Bermudian Business is Screwed Up

--- Warning: this post will bore some ---

So people from home always ask what in god's name I'm doing here. So here's the answer.

Bermuda is a terrible place to do business.

First, there's a palpable tension between two business cultures: British and American. The British culture is pervasive throughout the island: they love premier league football, they spell colour with a 'u', and they are generally polite (with pleasantries, etc).

A lot of the business is very British as well. They avoid confrontation, preferring understated, subtle (even sarcastic) remarks. They are very hierarchical. They dress very formally, but still do silly things like Bermuda shorts and knee-socks.

A lot of American culture is present as well. I come home from work and watch American sitcoms on American channels. Tourism is a major part of the economy, and guess where tons of the tourists come from? There's even a Kentucky Fried Chicken on the island (apparently the only fast food franchise allowed to set up shop here, and the paperwork was hell). A ton of investment comes from American money, which means that there are a lot of Americans filling big finance roles.

They operate a little differently. Generally speaking, American business favours confrontation. They like flat (or just plain confusing) organizational structures, promoting a pretense of equality. They don't book as many meetings; and things often get done in informal chats in the hallways.

So Bermuda is a little confused sometimes. The Brits and the Americans try to play nice, but they're often speaking different languages.

The second reason Bermuda is a weird place to do business is the size of the businesses vs. the size of the population. There are only 60,000 people in all of Bermuda, but somehow the investment banks manage billions of dollars in assets every day. This is extremely disproportionate compared to the small labour force that is here supporting it. So they import accountants and other professionals from around the globe to augment the workforce: about 30% of Bermuda’s workforce are non-Bermudians. So we have a further mish-mash of styles and methods.

Finally, nothing is regulated. In Canada, a bank has rules it has to follow, most of which we are unaware of and take for granted. Our money is insured (we give it to them, they have to give it back; it’s the law). Our information is protected (several times over). The services are backed by guarantees, and they have detailed plans in case of emergencies.

In Bermuda they have no plans. They have no backups. And a humourous amount of the infrastructure is made up of makeshift solutions.

This is a problem.

We fix problems. That's why we're here.