Barbados has all of the ingredients to become the entrepreneurial capital of the world, but innate fear or conservatism seems to be holding us back.
Briton Alex Pratt, a business facilitator at the Barbados National Entrepreneurship Summit, which was held last week at the Hilton Barbados, made the observation after donating 28 copies of his book Austerity Business: 39 Tips For Doing More With Less to the National Library Service, on Saturday afternoon.
“There is no reason, to my mind, why Barbados can’t be the world centre for entrepreneurship, be called the entrepreneurship island,” Pratt said.
“You have fantastically well educated people, superb infrastructure; you are well-placed; you have good telecommunications and the way the world is moving, much trade is knowledge-based.
Different times
“What gets in the way – it’s interesting – it’s as though we have not quite yet switched on to the fact that things have changed in the world and you can just decide to be yourselves a bit more than you are. It’s about confidence really.”
Invariably, the comparisons to Singapore arose, and Pratt said he was amazed that even though Barbados did quite well as an economy, being ranked 44th on the world competitive index, there was so much more that could be done.
Pratt pointed to Barbados car magnate Kyffin Simpson as a locally based person operating an international business and queried why more businessmen of Simpson’s ilk haven’t emerged. He said blaming the commercial banks and the government can only account for so much. People simply need to grasp opportunities and go after what they want.
This was the reason for the Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation, which aims to make Barbados the “No. 1 entrepreneurial hub in the world by 2020”, by providing Barbadians with the information and resources they need.
“People perhaps play it a bit safe because of the way the world used to be, but you have everything to play for now. The austerity and the crunch would perhaps encourage more people to think about setting up a business and growing a business.”
The author lives what he wrote. Coming out of a mining family, he was forced to find a different career path when the mines closed. Today, he is CEO of Serious Brands, a company which manufactures reading lamps that have been used on space shuttles, nuclear submarines, homes and in surgeries.
He urged business people and budding entrepreneurs not to panic or do anything stupid during these times.
“We all know that austerity is with us. That doesn’t mean to say things are going to be bad,” Pratt said.
“Actually, when things change a lot is when there are lots of opportunities for people setting up businesses. So austerity and change are frightening on one hand, but [provide opportunities] on the other hand.