State of ALANA Business, 2009

State of Minority Businesses in the Economic Downturn in Minnesota, 2009 – “Glimmers of Hope” Saint Paul, MN: The 2009 survey results on the State of ALANA Businesses 2009 was presented at a packed town hall meeting focusing on the Economic Recovery Act at St. Paul College attended by senior policy leaders such as Congresswoman McCollum, Mayor Coleman of St. Paul and DEED Commissioner McElroy and others. “The key insight from the 2009 survey is that we can see “Glimmers of Hope” in the experiences of ALANA (African Latino Asian and Native American) businesses as they weather the economic downturn,” said Dr. Bruce Corrie, Dean, College of Business and Organizational Leadership at Concordia University-St. Paul. The online survey was sent to over 500 businesses and had an 11 percent response rate or 64 firms. These firms reflected a wide range of industries whose sales ranged from $10,000 to $20 million. Among the key findings of the survey: • 40 percent of the firms expected to increase employment in 2009. 24 percent reported reduction in employment in 2008. • 56 percent expected sales in 2009 to be average or above average while 44 percent expected sales to be below average. • Strategies used during the economic downturn included the following – o Finding a core stable financial base to weather the storm o Increased networking for new sources of revenue o Analyzing the customer base to find important market segments. o Analyzing the product base to find out products whose demand increases during the downturn. o Experimenting with innovative ideas and new products. Survey results can be found at www.ethnictrends.info. The survey follows a similar survey in 2008. For more information contact Bruce Corrie – 651 641 8226 or corrie@csp.edu

The State of ALANA Businesses, Fall 2008

The State of ALANA Businesses, Fall 2008

Gloom, Cautious Optimism, Resilient Adapters

Bruce P. Corrie, PhD

The full report is on www.ethnictrends.info

Given the importance of ALANA (African Latino Asian and Native American) businesses to the local economy it is important to know how they are faring in the current economic climate. To get a sense of their status during this period of economic decline a quick survey was conducted in the following manner: From a database of over 3000 minority firms, 140 were randomly selected from a wide range of sectors. A total of 52 telephone calls were made with 24 responses from 16 sectors of the economy. Half of these calls were to firms randomly selected from the list of firms. Others were called to ensure representation of a wide range of industries.

Respondents were asked if their sales in the previous year were less than average, average or below average. They were also asked about their expected sales in the coming year and whether they had to downsize and about their plans to expand in the future. In addition leaders serving ALANA entrepreneurs were also surveyed for their assessment of the situation. The ALANA business owners reflected a wide range of sizes – both large successful multimillion dollar businesses to small businesses.

From these surveys we can construct the following ALANA Business Sentiment Index – with the value of 1 being “Boom” and the value of 3 being “Gloom”. The index is a simple average of the responses of the two questions on business sales in the past year and expected sales in the future.

An index of 2.3 out of 3 reflected more of “gloom” than optimism. However there were interesting facts behind those businesses doing well.

Firms in the survey reflected the following sectors of the economy: construction, specialty construction, manufacturing, IT services, janitorial services, real estate, restaurants, grocery stores, HVAC, translation services, commercial painting, commercial printing, ethnic media, insurance, business referrals and legal services.

For more details see the full report on www.ethnictrends.info