Laparkan Barbados

BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN VOLUME 9, ISSUE 11 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN VOLUME 9, ISSUE 11 19 18 BEST PRACT I CES IN BUS INESS & ECONOMI C DEVELOPMENT What started as a way to deliver personal items and gifts to relatives almost half a century ago has evolved into one of the Caribbean’s most essential NVOCCs, connecting the Caribbean Island nations to the United States, Canada, and the rest of the world. “Three individuals founded Laparkan in 1983,” explains Carol-Ann Edwards, General Manager, Laparkan Barbados. “John La Rose, Terrence Pariaug, and Glen Khan saw a need to reconnect West Indians living overseas with their families and friends in their respective homelands in the Caribbean and Guyana.” “At the time, Glen Khan, the current chairperson, CEO, and owner of Laparkan, was living in the UK. So, they decided to start a company that could help facilitate shipping items from the US, Canada, and the UK, opening Laparkan’s first office in Toronto, Canada.” From there, Laparkan, a portmanteau of the founders’ last names, quickly established offices in Guyana, New York, Miami, and the United Kingdom, creating a network of offices that could effectively serve its rapidly growing customer base. Today, Laparkan has offices and agents in most Caribbean countries, including Panama, Guyana, Jamaica, Antigua, St. Lucia, Grenada, Surinam, St. Vincent, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. The company settled on Miami as the seat of its headquarters, consolidating its position as one of the most prominent NVOCCs serving the Caribbean. Besides NVOCC services, Laparkan owns retail, engineering, money transfer, travel, and office equipment subsidiaries. As an NVOCC, Laparkan acts as a shipper for carriers, and a carrier for shippers, consolidating shipping items and making it easier for both parties to get what they need: carriers with more cargo and shippers carrier services. To do this, it maintains crucial affiliations that ensure it can fulfill its NVOCC mandate. Edwards explains. “We are affiliated with Worldwide Cargo Alliance, enabling us to move cargo worldwide, from Barbados to Africa, Asia, and the US. As long as we have an agent to release the cargo, we use that connection to bring cargo from anywhere in the world into the Caribbean.” The company’s Miami headquarters makes facilitating all these moving parts easier due to the significant presence of carriers in the Miami port and its favorable position relative to the Caribbean. Laparkan maintains a slightly over eight hundred workforce working across its various subsidiaries, with the NVOCC business assuming almost fifty percent of this number. For Edwards, who counts among the NVOCC employees, offering stellar services as an NVOCC can be challenging, but Laparkan staff always find a way to make things work and fulfill the The Only LED Manufacturer in the Region Commercial, Residential & Street Light Manufacturer and Distributor Largest Supplier of LED lighting in the Eastern Caribbean Regional Distributor of LED Lighting and Decorative Fixtures caribbeanledlighting.com @caribbeanledlighting LIGHTING THE CARIBBEAN