Technology Service Providers (TSPs) - Technical Audits and Specialized Technical Assistance

The expected outputs from the consulting services (“the Services”) include the following: (i) technology audit plans (TAPs) and (ii) Technology Assistance Reports (TARs) which document the results of the delivery of specialized technical assistance to firms and which provide recommendationsto the firmsfor nextsteps.

The CCPF, the Organisaon of American States (OAS), and Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) existent in 8 Caribbean countries are collaborang to implement a pilot project that will test a regional TES delivery system targeted at Caribbean SMEs. Eligibility of beneficiary firms will be assessed based on growth potenal with special aenon to women-owned firms (WOFs). This regional system of TES delivery was designed given the Caribbean context and built on extensive research that compared successful models of TES in the USA, Canada, UK and Lan American countries.  

The main actors include four types of stakeholders: (A) Caribbean SMEs; (B) local business support organizaons (BSOs) and SBDCs in eight Caribbean countries which are the first point of contact with the SMEs on the ground; (C) Technology Service Providers (TSPs) which are regional instuons or centers of excellence (CoE); and (D) financial instuons which can finance the actual acquision of the technology when necessary. Key outputs at each step in the process include Business Potenal Assessments (BPA), Technology Audit Plan (TAP), Technology Assistance Reports (TAR), and Investment Proposal (IP). See Annex A for descripons.