Ep 21: Escaping Protectionism

Following on from our episode entitled Has Protectionism Failed Us? we discuss how creativity and modern day innovations are rewriting the script in the commercial world, allowing those who explore to escape the shackles of protectionism. Let's get on the supply side of the economy. Here’s how.

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You might not have realized how harnessing the power of logistics can transform your own medical practice and by extension, the healthcare industry in the Caribbean on a whole.

In this episode, RDL's Medical Logistics Solutionist Dr. Cherise Vanderpool joins our host and Logistics Director Collis Williams in discussing how Caribbean medical practitioners can use logistics as a tool to drive the cost of patient care down, while at the same time elevating their patient experience and propelling their practices forward.

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Our host Collis Williams invites you to join the debate; protectionism or free trade? He also challenges you to consider whether protectionism is in the interest of the people of the Caribbean or is it instead in the interest of a select few? Further, is protectionism a function of it being more politically expedient to protect capital rather than to protect the people?

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It’s a fact—demurrage plagues us in the Caribbean. And we can’t help but notice how it has made a shift from penalty to profiteering.

Following on from our recently published article ‘On Demurrage: Developing A Level of Reasonableness', our host Collis Williams, gives his thoughts on the plague that is demurrage. Can we find a cure for this crippling malady in the near future?

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Listen in with host Collis Williams and former Technical Advisor to the CARICOM Secretariat’s Office of Trade Negotiations, Joel Richards, on how we can revitalize manufacturing in Barbados and the wider CARICOM region.

Should we be looking at the core concept of manufacturing through a wider lens? Should we focus more on mass customization rather than mass production? Do we have the capacity to be a competitive manufacturing base on the world market?

We tackle these critical questions and more, as we discuss some of the strategies that can be employed to ensure manufacturing in the Caribbean both survives and thrives.

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E-commerce consultant Roger Barrow deconstructs the current Caribbean e-commerce environment, offering insight into the history of the global e-commerce market and how it has limited our capacity to participate. We delve into how we can circumvent these limitations and outline specific ways that Caribbean people can swim with the current e-commerce tide instead of against it—one such method is by shifting our focus towards the service element of e-commerce trade instead of on the physical goods aspect.

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This episode's discussion features Benjamin Niles, Chairman of the Barbados Vocational Training Board (BVBT), and centres on education. Our host Collis Williams purports that we the people of the Caribbean are not harnessing the power of logistics as we should; a problem that is clearly rooted in the way in which we were educated. Niles argues that we were taught to retain and regurgitate instead of the power of creative thought. The two agree that in the Caribbean, education as we know it must desperately be reinterpreted, and offer a few suggestions on how we can go about this behemoth of a task.

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Over the next 10 years, Barbadians will spend around 20 billion dollars on energy. With a current target of achieving 100% renewable energy usage by 2030, the government of Barbados has created a number of renewable energy and energy efficiency fiscal incentives that are hoped to open up the country's billion-dollar energy sector to a diversity of local entrepreneurs, and in turn assist in building the local capacity to supply the demand for renewable energy.

In this episode we speak to William Hinds BJH, SCM, Chief Energy Conservation Officer in the Ministry of Energy and Water Resources. We discuss the opportunities that exist in the emerging renewable energy sector for both individuals and companies as well as the change his ministry plans to bring to Barbados in the coming years.

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We open the year 2019 with a discussion on entrepreneurship featuring the General Manager of the Barbados Youth Business Trust (BYBT), Cardell Fergusson. Do we have a true understanding of what entrepreneurship really is? Are we confusing entrepreneurship with self-employment? Will a failure to understand this difference be to our detriment in the long run, especially as there is a current drive to herd retrenched workers into the direction of entrepreneurship?

We tackle these questions and touch on other critical discussion points including:

1. The opportunity that lies in the change in the way the world currently does business.
2. How the BYBT embraces this change.
3. Creating the allure for entrepreneurs to use digital platforms to advance their businesses.
4. Changing the way the entrepreneur views failure.
5. The value of telling our stories.

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In this episode, our host Collis Williams engages in a very passionate and high energy discussion with Belizean Egbert Irving, Program Manager at the Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business & Management. Egbert's role puts him in a position where he has access to the fertile minds of young people from across the region and as such, he is considered to be a critical person in the strategy for safeguarding the sustainability of our Caribbean people. 

As a moulder of minds, Collis charges Egbert with repositioning the mindset of our youth to help them understand not only how important it is to get in line as an entrepreneur, but also to be part of the agitation to facilitate the mastery of their own destiny. There is also a strong appeal to our youth to push their way through the contagion of old staid ideas that currently remain intact and ultimately hamper their progress.

Other critical points discussed include the fact that:

1. Jobs as we have traditionally known them, no longer exist.
2. The concept of a salary has to become less current.
3. We must think differently about earning a living and what we need to do to contribute to the economic growth of our countries.
4. We need to enfranchise and incentivise our people to take the mantle up and engage in entrepreneurship as their route to being masters of their own destinies.
5. Social goods can stagnate room for our young entrepreneurs to blossom.
6. There is a need to banish our seemingly innate fear to take a chance on ourselves and our talents as well as remedy the inherent level of mendicancy that fails to protect our small entrepreneurs.

Visit our website at https://www.rdleagle.com/podcast/ for show notes and to join the discussion on this episode.