11TH European Development Fund Implementation Report 2017- 2023

(4) SME Diagnostic Tool The SME Diagnostic Tool8 is a web-based enterprise-level tool developed by Caribbean Export in 2016 to undertake a scientific assessment of regional exporting firms. The Tool is the first step of a holistic approach in increasing a firm’s competitiveness because of its ability, to not only diagnose a firm’s strengths and weaknesses but also to identify the areas of support that the Agency can deliver independently, or in collaboration with other development partners. Providing a standardised, expert-based methodology for accurately assessing SMEs and identifing the areas where development is required such as management, production, access to finance or marketing, the Tool supports SMEs to increase their exports.

Understanding the need for BSO personnel to be competently trained in the analysis of the information generated,

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Caribbean Export trained 77 participants after upgrading the tool between 2017-2018.

To date the tool has been used extensively by BSOs across the region, serving as a mechanism to guide the development of our private sector firms.

A total of 1397 assessments have been completed using the diagnostic tool.

8 https://sme-diagnostics.ceintelligence.com/

Implementation of the 11th European Development Fund (EDF) Regional Private Sector Development Programme (RPSDP)

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