Business Insights platform launched

Business Insights will provide learning webinar series as well as material on busi ness issues, trends and topics geared toward business and national development. Introducing the initiative at the Chamber’s Westmoorings headquarters, its Chief Executive Officer Gabriel Faria, said the business body could not make the Business Insights project work without academia, without the business community or without the skills of those who would help to create the content.

He said while the Chamber could be the catalyst for the project, it could not create the content and would have to rely on its sponsors for that. He said the content would not remain static but would change as the feedback came in from the business sector as to their specific needs.

Faria added that in discussing the project with various business incubators their response was that they did not need money but capacity building.

He said the Chamber had held discussions with the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Economic Development Advisory Board which are helping to identify the areas in which this capacity building is needed.

He said that as the areas of need are identified the Chamber’s job would be to work with the sponsors, academia and the business community to create content which would strengthen local businesses.

He said one of the country’s large conglomerates had readily promised to provide specialists in areas identified by the Chamber as resource persons for the Business Insights series.

He gave the audience a demonstration of accessing Business Insights (BI), saying it will provide training for business by business, although observing that this information was not just for small and medium sized enterprises because there were also large businesses which needed help.

Clients can select from a library of free and paid material, some of which is already online and ready for viewing.

Companies which want to offer themselves as mentors will be vetted by the Chamber to ensure they have the skills they are offering and that these skills will meet the needs of the companies seeking mentorship. Faria said the site is certified as being safe to handle e-commerce transactions and in response to a question assured that ICT specialists at the Chamber are working to secure the site from Ransomware, the latest threat. He said educational institutions will also have free access.