An Interview with Saint Lucia’s SERVICES Go Global Trainers

SGG Trainer Interview - Listen here!

The Saint Lucia Coalition of Service Industries (SLCSI) is embarking on the provision of yet another round of export development training for local service providers aimed at strengthening their export capacity and readiness.

Two pre-qualified members of SLCSI were recently certified to provide this high-level training, which the SLCSI will begin delivering shortly to local service providers via interactive workshops, seminars and other appropriate platforms.

Keith Millar and Claudius “Peto” Francis recently attended a Services Exporting Train-the-Trainers Programme in Barbados. It was part of a series designed to fast-track Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) service providers through the various stages of export preparation.

The training was provided on a regional scale through the Caribbean Network of Coalition of Service Industries (CNSC) by “Services-Go-Global” (SGG), a services export training programme. SGG is an instructor-led, competency-based export training programme for service providers, and is in fact the world’s only export-readiness training programme for services exporters and would-be exporters.

The training programme that will be facilitated by the SLCSI in the months ahead, will follow a logical and sequenced road map approach to services exporting. Exporters and potential exporters will be taken through four stages and 12 modules of export preparation, based on globally accepted strategies and best practices.

These sessions will cover areas such as “Preparing Your Business”, “Conducting Market Research”, “Developing a Marketing Strategy”, and “Entering the Market”. The sessions will include presentations, roundtable discussions, coaching, exercises, case studies, tools and templates.

Targetted beneficiaries of this training include all SME service firms or service providers within the local services sector – including, but not limited to, Creative and Cultural Industries, Management Consultants, ICT providers, Marketing and Communications, Business Process Outsourcing, Professional Services, Business Services, Construction related, Health and Wellness Tourism, Travel related, Architect and planning, Audio-visual, Fashion and Design, Education and Training, Engineering, Environmental Services, Events Management, Finance and Investment, HRD, Legal Services and Transportation Services.

Other stakeholders are expected to partner with and lend support to this undertaking.

The main objectives of “Services Go Global” include assisting service firms in improving their competitiveness and achieving success in the global marketplace, increasing service exports, developing and increasing growth of the Service Sector

Other very important objectives and anticipated outcomes or benefits from the training programme are the earning of foreign exchange and increasing of profits, boosting innovation and competitiveness through exposure to new ideas, increasing market size, thereby allowing for specialization, mitigating the risks of doing business in only one country; and enhancing credibility through participation in the global market-place.