The State of Small Business in Barbados

National Survey of the Small Business Sector (Barbados)

4.5.3 Support Needed to Build Climate Resilience

Financial support dominates across all sizes, but most strongly among micro enterprises: o Requests for grants, funding, loans, and subsidies account for 25.4% of all responses. Knowledge and awareness-building (training, workshops, education) emerge as a consistent secondary need, especially among micro and small firms. Medium enterprises more frequently request policy support, expert advice, and infrastructure investment, indicating a shift from awareness to implementation.

Section 5: Digital Adoption and Technology Use 5.1 Overall Level of Digital Adoption among MSMEs

The findings indicate that digital adoption among MSMEs in Barbados remains largely concentrated at the lower to middle end of the digital maturity spectrum. Nearly one-quarter of businesses describe their overall level of digital adoption as very low (23.1%), characterised by mostly manual or paper-based processes, while a further one-third report low levels of adoption (33.3%), typically limited to basic use of email, internet access, and social media. Just under one-quarter of businesses place themselves at a moderate level of digital adoption (24.8%), indicating some use of digital tools across operations. In contrast, only a small minority report high (11.4%) or very high (7.4%) levels of adoption, where most operations are digitised, integrated, or cloud-based. This distribution suggests that while digital tools are present across the MSME sector, deep digital integration remains the exception rather than the norm, with most firms still operating in hybrid or low-tech environments.

Figure 5.1: Self-Reported Level of Digital Adoption

High (mostly digitised/integrated)

Very high (full digital/cloud native)

11.4%

Moderate (some digital tools)

24.8%

7.4%

23.1%

Very low (mostly manual/paper based)

33.3%

Low (basic digital use)

28

Small Business Association of Barbados