Kevin E. Malone Photo: Provided

As we talked through potential ideas and strategy, my client commented that the most successful people in this world see a crisis as an opportunity. Though I've heard this many times, today it rung different as I heard that exact same phrase in the very next client meeting I attended that day. Upon thinking about it, I realized that they were merely uttering the age-old strategy used by the world’s most successful investors, "buy low and sell high".

The simplicity of the phrase is meant to demonstrate how a change in mindset can yield success. Buying low means strategizing, seeing weakness as an opportunity to create strength, planning for the future and capitalizing on the weakness of your competitors. Selling high is reaping the rewards of buying low, gaining market share, watching idea's become reality, increasing awareness, recognizing success and building on it.

This is the BVI's time to buy low. As the global economy fluctuates back and forth between slightly stable and slightly unstable, the BVI should be forming an action plan and re-tooling all areas of the local economy. Outside the box thinking is what will be necessary for the BVI to re-shape what this country will look like in the next 5-10 years. This will only be accomplished by taking well-planned and properly executed risks.

There are three very distinct things that the BVI needs to do: Sell the BVI aggressively, invest in new industries and create a 21st century workforce.

Selling the BVI

The BVI as a country has the same goal as any private sector corporation, to increase revenue. Identifying opportunities and aggressively working to convert them into existing business best accomplish this. That means that just as corporations around the world invest in sales people to sell their business, so must the BVI.

Spending money with the goal of receiving a substantial return on investment is not only smart spending, but it's the only way the BVI will gain substantial market share in areas like financial services and tourism. The BVI must implement what countries like the Cayman Islands have long been doing, strategically placing people around the world to build the relationships, and more importantly the brand awareness necessary to win new business.

Selling the BVI can mean selling tourism or even selling our citizens as valuable human capital. When major steps such as the implementing of financial services and tourism into the high school curriculum are taken, this should be marketed around the world and pitched to major corporations as a reason why they would be selling themselves short by not considering the BVI as a location for their business. In today's world, there's no better product to sell than valuable human capital that can help a business get the competitive edge in a rapidly changing world.

Invest in New industries

Investing in new industries is important just from an economic stability standpoint. An economy with multiple sources of revenue is an economy that can withstand the fluctuations in economic cycles and increase it's overall revenue. In no industry is more economic promise offered than the area of alternative energy.

One of the constants that have remained with the BVI is the frequent blackouts. Not only are they an extreme inconvenience, but they also increase the cost of utility bills in the long run for a consumer that is already facing higher costs in just about all other areas of life. This creates a great opportunity to open the conversation about investing in sources of alternative energy for the entire BVI.

Areas of conversation can include using some BVI flat lands for windmills, adding solar panels to homes and/or government buildings and utilizing the abundance of water surrounding the BVI as a potential source of power generation. Not only would this bring stability to power generation in the BVI, but it would also serve as a tax cut to citizens as they will be paying less money for the energy they use.

Creating a 21st Century Workforce

The most valuable asset a company has is the ability of its employees. Companies live and die on the ability to trust their employees to execute strategies swiftly as trends and patterns change very frequently in today's world. For this reason, the countries that produce the best-prepared citizens will excel economically.

The BVI has taken a great step forward in recognizing the need to educate students at an early age in competitive industries. The addition of financial service, tourism may not produce results next year or even the year after, but 5-10 years down the line, but the BVI will breed a generation of graduates who will attend college and enter the professional world with a knowledge base far ahead their peers.

Creating a competitive workforce doesn’t stop there. Just as important as education are individual skills. Experience such as critical thinking, project management, fast-paced work environments and forward thinking are absolutely crucial in today's world. These areas should be consistently enforced in both the corporate world and ALL school levels from primary school through college. Knowledge is no longer enough to qualify for the opportunities that one deserves, thus it's critical to learn the ways in which that knowledge needs to be communicated and implemented.

Conclusion

The BVI like most other countries in the world is faced with many challenges. However, now is the time to buckle down and generate solutions that push the boundaries of comfort. It's time to usher in a new era of competitive focus and forward thinking. It's time for the BVI to buy low, and sell high.