Caribbean Entrepreneurship – A regional model for global business training

By Jason Safford, Partner, Advantage International Management, LLC

Often, discussing business in the Caribbean generates an immediate vision of beautiful sandy beaches, tropical forests, and temperate island breezes blowing the paper umbrella out of your pina colada . comes to mind . The word vacation is more frequently associated with the region than any serious opportunities with technology, energy, medicine, or entrepreneurship. The serious notion of business development is for the regions of Asia, Africa or Europe Russia .

Historically, the Caribbean market economy has been one of the most valuable and profitable , first to the European economy and then to the American . economic development . Unfortunately, those the historic economic models used historically were not favorable to the development of Caribbean region and its local economies. While there were people who prospered, the greater regional economy did not.

Globalization in the Caribbean region suffers from a growing disparity in economic development compared with other developing nations. While there are many factors that can be attributed to sluggish or stagnant development, there are three physical statistics (according to the World Bank Database) that can help explain the disparity:

1. Land Size – The entire Latin American & entire Caribbean Region region is 1.5 million square kilometers, or 1.5% of total developing countries is 20.1 million square kilometers. By comparison, the entire region is one fifth of all developing countries . Remove Mexico and South America from this statistic and the entire region is 1.5 million square kilometers, or 1.5% of total developing countries .
2. Population – The entire Latin American & Caribbean Region one tenth of all developing nations. Remove Latin America and the Caribbean population is less than one percent of all developing nations .
3. Production – The average GDP for the entire Caribbean Region is 3 billion annually, which is less than 2% of the World average.

Limited natural and human resources in the global economy force the Caribbean region to determine its real economic strength and value. Countries such as India, China, Mexico and Brazil have far greater ability to generate capital from land and human resources.

The difficulty with globalization is determining what market fits your country and region. Building manufacturing plants and outsourcing entire industries do not work well unless you have a sizeable amount of land and significant human resources, which the Caribbean region as a whole has neither.

Faced with bigger, stronger competition, businesses must become smarter, quicker, and see further ahead to differentiate themselves. They must become more educated and gain training in special areas of technology that do not favor large groups. This is the economic model of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs are business leaders who bring together resources and people and create new capital markets. They have long term visions of how to use existing technology and resources and create a new world of opportunity for tomorrow.

This is a strategy that lends itself particularly well to the Caribbean region. Its limited natural and human resources are exactly the reason the Caribbean region can increase its value through entrepreneurship. By developing new business markets for the global economy, the region will prosper through market differentiation.

As a general business principle, market differentiation is a marketing strategy that favors smaller, agile businesses that focus on specific markets and provide leadership in those markets. Additionally, differentiation favors businesses that can predict future trends and are ahead of the curve of the general market.

Fortunately, the efforts of the collective Caribbean governments and CARICOM have been more than noble in the pursuit of universal education for their countries. Additionally, the Caribbean region has rapidly grown in its development of information technology and use of the internet. While the GDP of the region has declined over recent years, a significant transition is apparent to a largely service industry supported economy.

The determination of a service-related economy indicates a potential for entrepreneurial development. However, in order to develop a valuable entrepreneurial population within the region, a few remaining factors must be evaluated:

1. Land usage – Determining how can the limited natural resources be most valuable
2. Niche Markets – Finding where the limited human resources can get ahead
3. Future Trends – What advanced technology training can further differentiate the region from competition

One of the earliest and most successful forms of entrepreneurship in the Caribbean has been in the tourism industry. The initial introduction of this article demonstrates how successful that model of entrepreneurship has become in the region. However, the tourism industry is far from effectively developed in the Caribbean, and has declined dramatically in recent years as other areas of the world have entered into the tourism marketplace.

The determination of land usage then becomes important in redefining the Caribbean tourism industry. Differentiating within the marketplace means becoming a leader in niche areas of the tourism industry. Niche markets can include: agro-tourism, eco-tourism, and health tourism.

Predicting future trends in the marketplace is a more difficult area of determination for entrepreneurship. Future technology development requires a stronger understanding of risk assessment and determination of what the real need for the technology will be in the marketplace.

Based on evaluating the global economy and the strengths of the Caribbean region, entrepreneurial training and development would be a valuable direction to support. The difficulty with generating support for training an entrepreneurial population is that it requires patience and long term commitment. Early exit strategies are not easily guaranteed, which may deter investment.

The strength of the trained entrepreneur however, is the evaluation of risk over a period of time.

As a general rule, starting with practically nothing, an entrepreneur is one who organizes a new venture, manages it, and assumes the associated risk. For this article, the term entrepreneur is broadly defined to include business owners, innovators, and executives in need of capital to start a new project, introducing a new product, or expanding a promising line of business. We include technology transfer experts, technologists at leading universities, and consultants and advisors assisting in all aspects of venturing.

The concept of entrepreneur is borrowed from the French words entreprendre, "one who undertakes"—that is, a "manager." In fact, the word entrepreneur was shaped probably from c elui qui entreprend , which is loosely translated as "those who get things done." As we move towards a more globally aware life, entrepreneurs will be the life blood of globalization. Clean air, renewable energy, pro-active medicine and affordable communication are the future of a knowledge economy with entrepreneur securely leading the way toward happiness.