It would appear that the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) is not ready to give up on the idea of having small businesses become members of the Chamber even though, knowing what we do about the way in which the Chamber has been traditionally organised and the manner in which those businesses that we call small businesses are organised, the Chamber is embracing quite a challenge.
Incidentally, even the Stabroek Business seems unaware of what exactly qualifies as a small business from the GCCI’s perspective. The GCCI must tell us whether it is working with the definition of a small business outlined in the Small Business Act or whether it is open to ‘the average’ reasonably well organised market vendor or whether it is looking for a bit more shape and structure in its members.
If the Chamber’s definition of ‘small’ embraces every enterprise ranging from a well-run barber shop to vendors offering home-made condiments from stalls in municipal markets then it must know that it is taking on quite a job. If there is not to be an almighty clash of business cultures inside the GCCI then it has to be mindful to compartmentalise its operations. In other words, the window which it says it has opened for small business membership must remain open for providing the various services which its small business members will require.
A cursory glance at the broad spectrum of enterprises that are loosely described as small businesses tells an interesting story.
Sometimes it seems that everyone selling a few hundred chickens wants to be termed a business even though what you will discover all too frequently is that some businesses are really not businesses since they are not officially registered. After the Small Business Bureau opened its doors to members some time ago it discovered that many of its prospective members had no business registration business. What the Bureau did, it seems, was to arrange for the registration authorities to pay particular attention to the needs of the unregistered enterprises.
The Chamber might well find itself either having to create pre-business registration criteria, or else, go the way of the Bureau.
What the GCCI already knows is that different levels of businesses require, in some instances, different levels of services. As has already been intimated the owners of many small and micro enterprises are not even aware of the procedures associated with acquiring a business registration. More than that, these days, there are all sorts of courses being run for small business owners including those that have to do with things like basic accounting and writing business proposals.
There is an interesting paradox here. On the one hand if small operations want to move into the business mainstream and benefit from what it has to offer (commercial bank loans come readily to mind) they really have little choice but to comply with the formal requirements. On the other hand, what one finds in far too many cases is that the requirement of compliance frightens off some people. Say what you like about creating a business culture, some people, many people, prefer to work under the radar – so to speak – away from prying eyes and they are even prepared to pay the price in terms of being locked out of what the mainstream has to offer.
An official of the Guyana Marketing Corporation had indicated some time ago that access to the services of that organization, including The Guyana Shop required that enterprises be registered as business. There is nothing wrong with that except of course that the creation of what one might call a culture of accessibility becomes necessary. By that one means that the procedures associated with getting a business registered ought to be made simple enough to enable small and micro enterprises to ‘sign up’ without a great deal of bureaucratic hassle. Otherwise they will run the proverbial mile from becoming registered businesses.
If bringing the small and micro businesses into the mainstream is going to work then there is going to have to be an almighty change in the business culture. Sometimes we underestimate the deeply rooted traditions that remain embedded in the business culture. Acceptance of small and micro enterprises as bona fide businesses is still not necessarily ‘around the corner.’ The banks and other lending institutions will have to be re-educated to learn how to interact with Chief Executive Officers who neither wear suits nor drive cars and who own neither.
On the other hand this new group of businessmen are going to have to be taught just how to engage those institutions that have long made them jittery and averse to contact. There is going to have to be a process of re-education on all sides.
What makes this process critical is the fact that the realities of domestic (and global) competitiveness will eventually mean that small operations that remain outside the mainstream will, in a great many cases, lose out to those which, by virtue of becoming mainstream, have acquired a significant competitive edge. We are even likely to get to a point where the traditional ‘mom and pop’ types of operations may be pushed out of business altogether.
The question remains as to whether the Chamber has either the human resource capacity or the material resources to bring small businesses on board. That is a determination that can only be made with time.
