‘Workers did not fit into BDC’s strategic plan’

A decision by the Business Development Company to restructure its mandate has been cited as the main reason behind the retrenchment of 28 employees from its three branches.

Addressing a media conference yesterday at the BDC head office on Charlotte Street, President Earl Baccus revealed that persons who were retrenched earlier this week did not meet the criteria to support a strategic plan adopted by the company earlier this year. He disclosed that when the Small Business Development Company (SBDC) was transformed into the BDC on August 23, 2002, it did not recruit any new personnel. The focus of the SBDC, he explained, was to provide support to individuals wanting to get into business, so the focus was on providing financial support to these  individuals who may have had the necessary skills, but not sufficient collateral. This aspect of the SBDC was very successful, he went on, benefitting more than 5000 entrepreneurs at a value of $125 million in loan guarantees. This was equivalent to $260 million in loans from financial institutions, he said.

Last year, he stated, Government allowed the National Entrepreneu-rial Development Company Limited (NEDCO) to take up the mandate of the SBDC and  refocused the newly established BDC into growing and providing necessary export development financial and technical support to existing businesses. “If we were able to complete this transformation earlier then we would have been able to generate more jobs and created a greater impact on the economy.”  At a strategic planning workshop held earlier this year, he maintained, the company adopted a draft strategic plan which focused the company on four main areas, namely trade assistance, business restructuring in the face of globalisation, project management and consultancy services.

This plan incorporated the views of staff members as well as those of management to come up with an organisational structure for the company, he said. A decision was eventually taken to adopt the recommendation. He also said the new mandate focused on 13 major industry sectors where the country either had a comparative advantage or whose development was strategic to economic growth and diversification. These sectors include food and beverage, information technology, textile and garments, tourism, intellectual property and financial services. “You needed a new, different set of people for this,” he maintained. “You needed people who came from the private sector or who understood it - a different cadre of professionals to go in there and re-orient the thinking of businesses away from the traditional way of doing things and help them contribute to the economy.” “The new mandate,” Baccus went on, “was interpreted by our staff through the strategic planning process they participated in and the evolution of new structure came from them. It was total participation.” Baccus noted that the company was now searching for pro-active individuals who were versed in the various sectors now on the company’s mandate, who were customer-focused, market-oriented and who possessed a certain level of professionalism.