Small and Medium-Sized Business are the Backbone of the Economy

Large businesses rely heavily on smaller enterprises to maintain their operations. In fact, Adam Stewart, Group Executive Chairman of Sandals Resorts International revealed that in his Jamaica operations, 95 percent of weekly vendor payments are to small and micro businesses. The success of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is therefore critical, and he says it is the job of Caribbean business leaders to contribute to their success.

With the right support, Stewart believes small businesses can flourish, and he made an appeal to businesses to re-examine their supply chains.

“I implore every purchasing manager and every big business to ensure you do everything possible to buy locally first, and even if it is not available find a way to pioneer the industry with them, create a market place and put somebody in business.”

As chairman of Jamaica’s Tourism Linkages Network, Stewart has been spearheading initiatives to pave the way for new suppliers.

“I set up a programme with the Jamaica Hotel Association called speed networking, which is the bringing together of the supply side and the consumption side: hoteliers and all of the suppliers. Typically, you can meet two to three people if you go to Kingston or Miami… but with these meetings, we are connecting 50, 70, 80 people a day. Sometimes in our very own nations we don’t even know what is out there and what is possible.”

Also important, says Stewart, is making sure payments to small service providers are done in a timely fashion.

“I think it is critical to understand that in my business whether it is a supplier, a multitude of farmers, tour operator, excursions operator, a taxi operator, a transportation operator, flowers… As we are running larger operations, what is powering our own operations in many instances are small businesses. And it is our job, as leaders in the Caribbean, to ensure that we not only support them, we pay them on time to make sure we don’t impact their own cash flows.”

This is important, he stresses, because SMEs are the backbone of society and if they thrive, so does our wider society.

Those businesses, all things being equal and with success on their side, become larger and add additional team members, eventually becoming medium-sized businesses within our economy, Stewart said. Greater success therefore means more opportunities for job creation, foreign investments, opportunities to learn new skills and increase foreign currency inflows. All factors necessary for economic growth and development.