“landline is our lifeline…if it dies, we die.”

Managing director of LIME Jamaica Gary Sinclair

“Historically, we derive over 70 per cent of our gross margin from our fixed line and data service (both residential and business-based broadband data service). However, as soon as competition (Digicel) came into the mobile space we diverted a bunch of the resources we needed to run our business strictly to the mobile side in an effort to compete and neglected the business that generated 70 per cent of our gross margin. We’re not going to do that anymore.”

“LIME will concentrate on being a full-services provider rather than attempting to make unrealistic gains in an increasingly competitive mobile market plagued by antiquated legislation.”

“We are a full-service provider. We are not a mobile operator alone. For the last 10 years, I believe we have sort of evolved into a mobile operator and we allowed the competition to define the market for us. Going forward our strategy will not be pinned to a single product. We are the only full-service provider and we will emphasise that. Our dealers have evolved into solely mobile dealers. That is crazy and we are going to change that,”

“Shareholders are essentially upset by the fact that there are too many changes. They come too fast and you can’t create a culture, especially a winning culture, if you are constantly chopping and changing leadership. Every new managing head is going to have a different idea about how to create better shareholder value and report better profits.”

“Fixed line and broadband accounted for nearly 70 per cent of our gross margin, so clearly there are other businesses that need to be tended to, and we are not going to continue to disproportionately allocate resources to a segment of the business that provides a fraction of our revenues.”

Managing director of LIME Jamaica Gary Sinclair at the company’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) held at the Wyndham Hotel July 2011

“I was extremely disappointed with your headline and lead sentence of the story in (Friday’s) Caribbean Business Report, which says “LIME to retreat from mobile market”. Your newspaper has made a declaration that is totally false and misleading to the investing public.”

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/business/Investment-and-innovation-underscores-LIME-s-commitment-to-the-mobile-market_9336865#ixzz1ThSXV2x2

“We are working hard … and trying our very best to do that (attain a profit). It doesn’t guarantee we will be successful, but you have the undertaking at this table, entire management and staff,”

Chairman of LIME Jamaica, Chris Dehring

“We will turn this company around and we will rebuild that foundation in order to invent our future,”

“We invaded Portmore with focused attack,” he said in his address. “I believe they are going to rename Portmore Lime City.”

Chairman of LIME Jamaica, Chris Dehring, addressing shareholders at the telecom’s annual general meeting at the Wyndham Kingston hotel in New Kingston

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Phil Green, president of Cable and Wireless Jamaica and new chairman of Cable & Wireless Caribbean.

“Apart from the big asset write-down, C&WJ in July 2007 stopped taking new subscribers to Homefone, the system which people could pre-pay on their fixed-line telephones, similar to the pay-as-go feature on cellphones. More recently, Green retired the 10/8 plan for cheap mobile rates to cauterise the bleeding of company revenues which fell to $23 billion from $24.7 billion. But it is not just in the roll-back of predecessor Rodney Davis’s policies that Green’s appointment has signalled something new and different at C&WJ. His arrival coincided with plans by parent company C&W plc to decentralise its hold on its Caribbean subsidiaries.”

“The plan, over the next two years, is to establish in the Caribbean a single autonomous outfit with its own corporate structure. Within this arrangement, Green says, the new Jamaican mobile network will sychronise with other regional operations.”

“We will be looking for expansion opportunities on a case-by-case basis that truly complement the vision of a pan-Caribbean enterprise. That will be the preview of this new board,”

Phil Green, president of Cable and Wireless Jamaica and new chairman of Cable & Wireless Caribbean.

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Mr. Rodney Davis, President & CEO of Cable & Wireless Jamaica (C&WJ), was appointed to the Board in July 2005. Prior to heading C&WJ he was the Chief Financial Officer of C&W Barbados and before that he served as senior partner of Ernst & Young’s Jamaica office.

“The President’s Promise – You Have My Word”

“While we have not yet fully achieved our mission to provide the best customer service in Jamaica, we are working vigilantly within and throughout our organization to make the changes necessary to deliver on this most important promise to all of our customers.”

WE PLAY TO WIN– To drive performance we set out to change the mindsets of our staff and our business partners. We re-organized the focus of the organization around customer service. We strengthened our management team. We will define success in this regard by the attitudes and cultures towards the business expressed by staff, customers and business partners. Cable & Wireless must be seen to ‘Play to Win’.

LEVEL THE MOBILE PLAYING FIELD A key factor in
driving our business is to achieve a much greater market share in mobile. To do this we needed to change the paradigm. In line with our first initiative, we needed to put the customer at the heart of it. The launch of the ‘Anyone Plan’ was the first step. During the year we also stepped up our efforts to fill critical network coverage gaps based on feedback from our customers. We expect to continue to invest in our mobile network to increase coverage and to introduce new, more convenient and cost effective technology advances to benefit our customers.

SCALE SALES AND OPERATIONS TO SATISFY EXPLOSIVE BROADBAND
GROWTH Broadband Internet access promises to be a critical component of Jamaica’s economic advancement provided it can achieve widespread access and affordability across the island. This past year we grew our broadband subscriber base by 380% andwe continue to increase the availability of broadband to Jamaicans through the provision of free
service to many of our public schools and libraries. This type of growth could only be sustained with a complete overhaul of our internal processes around management and service delivery. We will continue to invest in our network and process automation to meet and satisfy the growing demand for broadband Internet services of both residential and business customers. Given the challenges of the local topology and the poor infrastructure in rural areas, we are looking to invest significantly in wireless technologies such as WiMax to facilitate rural deployment.

RE-AWAKEN THE FIXED VOICE BUSINESS AND INJECT GROWTH DESPITE FALLING MARGINS As part of our strategic planning efforts this past year, we determined that there is much life in the fixed voice business provided we were willing to invest the time and resources necessary to re-invigorate the business. During the year we simplified our pricing plan through the introduction of the Single National Rate. This resulted in an easier to
understand billing regime and customers responded by increasing their fixed line usage. We have replaced the 12-digit ICAS number once needed for long distance calling with World Direct, making it easier for Jamaicans to call overseas from their fixed line. Near the  year-end, we announced the launch of a prepaid fixed voice service in response to the need for a more relevant and affordable fixed voice product for Jamaicans. The response has been fantastic as many Jamaicans look forward to reactivating their fixed line service while managing their key concern – cost containment.

RETAIN LEADERSHIP IN BUSINESS SOLUTIONS We are the undisputed leader in providing telecommunications services to corporate Jamaica. With the advances of IP technologies and the automation and expansion of many of our customers’ operations,
the need for us to act as total “Solutions Provider” to our customers has increased. To this end we have created a Business Solutions team to develop and implement state-of-the-art, high-value solutions for our business customers. This past year, we deployed a high bandwidth Metro Ethernet ring around the island, we re-priced our Dedicated Internet Access (DIA), frame relay and leased circuits. We introduced hosting services and subsequent to year-end, we launched a fully, outsourced managed service for clients seeking
to off-load non-core, complex network, data and telecommunications infrastructure. Furthermore, we have established key partnerships with major system integrators to assist us in delivering on this value proposition.

DELIVER A WORLD-CLASS CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE The customer is at the heart
of our business and it is necessary to ensure that the organization is driven to continually improving their experience. The customer experience with Cable & Wireless is not limited to their calls to the Contact Centre. The experience starts from the minute they begin the process of determining the source of meetingtheir telecommunications needs. We have made
significant investments to increase network stability,capacity and coverage; improve mean time to provision; improve mean time to repair and reduce queue and total call time in the Contact Centre. This investment increases the percentage of time spent by our customers in enjoying the benefit of our service and further increases their commitment to our services and our products. In line with focusing on our core competencies, we signed an outsource contract with a leading customer relationship management company located in Kingston. The establishment of a Customer Experience team led by the newly created position of Vice President Customer Experience, reporting directly to the President, underscores our commitment to leading the industry in this area. Management is very committed to increasing the return from assets invested through its commitment to providing increased value to customers. This year has seen the benefit of increased accountability to our customers. We have reaped the benefit from an increased commitment by our staff to improve the level of our service in all areas of our business. Finally, we have continued to invest heavily in the telecommunications infrastructure needed to serve the demands of all
Jamaicans. With this mindset, we look forward to further success in the coming year.

Mr. Rodney Davis, President & CEO of Cable & Wireless Jamaica (C&WJ)

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“I think unlike other companies, we have a very long tradition in the Caribbean and we have been a part of national development across the region. Our name is synonymous with inner-city development, education, health and sport – we are a part of Caribbean life. There will always be this monopolistic perception but ultimately the investment we have made will ultimately in time yield the type of value and loyalty around tradition and nation building.

GARY BARROW, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Cable & Wireless Jamaica (C&WJ) when Digicel launched

“Once we deal with the issues around service, being aggressive and agile and that new image comes across, we will see the benefits coming through. We will continue to play the very important corporate citizenship role. Our longevity and ability to implement strategies will be the basis of our survival”.

Former Cable & Wireless Jamaica’s (C≈WJ) President, Gary Barrow, speaking with The Financial Gleaner in 2003 about the company’s efforts to reposition itself as the number one integrated telecoms provider in Jamaica and in particular to return to the position of number one mobile network provider.