Call to push R&D for small businesses
An Independent Senator wants to see more opportunities made available for the Medium, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) sector to have access to research and development (R&D) for their businesses.
Senator John Watson, who has long been an advocate for the local small business and manufacturing sectors, says that for any business to succeed they must engage in R&D to help create new innovative products in order to boost the viability of the company. However, he said for MSMEs, doing so can be difficult as R&D is usually funded from reserves which these business do not have.
“A lot of large businesses have a reserve fund and use that for research and development; there are other businesses that are fortunate and get grants from organisations for research and development; there are big companies that because of their size and because of what they do, you may get institutions like universities doing research in their areas; in a small business that does not exists,” he explained in a recent interview with The Barbados Advocate.
He added, “Therefore, you need some way of helping small businesses to make better use of research and development and that can only be done from grants because they don’t have any reserves. The fact is their business is not big enough to attract that kind of research from a university, so I think that institutions that look after small businesses must find ways of getting research and development done for small businesses and helping them to get sales.”
Senator Watson, the founding president of the Small Business Association, explained that R&D is essentially an investment in the business, to help create new products, services and ways of doing things. To that end, he suggested that once a government decides that they are definitely going to make the small business sector – a real strong economic sector in Barbados – then those businesses would be able to go after more government contracts. He made the point while referring to the late Prime Minister, David Thompson’s promise to ensure that 40 per cent of government’s procurement of goods and services is reserved for small and medium enterprises.
“Forty per cent of Government’s procurement would transform Barbados, create a lot more employment, it would cause a lot of saving of foreign exchange and it may even create foreign exchange because many small manufacturers once they are able to get a good foot in the local market, would then look to export. So the answer to Barbados’ problems is probably small business development,” the Independent Senator stated.
His comments came as he said that the small businesses in this country do have quality products that can be exported, they simply need the support to make that happen. (JRT)