BPSA chairman reflects on COVID-19 impact

Chairman of the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA), Edward Clarke, says a key lesson for the business community coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic is the need to strengthen their disaster recovery and business continuity plans and systems.

The private sector association head explained that this is necessary as the pandemic put the spotlight on the lack of preparedness of businesses and people in general. He made the comments recently as he took part in a virtual webinar hosted by the Barbados Coalition of Service Industries and the Ministry of Energy, Small Business and Entrepreneurship, under the theme ‘Services for Economic Resilience and Post-Pandemic Recovery’.

“...Businesses have to be better prepared, we have to be able to manage our own businesses going forth, even in difficult environments,” he maintained.

Clarke’s remarks came as he noted that one of the biggest fallouts of the pandemic has been unemployment. He indicated that in Barbados at one point, unemployment had reached over 30 per cent. While alluding that it has dropped, he said we are still facing severe unemployment levels. With that in mind, he said there is a need for the country to diversify and for individual Barbadians to see the world as their oyster, using information and communication technology to the fullest.

“...Still a lot of people are unemployed. Tourism is dead, as we know at this time, and it continues to hurt us. We need to have a population that can diversify its own work, its own employment. How do we do that, especially in the area of services? The global network, the web, technology, the use of publicising what you’re capable of doing across the web, has levelled the playing field. There’s no longer a need to have a huge concrete structure and tonnes of marketing and capital at high costs, pushing your services across the island,” he said.

The BPSA Chairman continued, “Your market space now is the globe, and we as Barbadians, and we as regional people, need to understand that the globe is there for us... We need to ensure that we are part of various forums to market our skills in Barbados, to make it available to even the local businesses, but regional businesses and global businesses. So that’s something I think we need to push as a regional sector”.

He also indicated that the pandemic has forced many businesses in Barbados and across the region to improve their level of eCommerce and use of technology. Clarke said there is a need to encourage many more micro, small and medium enterprises to build out their eCommerce capability.

“But that comes with skill sets; it comes with skill sets to the businesses and it comes with a skill set requirement for the public. We still have too many people in Barbados that are afraid of technology, so we need to be able to educate people from very young – primary school [and] secondary school. We have to be ready to utilise the technological skills across the business; when we get into university, and when we leave school. We are unable to do that this time, we are far from ready to do that,” the BPSA chairman lamented. (JRT)