'UNPREPARED’

THE COVID-19 pandemic has revealed deficiencies in the Caribbean as
far as the digital world, particularly online business, is concerned.

That’s the view of Keron Rose, Online Business and Digital Technology
Educator and Owner of Droid Island. Speaking during the most recent
webinar hosted by the Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business on the
topic ‘Taking Your Business Online – Opportunities and Challenges’,
the Trinidad-based tech expert said while the pandemic has shown the
region that it is “really unprepared” to move businesses into the
digital space, it also presents an opportunity to do more, as it has
“forced businesses to start thinking online”.

“I know here in Trinidad, the minute they shut down everything,
everybody lost their minds because it was like businesses just
vanished overnight. Yes they would have still had an online or
Facebook presence, but you could not do anything with them. You
couldn’t purchase from them, nothing was set up where I could continue
a relation with that business,” he explained.

His comments came as he said that undoubtedly, the pandemic is
challenging businesses in the region to get on the world stage and he
argued that the task is not as daunting as persons may think.

“We have so many tools and platforms that we can use right now to
shift businesses online; what we have been lacking is the how-to
knowledge on just doing it. Simple things like having a website that
is e-commerce ready. Pre-COVID, [if] you asked most businesses why
don’t you have a website, why don’t you have your products and
services online so that we can purchase and they would just respond
with ‘we have Facebook’,” he noted.

Rose added, “But it is not the same thing. You can’t conduct
e-commerce on Facebook in the Caribbean, because the tools needed for
e-commerce on social media are blocked for our region. So the most
that can happen is that I DM [direct message] you to set up the sale.
At the end of the day, if you decide to take that day off, or maybe
you don’t respond quick enough and your customer goes to somebody’s
platform, jumps on their website and can swipe their card online and
make the payment, you’ve just lost a sale.”

With that in mind, Rose said that the environment now necessitates a
move towards online platforms for players in the business community,
to help them sustain their operations and stay relevant.  He made the
point while expressing hope for the future, as he indicated that
regional businesses are now moving past the conversations and actually
putting systems in place to facilitate more online business. (JRT)