Symmonds: Poor business standards threaten competitiveness

Poor business standards risk damaging Barbados’ reputation and limiting its ability to compete internationally, Business Development Minister Kerrie Symmonds has warned, calling for stronger regulation and greater attention to safety and service quality.

At the launch of a Standards Sector Project workshop at UWI on Thursday, Symmonds said the country would have no footing to compete with larger economies unless businesses improved their operating standards.

“I hate to have to keep saying this publicly, but in many things that we do our standards are unsatisfactory,” he told representatives from the Barbados Coalition of Service Industries, the Barbados Employers’ Confederation, the Technical and Vocational Training (TVET) Council and other organisations.

Symmonds said Barbados, as a small island developing state, could not compete with larger economies on scale.

He said, “Our competition, such as it is, has to be along the basis of credibility or efficiency and quality with which we do things, and that quality, efficiency, and credibility combination really and truly is the bedrock of that upon which we compete with the rest of the world.”

Standards were particularly important because Barbados and much of the Caribbean had long relied on services as a major part of their economies, he said.

Symmonds argued that service providers needed to meet an acceptable minimum standard to ensure consumers received value for money.

“When we’re talking about services, then we expect that the quality of that which we are offering to people who are our consumers must be aligned with a certain best practice, a certain acceptable bar beneath which nobody should operate.

“And if we could get that right and if we could treat this country as the practice wicket for making sure that we satisfy all of our consumers in services provision, now you’re selling the service, whatever that service may be… then you come away with a success and a win because your consumers feel confident and they walk away feeling satisfied that they’ve gotten value for money.”

The minister warned that inadequate standards could damage the country’s reputation, particularly in the tourism industry, where visitors expected services to meet international best practices.

He recounted an incident involving two tourists who rented a jet ski while visiting Barbados. He said a wave struck them offshore and the life vest worn by one of the visitors disintegrated in the water. The couple drifted before eventually washing ashore on the west coast, several miles away.

Symmonds said the incident illustrated the need for stronger regulation and greater attention to safety.

“We do this business of renting these things. We do this business of telling tourists, come to our shores, we will provide you with this adventure or experience or whatever, but we are not regulating it carefully and sufficiently to understand that that which we do is done in such a way as to satisfy and align itself with international best practices,” he said.

He warned that a serious incident could have financial consequences for the country and undermine its reputation.

Symmonds said businesses also needed to raise their standards to expand into foreign markets, where they could face stricter requirements.

“Our challenge is going to be and has been that we must penetrate foreign economies. We must penetrate foreign markets, and in order to penetrate the foreign market, you have to be able to meet the standards which they set as the non-tariff barrier to your trade.”

He urged businesses and professionals to look beyond Barbados, arguing that the small domestic market limited their growth opportunities.

“As you broaden your perspective and you look at other efforts being made by other professionals and other business people operating in their own setting by offering a service, you realise that the natural space that we should be seeking to occupy, and may I say dominate, BCSI and TVET, our people must be moving to dominate the regional space.”

He also linked consistent standards to investor confidence, saying businesses needed a transparent and predictable regulatory environment.

Symmonds said Barbados and other CARICOM countries also needed to address barriers preventing professionals from offering their services freely across the region.

He argued that although regional standards existed, they were not always applied consistently, making it difficult for professionals to have their qualifications recognised in other jurisdictions.

The minister said both government and private sector organisations had a responsibility to ensure agreements translated into practical opportunities for professionals.

“We can’t negotiate agreements which are telling our people that you will have opportunities. So go to school, learn well … and they do this and then afterwards market access, having been negotiated, cannot be accessed.”

Symmonds urged the organisations involved in the workshop to continue working together to develop and implement standards across the services trade.

He also proposed using Martinique as a starting point for greater regional professional exchanges, suggesting that Barbadian professionals could gain opportunities there while professionals from the French territory could share their expertise in Barbados.

He said the region needed to create more opportunities for people to earn and build businesses beyond their home markets.

Symmonds cited the Barbados Trust Fund’s support for small businesses as an example of how entrepreneurs could grow through financial literacy training and guidance on marketing, succession planning, and taxation.

The workshop examined standards in several service industries, including real estate valuation, event technical services, construction, beauty services, and architecture and drafting.

(LG)