The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a privately-operated local training institution is urging local service providers across the broad range of disciplines to take training seriously if they seriously want to “survive and prosper” in what he says will be “the highly competitive environment” in which they will have to operate in the period ahead.”
Adrian Clarke, who heads the training and consultancy firm, Clarke Productions, which operates from the Critchlow Labour College Complex, told Stabroek Business during an extended interview just over a week ago that Guyana’s development trajectory is creating a situation in which “training in certain key service delivery-related skills” has become “critical to the survivability and success of a number of local agencies” that will be seeking to either enter the market or to expand their market share in the period ahead.
Clarke Productions specialises in Marketing and Consultancy training and offers training in disciplines that include product promotion, consultancy and networking. It has conducted training for local businesses and business-related agencies including Edward B. Beharry & Sons, MACORP, the Guyana Sugar Corporation, Giftland Mall, Suriname Airways, the Guyana School of Nursing and the Guyana Defence Force and has been focusing on upgrading the delivery capabilities of its clients in areas “where, very often, there may be game-changing weaknesses as far as service delivery is concerned.
There is a real danger that both management and secondary staff are either untrained in several areas that are critical to the development of the institutions and enterprises with which they work. What we have found is that rather than invest in efficiency and service delivery considerations, there are agencies that are moving directly into service provision in a haste to get their businesses off the ground. There are cases in which this approach is impacting on their longer term growth and even, ultimately, on their survivability,” Clarke said.
“There is no mistaking the indications. There are too many instances, for example, in business enterprises in which a great deal of money is invested in the creation of business enterprises but that little if any provision has been made for training staff in areas that have to do with enhancing customer appeal. As it happens, issues relating to customer care including areas like telephone etiquette and how to engage customers are critical to creating a high level of customer appeal. Frankly, you don’t have to look too closely to see the deficiencies in their service delivery,” Clarke told the Stabroek Business.
And according to Clarke, the greatest threat “in terms of coming up short” as far as service standards are concerned is probably being faced by small businesses whose survivability in today’s business environment “depends on competitive edge which might well be located in the quality of their customer care-related services. Unfortunately, there are far too many instances in which those businesses are neglecting to strengthen themselves in those areas.”
“It is troubling that a small business owner may go to a great deal of trouble, possibly to acquire loans and make other sacrifices to create a business, only to watch it collapse or underperform because that business may be lacking in key areas of service delivery including basic things like interacting with customers and telephone etiquette. I worry particularly about those kinds of businesses which are not sufficiently resilient to withstand the shock of customer rejection that results from those deficiencies,” Clarke told Stabroek Business.
And according to Clarke there are two “really big areas of concern” in the period ahead. “The first has to do with local service-related firms, some of which are being hastily created in response to Local Content considerations associated with the emergence of the oil and gas industry. Whether many of them can deliver to the standards expected of the overseas partners with whom they will be working is something that we have to be concerned about. Unless they are trained to deliver they are likely to struggle or to go under pretty quickly. The second area of concern for me has to do with those hundreds of Guyanese who are enthusiastically getting involved in agro-processing but who may not be properly trained in disciplines that have to do with areas like product presentation and product promotion. Some of them are already finding it difficult to match the competition afforded by the imported products. If we continue like this, these small operators may find themselves fighting to keep their failing businesses alive or alternatively they could go under very quickly. We see these dangers in some of the small businesses that we have been studying.”
Clarke told Stabroek Business that a similar situation could be facing even some of the more established business houses, particularly in the food services sector, for example, where less than adequate standards of customer care, primarily at the level of counter staff, may already be impacting on profitability. “Some of these businesses are not reading the tea leaves. Guyana is beginning to attract more and more international investor attention and investors will come along with higher expectations. These are no longer the days of roadside sugar cake trays. High standards of customer care [is] critical to competitive service delivery. We ignore that reality at our peril,” Clarke added.
The CEO emphasised that his team is “particularly keen” to work with businesses in the food services and agro- processing sectors. “It is not that we do not have products that respond to the weaknesses in other types of businesses. For example, we would wish, as well, to work with those Guyanese entities with Local Content ambitions as far as the oil and gas sector is concerned. However, we are particularly keen to work with the food service and agro-processing sectors because we have been observing their operations and we have been able to put our fingers directly on some of their operating weaknesses,” Clarke told Stabroek Business.
