BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER (CEO) of the Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation (SIDF) Terrence Crossman has provided some insight into the SEED (Small Entrepreneur and Enterprise Development) programme, its objectives, its function and the projected impact it will have on the Federation’s economy.
SKNVibes engaged Crossman in an exclusive interview earlier this week during which he provided a wealth of information on the pilot project, noting that it is in keeping with the Foundation’s role in promoting nation building.
Reporter: “Who birthed the idea?”
Crossman: “As a management team, we met internally and we made the determination that there are a number of interventions that are required in the economy to move the economy along. You are aware of the FREESH initiative that we have already launched and we thought small business represents a significant opportunity for us at the SIDF to impact the economy through the creation of small businesses and to engender a spirit of enterprise and innovation. And so we - over several weeks and probably months - worked as a team to formulate the whole concept of the SEED programme and what you are seeing now is the outcome of those meetings.
Reporter: “What sort of impact do you see this project having on the economy of St. Kitts-Nevis over time?”
Crossman: “One of the key objectives of this initiative is to encourage people to become entrepreneurs because what we have discovered is that we have a lot of enterprising people…and accessing financing is one of the traditional hurdles or barrios that would prevent people from aspiring or achieving these objectives and so on.
“We figured putting a plan together like this - which provides the training, the coaching, the development, the handholding and the overall assistance with the management through the incubation of the business - is going to be critical. And of course, we’ve lowered the entry to access the capital which is now zero percent interest and we are not requiring any capital or anything like that. So what we expect is that overtime we would develop a cadre of young business persons who would ultimately assist in the growth in the economy in some way and overtime that impact would grow. And also to provide opportunities for employment.”
Reporter: “Did you have more than 12 applicants, and what was the selection process like?”
Crossman: “Interestingly, we did not advertise the SEED in any significant way because this is really a pilot project. But what we had done, we put out a press release that indicated that we were going to launch this programme. It was out for just over a week before the deadline came. And the reason for such a short timeframe was that we wanted to do something before the Christmas season so that we could start the New Year with these businesses having gone through the programme already. This is just the first of several phases because we’ve allocated $5M in total and if most persons max out and we get to about $1M we have at least four more tranches of this programme.
“We had though, 60 applicants and we interviewed 20 persons and we selected 12. Once it leaves the pilot stage, we would want to accommodate more persons in the future.”
Reporter: “Have you personally seen any enthusiasm coming from the participants?”
Crossman: “Actually very high…I am very surprised and encouraged by the high level of enthusiasm and the feedback I’ve been getting back from the participants. Having sat in on a few of the sessions, I am seeing a high level of engagement by the participants. They are all coming daily on time, we have had no absentees, people are very excited, they are motivated and at a minimum they really intend to benefit from this, whatever the outcome is. That is the feedback I have been getting in general.”
Reporter: “How long is the incubation stage of the project?”
Crossman: “The process that we are going through now is a three-week period, which is really the Boot Camp. Incubation is going to be a function of the type of business and what we determine in consultation with the facilitators as being necessary to fully manage that business. It will not be an indefinite period of time, but it can vary anywhere from three to six to nine to 12 months…because some businesses would require more assistance than others. And the definition of success is the business would have been up and running, operational, and would have repaid the indebtedness to the Foundation and be able to operate independent of the SIDF.”
Reporter: “Should the business fail, are there any measures in place to ensure that the money being loaned to them by the SIDF is recouped?”
Crossman: “Because of the model of the programme is one of shared risk and shared responsibility. So it will not be a case really where a person would owe us any money because we would have assumed the management responsibility. And it may mean that we may not fund it fully if over time targets are not being met…But if there are consistent losses and maybe it is determined that the business model would not work, it will not be a case where we would come back and say we want our money back. It would simply be that we won’t fund it anymore.”
Reporter: “When will the project be piloted in Nevis?”
Crossman: “We don’t know (but) it is certainly going to be next year, because we are already in December for all intents and purposes. We have started some preliminary conversations with some persons in Nevis but we are still trying to get a similar structure in Nevis to get a corps of persons to run the course, as we are doing it here on St. Kitts. But that process is on-going.”
The CEO – in underscoring the Foundation’s role in the promotion of nation building - indicated that through initiatives such as the SEED programme, it hopes to increase the success rate of small enterprises, thereby boosting the economy.
“Someone actually told me that in a major developed country, they were recently speaking to the equivalent of the small business association, who said that 90 percent of all of their new businesses fail. And that is consistent with the research, but we want to change that and we really want to have a higher success rate than 10 percent and that is what we think we will achieve through this initiative.”
