Two local companies recently benefited from a productivity measuring exercise organized by the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council (NCPC). The companies got to find out how productive their enterprises have been over the past five years, and the steps necessary to increase their productivity.

During the recent testing of its innovative productivity measuring tool with two service providers, Fiona Hinkson, Director of the NCPC said: “One of the mandates of the NCPC is to measure productivity. We realize that firms within the private sector they are having difficulty in measuring productivity so the NCPC designed a productivity tool named Protool to assist firms in measuring their productivity. Today we actually had a testing exercise. We did the testing last year with manufacturing firms; this time around we are doing the testing with services firms in order to test the tool using their data for us to see how we can improve that tool.”

Hinkson touted that the Protool can be a vital measuring instrument for all areas within the business sector concerned with productivity. She said in the near future, Protool will be available as an online application on the NCPC’s website.

“This tool is not just a quantitative tool, it is also qualitative. Firms will be able to answer questions like leadership capability and management; they will be able to answer questions on their business processes, their sales and marketing. Look at what is happening within their firms in terms of innovation and they would be able to get the results from that tool as well as the tool will be able to provide them with recommendations on how they can improve their business processes as well as how they can improve in enhancing productivity within their firm.”

The two businesses which participated in the testing programme were Cox and Company Ltd. and Phone Bay Inc. They had high praise for the quality of the Protool’s processes and final report.

Peter Lorde from Cox and Company, said: “This tool encourages business to go evidence based in terms of determining where they are. I also think it adds to the old adage that if you can’t measure, you can’t manage, and it encourages management by the numbers.”

Chris Dahoma, Managing Director of Phone Bay, added: “The tool makes you aware that there is more you can do in the company to get the figures that you want. It pinpoints things that you might have been unaware of, so that you can implement them in your business to get better results.”

The participants also seized the opportunity to make recommendations to enhance certain aspects of the Protool.

Productivity measures how efficiently production inputs such as labor and capital are used to produce a given level of output. Thus productivity is considered a key source of economic growth and competitiveness and serves as statistical information for many international comparisons and country performance assessments.

The National Competitiveness and Productivity Council (NCPC)was established to identify key issues related to competitiveness and productivity in Saint Lucia while providing timely recommendations to policy makers, the private sector and other stakeholders.