Next week in Trinidad, the Caribbean Export fifth annual Management Consulting Business Symposium will convene. The Caribbean Institute of Certified Management Consultants will have members from around the region in attendance.
This event represents an important milestone in the process of transforming the region’s economic development model to embrace the realities of global trade in services.
According to the agenda: “[The] Caribbean Export Development Agency (Caribbean Export) continues to identify the professional services – in particular the management consulting industry – as a priority niche sector for support interventions.”
This recognition of management consulting as a “priority industry” represents a breakthrough that, if utilized, can be valuable in addressing the economic woes of the region.
In May, 2007, the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes made a presentation to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, titled Improving Outcomes From Development Funding By Using Indigenous Management Consultants.
Key points were:
1. Using competent indigenous management consultants would improve the efficacy, effectiveness and efficiency of development funded projects, and through these and related involvements increase the capability and capacity of the economy of the developing country.
2. The council’s core competence is in establishing and running national professional bodies for management consultants, and it is the mission of the council to build national institutes of management consultancy in developing countries. This mission is in direct support of indigenous management consultants.
3. Management consultancy is a process that occurs with the client. The consultants need underlying skill but must be competent in the use of the process and to have demonstrated, to a client’s satisfaction, that the proper behaviour and due process is regularly employed. Only then can the management consultant claim to be competent.
The Caribbean Institute of Certified Management Consultants was established in January, 2007, and, by November of the same year, managed to obtain provisional membership in the council. This required a waiver of the rule specifying that only single countries could become members.
It was important to establish a regional body because studies (also published in 2007) conducted by Caribbean Export and the Commonwealth Commission concluded that management consulting in the region was too fragmented to generate worthwhile foreign exchange.
In truth, there was no vehicle to promote collaboration among regional management consultants. Further, the public, service providers and procurers had no recognized criteria for assessing management consulting competence. The follow-on is that it was also impossible to recognize the value and importance to the development of our region.
As the Economic Partnership Agreement between the Caribbean Community and the European Union came into effect, 93 per cent of every dollar spent on consulting services in the region, left the region in the pockets of non-regional consultants.
If you want to get an idea of the enormity of this statistic, consider the fact that the management consulting industry earns a trillion dollars per year. Aside from the benefits that can flow from having “indigenous” management consultants increase the value of regional development projects, it is then possible to generate valuable foreign exchange through the export of these services to the rest of the world.
In 2010, the Caribbean Institute of Certified Management Consultants became a full member of the council and the only organization in the Caribbean authorized to certify management consultants with the designation that is recognized in 50 countries.
I wish to congratulate the institute and Caribbean Export for their persistent efforts toward developing this hidden treasure.
