Hendrickson On Wednesday October 1, 2003 business tycoon Karl Hendrick-son was inducted into the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica's (PSOJ) Hall of Fame. In a 50-year career, Mr. Hendrickson has left an indelible mark on the Jamaican business landscape. From bread-slicing, light manufacturing, animal feed and now tourism, his has been a remarkable story.
Here, Sunday Business publishes the full text of his address at the function held at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel.
IT IS with great humility that I accept this honour that has been bestowed on me by the PSOJ this evening.
By inducting me into your Hall of Fame, you have permitted me to join a distinguished group of my colleagues and friends who have been honoured in the past.
I wish to thank you for considering my efforts to be of the same order of magnitude of my predecessors; and to emphasise the reality that my efforts alone, certainly could not have created what you have given me credit for. In fact, I have been extremely blessed to have had at my side a loyal and loving wife Nell who has provided the guidance in my life and produced four wonderful children who continue to work assiduously in their various endeavours to be productive, while trying to attain excellence in quality, efficiency and most importantly, human relations.
SUPPORTIVE
And my brother, Larry, who has been highly supportive all over the years, but who is unable to be here tonight, as he is on the other side of the world.
And then, of course, there is our extended family the numbers of persons at all levels, who have worked with great dedication and considerable skills, to help us all to get where we are today.
And so this evening I wish to thank everyone my family, my extended family, for all that they have done to date, and to remind them all including myself, that we dare not become complacent about what we have accomplished so far, given the world in which we live today, with all the new competition engendered by the process of globalisation. To become complacent in this environment, practically guarantees that you will be relegated to history.
It is noteworthy that lately a report has shown that the Jamaican consumer has been rated the most prepared in the region to accept a globalised world including the CARICOM Single Market, but are our producers prepared for this same phenomenon? From a production point of view, we must be aware that all may not be fair in this process that is supposed to provide a better future, because our presumptions about our preparedness are not correct.
But let me not go there just yet; rather, let me step back a bit and give you a little background to the few comments I wish to make this evening.
As most of you will know, I am essentially a manufacturer a member of what I would like to call the Productive Sector. History records that I got bitten by the desire to go into manufacturing, even as my parents maintained visions that I would become a doctor.
ADVENTUROUS ENTERPRISE
From that first adventurous enterprise in producing sliced bread, that expanded into a diversified baking company, we have ventured into areas such as feed mills, chicken and pig growing and processing, and other small manufacturing endeavours, and we have had and continue to have a fair degree of success in these areas.
Some may think that our more recent foray into tourism may have overshadowed our manufacturing enterprises but this is not the case. It is true that we have put emphasis on tourism over the past five years, because of the opportunities that presented themselves and tourism being what one might call a "glamorous industry", has garnered a lot of publicity.
But the basis of our business
activities continue to be manufacturing; and while we will keep growing our tourism products; over the next few years we will be making new thrusts in manufacturing, primarily by building two extremely efficient and quality oriented new plants, and continue extending and upgrading our present plants. New plants take an immense amount of capital because we build them to meet international health and safety standards
And so, despite the decline in manufacturing in Jamaica, I remain convinced that our country's great need to create wealth lies in our ability to add value through production, and one of the important ways of doing so, is manufacturing.
At no time am I inferring that the creation of wealth is limited to the productive sector or that in that sector it is limited to manufacturing. In fact, even greater gains are to be made in Agricul-ture, Agro-industry, Tourism and Hospitality, where the greatest value added can be obtained, because this is where the largest local inputs are possible.
And who could overlook the huge Financial and Distribution Sectors and all the services they offer and provide with sophistication, and their extensive reach into all aspects of society ?
In Agriculture and Agro-Industry it is heartening to see how The United Estates/Worthy Park Group utilises land so efficiently and the continuing successes of Appleton rum, pickapeppa sauce and the recent growth of the Walkerswood manufacturing project. In all instances the final product depends on ingredients grown here in Jamaica, and this is crucial.
LOCAL INGREDIENTS
The same applies to tourism where we depend to a large extent on local ingredients the sun, sea and beauty of our country. These have been exploited and developed by Jamaicans in the business, who have used to great advantage the attribute of hospitality which characterises our people; to this, of course, they have applied creativity, hard work and determination.
It is no accident therefore, that we have produced some of the best, internationally known and respected names in tourism anywhere in the world I speak of course of persons like John Pringle, the late Abe Issa who has been succeeded by his son and nephew Lee and John and Butch Stewart.
These Jamaicans and others perhaps less well-known, but equally important have made Jamaica a force to be reckoned with, as they have fashioned a world class industry, which successfully competes internationally.
I am pleased to note that the Government has made Tourism the centrepiece of its efforts to grow the economy. Most of us agree that this is moving along the right track.
However, more attention must be paid to further developing the inputs from agriculture and manufacturing, including arts and crafts, the development of attractions, the development of cottage industries, the redevelopment of village life that will eventually attract visitors and even provide room and board. These developments support the tourism industry, and lead us to retaining in Jamaica, a greater percentage of the earnings from tourism, than we do at the moment.
This is a subject, which I believe calls for greater attention from both the public and private sector, and would lead to an increased productive thrust in these areas.
MANUFACTURING
But to get back to manufacturing. The perennial question why has manufacturing declined so sharply in Jamaica? In 1985 it represented approximately 25 per cent of GDP. Today it represents approximately 15 per cent of GDP. That probably represents hundreds of millions in US Dollars of production lost and probably tens of thousands of jobs and that is a lot of production and a lot of jobs.
For this decline, the traditional reasons usually advanced relate to high costs of inputs, low productivity, security problems an unstable currency and bureaucracy. These are all real problems.
And so for all these reasons and many others there is scepticism about the future of manufacturing, but which sector can be as effective in providing the employment, the training of technical skills, the discipline of the workplace, the challenge of productivity, the use and transfer of technology and the development of the work ethic ? If we can just believe that manufacturing can and will create national wealth and that it is critical to our future, then as a people and a country if we summon the will in both the Public and Private arenas, we will be able to drive manufacturing forward, if only in areas suited to today's environment.
How do we go about this?
We know the Private Sector has the crucial role to play!
It is more traditional to place the ball squarely at the feet of the Government - but this has not yielded as much success in the past as we would like.
YES, we must have the business - friendly environment which can only be fostered by government
YES, we must have the regulatory institutions, which provide us with a safe and secure environment in which to work
YES, we must have the infrastructural development, which permits the free flow of goods and services - and for all of these we are primarily dependent on the Government - so we must continue to lobby and to work with them to see that everything is as it should be, as has been done so well over time by this association.
But do we see one of our primary roles as helping Jamaica create national wealth so all our people can enjoy a better life ?
Then we should, at all times, be active ensuring that our National goals are implemented as swiftly and effectively as possible, in an orderly way.
GREATER WEALTH
I see the way forward, towards creating greater wealth as beginning with a partnership between the private sector and our world class institutions, such as the University of the West Indies, Utech, Northern Caribbean University and Technical Colleges, which I would like to call - academic partnering.
I must here make mention and pay tribute to the pioneering work, which is now being done at the U-Tech in fostering entrepreneurial activities. When we work together, research, create and plan and as venture capital implement projects we create space for our graduates who have been exposed to our world.
In this way you engage the hearts and minds of academics and students who will then fully understand that business is an honourable profession and business the way forward to create wealth for our country.
And we in the Private Sector must be the driving force.
We are the creators and producers of goods and services and we have to continue to be the risk takers for that we are. Through this academic partnership I hope we can win the hearts and influence the minds of future generations, because with their education and knowledge and our business experience we will create a powerful force to drive our country forward.
Furthermore, this partnership may well form a real basis for trust and a credible working relationship with governments.
With this alliance, we would have the basis to establish business research units, mandated to investigate appropriate and viable business processes. These units will begin to look at a number of items:
EXISTING INDUSTRIES
what industries have been lost over the last 20 years
what are potential viable industries
study and thoroughly understand all our trade treaties
know the inputs into production and our comparative costs in relation to the rest of the world.
above all our capabilities to manage and operate these industries
It is this kind of basic research we all do in our businesses daily. In this scenario, however, we are involving the intellectual forces of our country and they will be involved in the creation of a program to move forward. This research will need funding partly by the private sector. The benefits would be that with this alliance, the results of business research units that would be set up to investigate the appropriate and viable business processes, would be available to us and we would have opportunities to provide the venture capital necessary to proceed with projects.
And by involving ourselves, we will increase the chances of success because we will keep the research focused on commercial goals.
I believe the research will be of a very high standard. The institutions mentioned above have the ability to access international help and funding, because this is the kind of project studies that are been done on a university/private sector relationship all throughout North America for generations, and now increasingly in the U.K.
It will be a challenge to academia to work with the real world of business and embrace it as the important part of national life that it is.
This academic partnering I believe would be the best way to build entrepreneurship, and instil business into education. The results may take time; on the other hand maybe, as I believe, there are opportunities, that when taken, will create the confidence we need to move forward to becoming a production oriented society.
These are some of the ideas which I have developed based on my experiences and my strong conviction that our leadership must be oriented towards creating national wealth.
Ladies and gentlemen, I mentioned earlier the imperatives of globalisation which are dictating that we find new and creative ways to grow our economy. Basic to this process is the need for creative thinking which impels us to find new ways of doing things and new avenues to explore.
I offer these few thoughts this evening for your consideration and hopefully for the consideration of the movers and shakers.
We have tonight with us faculty members from UWI - and if I may say on their behalf that they are anxious for the furthering of this relationship, and I hope that we will take up this challenge immediately to create this academic partnership.
Thank you again Madame President and your association for honouring me tonight and may I impress on you that I truly believe that the PSOJ is in the unique position to lead us to become a more productive society.
In closing, may I once again thank you for inducting me into your Hall of Fame. I regard this as a privilege and honour bestowed on all who have contributed to the enterprises within my family's jurisdiction.
