ.Gov live chat - this allows businesses to get answers from experts and customer service representatives from multiple State agencies, alleviating the need to call several agencies.
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, OOI rapidly deployed a COVID-19 Business Information Hub to provide a definitive source for businesses on safety regulations, closures, financial assistance, and more.

Status

OOI continues to work with departmental partners to build additional functionality into the Navigator, while also expanding content and services provided by the additional digital tools.

Partners

Office of the Governor
New Jersey State Business Action Center
New Jersey State Economic Development Authority
New Jersey State Department of Treasury
New Jersey State Department of Labor
Statewide initiative, in partnership with all relevant State entities

Last updated on 10/26/23