The Dominica Manufacturers Association (DMA) is hoping to increase communication among professionals and hold discussions on the state of the service industry at a symposium carded for September 15.
The activity forms part of Buy Dominica month observed in September 2016.
“One of the things that we recognize is among our professionals there is not much dialogue,” President of the DMA, Severin Mckenzie said while addressing a Pre-launch of the “Buy Dominica Campaign” at the Dominica Export Import Agency (DEXIA) conference room recently. “What we have for example, when we go for the services the architects are one way, the engineers are one way, quantity surveyors another way…”
He said, “What we are hoping is to increase the communication where we can sit on the 15th of September among professionals and discuss the state of the service industry as it relates to the professions in Dominica to come up with recommendations as to what can be done.”
According to McKenzie, “We lack the expertise generally because the architecture we practise in Dominica does not actually call for all that, so when you have a client that wants this type of service then you find that a lot of our architects are limited.”
However, he stated that at the same time the association understands that there are some persons who can do it, “but who?”
McKenzie noted that the symposium, particularly for the service industries is one where the association is actually going to declare, “as to our capacity, as to what is the resource that we really have in Dominica, that when all these projects are coming in to Dominica and they say that we do not have the capacity to do it, do we really not have the capacity to do it? Or we do not know where the capacity is?”
He added, “This is one of the things we are hoping to explore at that symposium where we can discuss among ourselves.”
The DMA official said no foreign consultants will be brought in to conduct the activity.
“We ourselves are going to take an inner look at what we are doing, where we are wrong, where we need help and maybe we may even be able to identify areas where we need assistance, and maybe we could tap the various resources like the Ministry and say we are lacking in this particular area…,” he explained. “We are going to take an in-depth look at ourselves as professionals and what we can do.”
He said the manufacturers are going to apply the same scrutiny to their products, “the products we are producing, which products have real potential for the market, are we competing among ourselves or can we collaborate?”
He said it amazed him that even within the country’s small underdeveloped manufacturing sector that some people have the tendency of trying to hide information from each other.
“We should be collaborating, we should be sharing,” McKenzie urged.
Meantime, Executive Director of Dominica Coalition of Service Industries (DCSI), Lester Riviere said the increased dialogue is necessary to boost collaboration between all relevant business and players involved in order to understand the common challenges.
“The more you have dialogue and debate and discussion when you bring heads together ideas come about that one individual would not have by himself or herself,” he stated. “We want to ensure that as individuals as we build that collaboration between the key stakeholders in the industries that it will make a difference in terms of how we can move forward to develop these sectors to increase our professionalism as service providers, to increase quality, productivity, production…”
Other activities planned for the month include the ‘Buy Dominica Fair’ on September 23rd and an awards ceremony for product and service providers carded for September 29th.
This is a good ttip particularly to those new to the blogosphere.
Short but very accurate info… Many thanks for sharing this one.
A must read post!
I believe one of the greatest challenges facing members of the DMA and Dominican professionals in general; is the lack of basic communication skills and protocols, such as not returning emails nor even telephone calls. This results in a waste of time and lowers overall productivity.
There is a bureau of standards and measurments. I am not sure what thier responsibility is as prescribed by law, but in my own mind they should set the guidelines or standards for building and construction based on international building standards and Dominica’s own geo-physical challenges. They should also set up guidlines and standards for manufacturing, industry inclufing farming practice etc. Together with ministry of health and environment even things like fertilizer application should have guidelines. Without established national guidlines there is nothing to go by and everyone does thier own thing. Or probably there is and no one follows. The DMA should first find out what the rules are, when they were established and if they are relevant today. Thats a conversation starter. The use of new technology for anything is a finavisl decision. In a competitive environment communication among professionals is limited thats why there needs to be national standards.
That should be financial.