Large companies tend to receive multiple different surveys, since they comprise a greater proportion of economic activity in their respective sectors or industries. The U.S. Census Bureau is conducting a series of meetings with respondents at large companies to better understand their survey response processes, with the aim of developing tools to assist them and reduce the burden of participating in multiple surveys. One conceptual tool which has been well-received is a secure online “Company Portal,” which would provide a nexus for centralized survey management by corporate-level respondents, letting them review the surveys they will receive in a given year for planning purposes, update contact and mailing information, and monitor survey completion status to ensure timely responses from informants distributed throughout their companies.

However, the meetings also have raised issues that pose challenges for the implementation of a Company Portal and for conducting surveys by Web alone, including:

• Varying preferences for managing access to a Portal, and a lack of a single point of contact for surveys at some companies;

• Technical challenges of developing the survey agency’s infrastructure to support a Company Portal;

• The persistence of paper forms in the move toward electronic-only surveys;

• The possible consequences of centralized corporate survey management.

We will present the findings of our research and discuss the desired attributes of a Company Portal and the survey processes which they would support, as well as aspects of company survey response requiring creative solutions.