The private sector, preparedness and positive outcomes

President Irfaan Ali’s recent reported calls to the local private sector to capitalise on the “opportunities facilitated by the Government of Guyana” (and arising out of the outcomes of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (GCCI) recent Business Development forum) is sound advice though what he had to say about the private sector’s seeming lack of readiness to properly engage visiting Saudi and South Korean business delegations (that the local private sector had no specific business proposals to present to either delegation) is scarcely believable.

There can be no doubt that the transformed perspective on the portents for Guyana’s economy, not least the country’s investment potential, arising out of its recent game-changing oil fortunes has created expanded opportunities for the country’s private sector. On the other hand it has to be said that the relatively sudden pitchforking of the local Business Support Organizations (BSOs) into this new, exalted role raises questions about the extent of their preparedness to undertake this mission. Have these institutions built the requisite capacity?

The kind of readiness to invest ‘business visitors’ which the President is seemingly looking for will only be realised if the GCCI and the country’s various other BSOs become more aware of the expanded responsibilities that have now been placed in their laps and more particularly, that they become suitably equipped to discharge those responsibilities. If the President’s observations with regard to what he appeared to consider the under-preparedness of the private sector to engage the Saudi and South Korean delegations were ‘on point’, then, surely, there arises a moment for the private sector, as a whole, to pause and consider where it goes next in terms of properly preparing itself for what is likely to be an expanded agenda of engagements with both state and private sector business delegations that can be expected to come a-calling in the period ahead.

One of the bigger challenges facing the BSOs in this regard would appear to be managing the expectations of a private sector whose understandable excitement about the new opportunities that have opened up against the backdrop of what is now an oil-driven economy is not matched by an across-the board level of entrepreneurial development that allows businesses to all move at the same pace. Ensuring that the business community, as a whole – micro, small and big businesses alike – has access to opportunities to grow within their respective spheres is, it would seem, one of the key responsibilities of the country’s BSOs in the period ahead. Here, there is going to have to be a good deal of hand-holding as well as the embarking on a multi-faceted business training regime that affords businesses, at every level, to grow. That approach will help to create the kind of environment in which new entrepreneurial initiatives will emerge.

Part of the challenge here is that of seeking to create a professional business support infrastructure that comprises functionaries whose sole interest is in creating an institutional framework within which the business community can derive the best results from their regional and extra-regional exchanges with the wider international business community. Put differently, the local business community, in the process of their sitting down with visiting would-be investors must benefit from sound professional advice that allows for the outcomes of those engagements to redound to the benefit of the business community, as a whole.

With regard to what the President appeared to consider to be the serious faux pas on the parts of the local business delegations that met with the visiting Kuwaiti and Korean delegations, respectively, one wonders whether this does not provide a definitive indication of the need for the BSOs to move to get their individual houses in order if they are to provide worthwhile and rewarding service to the private sector. Here, the BSOs may wish to seriously consider whether a point has now not been reached where the strategic decision-making in matters like preparation to engage incoming business delegations should not be assigned to trained professionals whose inputs can involve both the strategic planning for such engagements. This would include understanding the importance of possessing the President’s wished-for serious business/investment proposals that provide a sound platforms for the ensuing bilateral engagements and provide far better prospects for positive outcomes.