Several people commented recently in a caycompass.com online poll that they think of Grand Cayman in terms of pre-Hurricane Ivan and post-Hurricane Ivan.
Certainly, the island is not quite the same as it was before the devastating hurricane in September 2004. Some of the changes are physical, since there is still plenty of unrepaired damage on the island, but many other changes are social, like the worsened driving habits of residents.
Another one of those social changes has been lack of sticking to business deadlines, which is particularly true in the construction industry.
In the immediate aftermath of Ivan, contractors not only had labour shortages, but they had difficulty securing supplies. This was because of shortages in the United States due to its own hurricane reconstruction efforts, and also because of difficulties in having the port in George Town handle the tremendous amount of goods coming into the island at the time.
The Planning Department also couldn’t keep up the sheer volume of planning applications and inspections required of it.
As a result deadlines were nearly impossible for contractors and developers to meet for reasons beyond their control. The problem is, however, deadlines still aren’t being met more than two years afterwards, even though supply and Planning Department problems have long since been resolved.
There might still be labour shortages, but contractors must know about these shortages and should be able to produce timelines accordingly. Their giving unrealistic deadlines is no longer for reasons beyond their control, and that is just a bad business practice.
The false deadline phenomenon is seemingly affecting the entire industry, from small contractors to the largest contractors on the island, and including furniture and fixture suppliers, tradesmen, architects, and designers. And deadlines are being missed by only days or weeks, but in some cases by months.
Nor is the construction industry the only culprit of the missed deadline. It seems many businesses are having difficulties meeting deadlines. Consumers must wait longer than what they’ve been told whether it’s getting a utility or television service hooked up, a specially ordered part delivered, or a business service provided.
Some people may yearn for the olden days of Cayman when ‘soon come’ was the prevailing business attitude and consumers just had to get used to that fact.
In this era of a competitive global economies, when costs are high and efficiencies need to be maximised, missed deadlines cost money and harm reputations. It’s time to get out of this bad habit of giving unrealistic deadlines and get back to proper business practices.
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