From time to time, Barbados has been called “one of the best places to do business.”
And, today was no exception, as the commendation came from Managing Partner of KM Solutions Barbados Limited (KM² Solutions), David Kreiss, while addressing a gathering at the official opening of the company -a call centre – at Building #4, Suite 302, Harbour Industrial Park.
Indicating that his company was different from other call centres, he said it was focused on the Caribbean and did not have centres in the USA, the Philippines or India. “We focus here with US Fortune 500 companies. So, when I go on a sales call, I am focussing on the Caribbean. I am talking about Barbados and St. Lucia and all the countries that belong to this beautiful world. That is our focus and no other. Other companies focus on India, the Philippines …This is where the jobs are; this is where we think we have the best place to keep growing.
“We want to be the player of choice; we want to provide long term stability and more importantly we want to provide a place where people really want to come to work. We would like to build an environment that is a wonderful place to work … we want to create economic expansion,” he revealed.
Mr. Kreiss noted that there were many reasons why his company was attracted to Barbados. Among those mentioned were this country’s telephonic infrastructure, its human resources capital, the ease in doing business, the safe environment for Fortune 500 companies to bring their business and the ease of travel as a destination.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Affairs and Development, Mia Amor Mottley, speaking at the opening, thanked KM² Solutions for coming to Barbados, for doing business here and “for wanting to grow with us as we seek to grow our economy and for improving the quality of life of our people.”
She alluded to the fact that the Barbados Government had provided an enabling environment for call centres to be able to take up businesses in Barbados because of the policy being now pursued. She said: “Barbados has deliberately taken a decision for a technologically neutral policy in relation to telecommunications and, therefore, your domestic fixed licence, whether you use traditional methods or whether you seek to build it on a platform of Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) will in fact admit new players into the domestic market. Hopefully, these new players will be able to offer even more competitive rates to call centres that come here.
She added: “We have indicated as a government that this is going to be critical to our development mission and our strategic plan to 2025 is premised on the development of knowledge based industries, as well as our industrial plan for the next five years and our plan for the international business sector for the next five years…”
KM Solutions Barbados Limited is a state-of-the-art call centre, specialising in providing its clients with “high quality call centre solutions for accounts receivable management, customer contact projects and several other related services.” It presently employs 180 persons and expects to expand to 300 persons by year end.