The aim of Technology Extension Services (TES) is to promote the adoption and effective use of new technologies in firms through activities such as training, capacity building, and technical assistance. TES can be especially important in developing countries and rural areas where access to technology is limited. By providing these support services, TES can help bridge the gap between technology developers and users, promoting sustainable development and improving livelihoods. This is important for the Caribbean because TES can help companies in the region adopt new technologies and improve economic growth and social development.
The TES pilot project started in October 2019 with the main objective of providing support to public business support organizations that are part of the Caribbean Small Business Development Centre (SBDC) network, and to pilot a TES delivery system that will support increased productivity and innovation in the private sector. During its three year implementation, capacity assessments, training and hand holding resulted in the technology service providers (TSP) delivering TES to seventy five (75) small and medium enterprises in the tourism, manufacturing and agro-processing sectors across the Caribbean region.
Technical assistance is the ability to support companies to make informed decisions and understand the role of training and technology in a firm’s future. Despite some complex interventions, TES providers adopted a safe route approach to execute assistances during the pilot. Still, in several cases, firm representatives changed their minds or avoided significant investments during worldwide uncertainty because of COVID-19. This led to the implementation of well-known solutions, such as Content Management Systems (CMS), SEO/SEM, and training on social media and digital marketing strategies. Overall, digital was the most popular intervention area, except for agro-processing. We estimate this was motivated, mainly, by the interest of companies in expanding their visibility, especially online, to reconnect with their markets and look for new niches.
Firms were able to prioritize technology adoption and see improvements in productivity, quality, innovation and in some cases profitability. Overall there was a willingness in firms to invest their time and resources in technology solutions because of the audits and the benefits to be gained from the interventions over time.
Building on the pilot´s learnings, a second call was launched in 2022, between September 1st to September 30th. This version was designed to cater to the needs of a new TES initiative comprising the Blue Economy and Essential Services sectors.
With the rapid advancement of digitalization in the last couple of years, the IT dimension was given a significant weight, as the focus of this call is mostly digital.
From the pilot project´s learnings, it was found that familiarity with the new prioritized technologies has become more important than experience with traditional ones, due to the rapid rate of technological change.
Also, it was learnt that size alone is not a variable that reflects firm potential. Young companies, with a certain level of familiarity with digital technologies are potentially more apt to profit from the wave of digitalization than small companies that have been in business for years, without consistent growth in the last years. Moreover, firms that in the last years have not grown despite receiving business support, may not be suitable for TES.
The first call to companies took place between July 15th and August 31st 2020. Targeted calls were organized later to attract firms from specific sectors and territories. Around 480 submissions were received, of which 430 were from individual firms from all 13 participating countries.
Eligibility of firms was determined according to an evaluation based on four core areas (listed below) that impact competitiveness according to international experience. A specific assessment tool was developed: the Business Potential Assessment (BPA). The BPA sought to characterize Caribbean companies and identify the individual potential of up to 75 firms that would take part in the Technology Extension Services initiative. Below is a summary of the first BPA assessment method used in the TES pilot project, with a description of each area.
During the second project, the BPA process received 329 valid submissions, of which 233 came from Women-owned firms (70%). A third call during this project was organized in June, 2023. 71 new valid applications were received between the 13th and the 23rd which added 20 new firms eligible for audits, reaching a total of 88 auditable companies.
Each company’s potential to benefit from the TES pilot was determined according to a joint numerical analysis of the four key areas previously described. Each area was given a weight defined in advance and listed in Table 3. As can be observed, the section “Business growth and export potential” was the most important, with a 50% weight of the overall score.
AREA | WEIGHT |
|---|---|
Business growth and export potential | 50% |
Use and experience with technology | 25% |
Energy and Environmental Management | 15% |
Training and information needs | 10% |
Company potential for TES support | 100% |
Lead Consultant
Between 2015 and 2021, the University of Concepción in Chile, operated the Center for Technological Extension in Manufacturing (CETMA). The Center addressed competitiveness gaps in the small to medium-sized local manufacturing companies. Its services were associated with training and technical assistance in digital transformation, new product and packaging development, process optimization, energy efficiency and environmental compliance, among other areas of service.
During its operation, the institution carried out gap diagnoses to nearly 600 companies in Chile along with 450 technical assistance in industries such as metalworking, construction, agribusiness, sawmills, shipyards and textiles, among others.
Since 2021, the needs of technological updating and innovation of the SMEs were addressed through one of the University’s Centers that operates from the School of Engineering: the Center for Industry 4.0 (C4i). The organization´s area of expertise is cyber-physical systems, advanced manufacturing and data science, upon which the following units are structured:
Located in Trinidad and Tobago, the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) has a fifty year-long tradition of providing technical and research and development services across the region. It has participated in relevant initiatives regarding technology and practice adoption and upgrading, especially in the agro-processing sector. Within the TES pilot project, the main capacity identified in the sector was the provision of support to companies requiring export market standards and regulatory compliance.
Other areas of expertise involved improvement and adoption of practices related to climate change, such as carbon and environmental management consultancy. More recently, CARIRI has developed several programs aimed at promoting business creation, growth and sophistication through initiatives such as Idea Advisory Service (IAS), Innovation Gap Analysis Programme (IGAP), Business Hatchery Programme (BHP) and associated business support services. It also provides support to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) competitiveness improvement through digitization and digitalization initiatives, has been addressed with a large numbers of firms throughout the region.
The Hotel Institution for Technology (Instituto Tecnológico Hotelero) which is based in Madrid, is a hospitality and tourism innovation center for hotels. Their mission is to improve the competitiveness, profitability, quality, efficiency and sustainability of companies linked to the industry. ITH works for the best interest of hoteliers, seeking simple, practical solutions to optimize their performance in hotel management in key areas such as environmental and energy efficiency, Information Technology and operations.
The project demonstrated that the activities implemented helped firms take the next step in adapting to immediate and future changes in the economic environment. According to the responses from firms, four areas of competitiveness experienced significant change as direct results of the technical assistance:
In terms of Return on Investment (ROI), considering the group analyzed, the team observed a dramatic increase in private sector investment. This figure went from the equivalent of only 1% (of Compete Caribbean´s investment) to 47%, showing that TES is effective in unlocking private expenditure.
The audits and interventions allowed firms to prioritize the following steps and brought improvements in all measured variables. Some of the variables positively affected by TES according to the impact survey (based on a sample of firms) are presented next. Still, we cannot apply it to estimate the additional impact in the larger group due to the lack of baseline information. The following impact was calculated based on the average amounts that some of the treated group firms declared.
Number of firms benefitting from gender-responsive Technology Extension Programs (disaggregated by gender – women owned firms and men owned firms)
Challenges – Priorities in tourism were related to attracting new customers and offering a seamless journey through all stages of a trip.
Learnings and Solutions – For tourism firms willing to adopt new technologies, the recommendation was a sequence to implement or deploy technologies as follows:
Challenges – Establishing a consistent digital infrastructure was key to manufacturing, along with focusing on adding value through design and product development, tracking material usage and working hours, maintaining equipment, and adopting the latest technological trends.
Learnings & Solutions – Based on the recommendations by the team in manufacturing at the technology audit plans (TAPs) phase of the project, a suggested sequence for manufacturing firms willing to adopt new technologies could be:
Challenges – In the agroprocessing sector, companies prioritized assistance in topics linked to food safety, Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP).
Learnings and Solutions – Based on the recommendations by the team in agroprocessing, a suggested sequence for an agroprocessing firms willing to adopt new technologies could be:
Standardize a language for describing production processes to visually help the company understand bottlenecks and opportunities for improvement. Quantify the existing area allocated for production/inventory purposes and create plant layouts to facilitate understanding of the process from a third-party perspective.
Support firms in making their processes or plans explicit, enabling solution providers to intervene and establish a standard way of communicating with others for technical matters in the future.
Focus on process improvement and profit from this intervention to collect plant layouts and process flow diagrams, enabling future interventions.
Prioritize measures to upgrade food safety standards, ensuring compliance with industry regulations and increasing the value of the products.
Assess the potential benefits of adopting digital technologies that could further optimize processes, improve traceability, or enhance product quality.
The macro level KPIs to guide the TES 2023 project execution inclusive of monitoring and evaluation can be accessed in a series of six (6) analytics dashboards using the link below. You can navigate through the dashboards by clicking the navigation arrows. These arrows are positioned on the screen at the base in the middle.
All Dashboards are interactive, clicking on any element in a visualization resolves the corresponding information in its dependencies for in-depth insights.
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