Acting Director of the Barbados National Standards Institution (BNSI) Haydn Rhynd is urging entrepreneurs owners to embrace high quality and standards as part of their business model.
Speaking on Monday at the BNSI’s Visibility Conference, at Courtyard by Marriott, Hastings, Christ Church, one of the many activities being held to mark the organisation’s 50th anniversary, he said that these were among the key tenets of success for any business.
“We are tasked with developing the country’s national quality infrastructure (NQI). It’s a difficult task because although many businesses take high quality of goods and high quality of services seriously, there’s still the need for many to embrace quality as a competitive strategy and apply a quality mindset to all activities.
“So we are on the road but we are still a way to go where Barbadian businesses and Barbadian citizens embrace what we call a quality culture, where you are not positioning just for shortcuts or to meet the mere minimum obligations for compliance . . . . We have to develop quality as an overall strategy. We have to have a culture of quality for our businesses,” said Rhynd who told the gathering that a National Quality Policy is soon to be developed by the BNSI.
He stressed, however, that to have quality as a complete strategy for Barbados would require a paradigm shift, increased effort, a holistic approach and a concentrated national programme.
Adding that the development of the National Quality Policy had already been agreed to by Cabinet, Rhynd noted that it includes policies on the quality infrastructure and standards that are relevant to Barbados.
He said: “We allow for testing and verification of products in Barbados; certification and accreditation…. So, the policy really outlines how international standards need to be the bedrock in policy for our quality infrastructure, policy on quality promotion. Are we serious about how we promote quality in Barbados? Is it done strategically or just ad hoc? We need to have policies from the very top, really speaking to the promotion of quality, so that we can develop these centres of excellence that we are all striving for.”
The BNSI official said there was need for policies on trade facilitation; market access; relationships with the international organisations with whom Barbados is increasing its cooperation and relationships; on technical cooperation agreements; on the procurement of goods and services in Barbados.
“So, the National Quality Policy really will embrace all sectors, all of our developing sectors, where policy for quality is really going to be an embedded strategy,” he stated, while noting that the implementation of this strategy would be through a seven-member National Quality Council, which the BNSI is in the process of organising.
Rhynd said the BNSI remained committed to helping local products develop a global competitive edge and pointed out that the organisation had trained more than 160 entities over the past 18 months.
(SZB)
