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Basseterre, St. Kitts, July 26, 2017 (SKNIS): The St. Kitts-Nevis Coalition of Service Industries (CSI) is planning to help those in the service industry transition into the age of technology where they can sell their services online. Also known as virtual trading.

The CSI will be providing information at an official launch on July 27 at the Ocean Terrace Inn (OTI).

Representatives, who appeared on Wednesday’s (July 26) edition of “Working for You” including Lennox Warner, Chairperson of the Executive of the CSI; Telly Onu, Consultant for the CSI and Rodney Browne, Task Force Member, said that they will be sensitizing those in the service industry about virtual trading. It was said that this will be an easier way of doing business in terms of becoming more professional.

“I believe through the coalition we could sensitize to a lot of people who are in these different industries that first and foremost you need to get yourself sorted out; get yourself registered and I believe the government has done quite a lot in terms of reducing the time to register your business,” said Telly Onu, consultant to the CSI.

She said that she believes that for some industries there could be some revision of the different codes that they fall under including occupational licenses. Ms. Onu added that there now has to be feedback as to what the issues are so that they can be raised.

Ms. Onu noted that Ecommerce is fundamental and in terms of trading services there are different modes of trading. One mode is trading across borders. Ecommerce also is a contributor towards a decrease in unemployment since the site will require a PPC Agency to monitor it’s paid advertisements and another to monitor its SEO rankings. If they move to an online platform like Shopify they might be able to navigate their business better and acquire a better reach amongst potential customers. In cases such as this, a Shopify SEO checklist might prove helpful to them in bringing about improved search engine rankings and generate organic traffic.

“You don’t have to leave St. Kitts-Nevis for you to export your services,” she explained. “You could be on your computer. You can access and ship your goods and even your services virtually.

The consultant referred to an initiative that Rodney Browne, Task Force Member, has implemented to facilitate a portal to trade across the OECS as an example of exporting goods virtually.

One of the ways the CSI will help with this is to increase the visibility and promote these companies. On the other end, some of the other programmes the Coalition will bring to St. Kitts and Nevis would be training programmes to be export ready.

“We are currently working on securing a license to roll out a programme called “Services Go Global” which is an export development programme,” said Ms. Onu. “Within that ICT is a fundamental component because if you look at other non tech businesses, everybody needs technology to grow. So, that is part of the component. So training is one of the key areas to raise also awareness on how to do it because some people just don’t know how.

The Coalition will also be promoting specifically the creative sector under which is music.

“We already have a programme called “Business of Music,” said Ms. Onu. “It is a virtual programme. We are discussing an internal taskforce as to how best to roll it out and how St. Kitts-Nevis could be more effective and how many times we could roll it out in a year. But the business of music online follows the same path for export.”

Ms. Onu added that they will help in readiness and export development in terms of covering everything from intellectual property, to how to research your market, how to prepare yourself and how to professionalize your business.

“While we have people who are in the industry and they have been in it for years, they may not necessarily have gone officially to train and even on the business side they might know all the technical skills like sound engineering, videography, but for them to really develop and roll out a business that can scale and be exported inan area that they need to be good at.”