Guyanese businesses must evolve beyond traditional ways – GCCI President

In keeping with Guyana’s increasing economic clout and presence on the global stage, there is a need for Guyanese businesses to evolve beyond the traditional ways of doing business and adopt a more internationalised outlook.
This is according to Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) President Timothy Tucker when he was announcing the return of the Business Development Forum (BDF), which will be held from November 11-12 at the Pegasus Corporate Centre.
According to Tucker, the GCCI is cognisant of its role in helping to develop businesses across Guyana, not just in Georgetown. As such, he stressed the need for businesses to participate and to learn how they could evolve their business methods, whether it’s the way they access capital or market their products, or quality assurance.
“That is why this event is not limited to Chamber members, but is also open to the public. And to those businesses, not just in Georgetown but across the country, who would like to come and really understand how to do business. Listen to the leaders of the business community. Listen to the experts from institutions, from academia. And really, learn and develop businesses.
“Businesses cannot be based on what you’re accustomed to – buying and selling things. Or in a small business standpoint. We have to grow businesses and take them to the next level, especially in Guyana. We have to change the way we look at business, our traditional ways of borrowing and financing businesses. It has to change. The world is upon us,” he said.
Tucker noted that as a business community, Guyana’s Private Sector has to learn to grow businesses and must be cognisant of the fact that they are operating on an international level, with more and more international firms looking for investment and business opportunities.
During the press conference, GCCI Executive Director Richard Rambarran had explained that the BDF would be split into five thematic areas, with a specialist making a presentation on each. The themes that will be explored are access to finance; opportunities for businesses in the Guyana’s oil and non-oil sectors; improving standards and quality; doing business in Guyana; and marketing fundamentals.
“What the Business Development Forum is intended to achieve, however, is to bridge the gaps as it relates to information, as it relates to knowledge and as it relates to the capacity of Private Sector firms. We’ve realised that there was no single platform in which an enterprise could go and obtain the information that would help them to bridge capacity gaps in their business.
“We’ve crafted an agenda that essentially addresses, based on our research, the issues that plague the Private Sector and the internal dynamics of the firms. There are five thematic areas that will be explored at the forum. The structure of it is that each of the five thematic areas will have a keynote address being done by a leader in the field,” Rambarran said.
Among those who have been invited to make presentations at the forum are the Bankers Association and individual banks. In addition to the 500 delegates expected to attend, GCCI is also catering for approximately 1000 visitors to the joint exhibition. Oil giant ExxonMobil, through its subsidiary Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), has come on board as the main event partner.
The BDF was conceptualised in 2018 as an annual two-day business forum to provide a platform for the wider business community to have conversations and network, regardless of the size of their businesses. (G3)