– 60 businesses to participate, to promote collaboration

THE second annual National Small Business Week, organised by the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), was launched on Friday, focusing primarily on promoting collaboration among small businesses.

During the launch at GTT’s office at the Pegasus Suites and Corporate Centre, President of the GCCI, Kester Hutson, stated that the event this year will begin on July 21 and end on July 29 with several activities planned for the duration.

According to Hutson, the GCCI’s focus this year is on collaboration and it is partnering with the Ministry of Tourism, Industry, and Commerce, along with GTT, to host the Small Business Week.

“We thought it best to have this collaboration, a public-private partnership to enhance the delivery…” he said.

While he noted that through the overwhelming request, the week of events was held last year, he stated that this year was no different as some 60 small businesses will again participate in the week of activities.

Hutson told members of the media that the theme for this year’s event is “Strategic Collaboration for Success” and that it is recognised that there is a need for the close to 800 members within the GCCI to look at areas in which they can collaborate to grow businesses in various sectors.

Meanwhile, the Chair of the GCCI’s entrepreneurship and small business committee Evie Gurcharan, stated that this year’s Small Business week will leverage the chamber’s resources to ensure that activities are carried out not just in Georgetown but also in outlying areas.

“What we’re doing is leveraging the resources of the various chambers in outlying areas, in the counties rather, we’re going to Berbice, we’re going to Linden, we’re going to Essequibo and we’re going to be in Georgetown,” she said.

As part of the events planned, Gurcharan stated that there will be Small Business Saturday and Sunday along with training and seminars and even a video series which she said will highlight the work of rising entrepreneurs.

There will also be a five-day immersive workshop where topics like leadership, management, and organisational structure are expected to take place and participants will work with a manager or Chief Executive Officer over the five days to understand how businesses run at a medium scale.

The National Small Business Week will subsequently culminate on July 29 with the Small Business Seminar and Expo at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre.

Added to this, Chief Operations Officer (Business Solutions) at GTT, Orson Ferguson, told members of the media on Friday that the company was happy to come on board again as the title sponsor for the event.

He said, “We also believe that small and medium-sized businesses absolutely need more platforms to showcase their products and services. We think that the expo is an excellent platform for small businesses; we think that the seminars and the training and the exposure that those activities bring to small businesses are extremely extremely important and we want to encourage small businesses across the country to participate.”