Minister of Small Business, Entrepreneurship and Commerce, Dwight Sutherland. (FP)
Certified Management Consultants here on the island have been praised for their role in facilitating the services sector.
This came recently from Minister of Small Business, Entrepreneurship and Commerce, Dwight Sutherland, as he addressed the Caribbean Institute of Certified Management Consultants’ (CICMC) Annual General Meeting and Forum at the Barbados Coalition of Service Industries (BCSI) on Harbour Road.
The Minister lauded CICMC for its efforts to promote the advancement of the services sector by offering technical and professional expertise, stating that this was instrumental in providing clients with relevant tools to develop skills, competencies, strategies and techniques aimed at better positioning businesses to manage, operate and ensure their longevity.
“The invaluable service provided by your members, surely enables the services sector to be able to make a meaningful contribution to the economic development of our beautiful country and also augurs well for the growth of the services sector nationally and regionally,” he said of the larger grouping.
He commended the Barbados Chapter of CICMC for taking advantage of strategic alliances to achieve its own objectives, among them alignments with the Barbados Investment and Development Corporation to advance the professional development of its stakeholders, as well as affiliations with the BCSI and the Business Development Unit in his Ministry to promote the development and export capacity of the services community.
Members were also lauded for using international accreditation and standards such as the ISO Standard 20700 for Management Consultancy Services, that allows them “the ability to compete on even footing with their regional and international counterparts” and for ensuring several of them possess the internationally recognized Certified Management Consultancy (CMC) designation.
Emphasizing that possessing and maintaining high standards had to be one of the principles for CICMC’s members and clienteles in order to penetrate and compete in regional and international markets, the Small Business Minister stressed: “In these
challenging times, especially for the business community, the stated values are indeed admirable and necessary if we are to promote efficiency, compete on the basis of quality, rebuild and sustain economic development.”
Meanwhile, President of CICMC Barbados Chapter, Norma Shorey-Bryan, explained that their mission was “to develop and certify a cadre of world-class management consultants by fostering strategic alliances supportive of each other and the provision of competitive services to clients according to global standards”.
Pointing out that CICMC aimed to maintain values, standards and ethics, she said they promoted, among other things, collaboration and the professional development of members, including coaching and mentoring; best practices within the management consultancy industry; growth of membership and the building of a collaborative network and effective governance.
“We want to promote the management consulting industry, the value of the management consulting services as well as maintaining good governance,” she said while noting the current board was expected to serve two years – from 2017 to 2019 – and outlining CICMC’s strategic map of the way forward.