The main objectives for this project are the identification of best practices and the development of common methodology and ESS guidelines supporting the production of business statistics aiming at reducing respondent burden and fostering efficiency and integration of processes.

One operational objective is to produce a methodological handbook for the production of business statistics. This is intended to be an update of the existing Handbook on design and implementation of business surveys edited by Willeboordse in 1998. The new handbook shall have:

• The entire domain of enterprise and trade statistics as its scope;
• The ESS (including Eurostat) as its target;
• An integration perspective (in order to raise the quality and the efficiency of European business statistics);
• A standardisation perspective by applying both the SDMX Metadata Common Vocabulary and the Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM) and a standardisation perspective by proposing standard methods.

The Memobust handbook can be found here.

The project consists of two phases of 18 months each. The first phase of the project ended in June 2012. The second and final phase of the project started in September 2012 and ended in March 2014.