Mark Titus, Business Reporter

The recent rebranding of international phone company Cable and Wireless' Caribbean business to LIME has stripped the company of layers of unnecessary operational complexity resulting, LIME's Jamaica boss, Geoff Houston, is reporting, in a more efficient set-up across the region and a 40 per cent jump in sales for the Jamaican operation.

The LIME country manager for Jamaica did not give actual numbers, but suggested that the sales growth had more to do with promotion, than a traditional festive-season boom last Christmas. While Houston indicated that it was the first time LIME was rolling out the same promotion in all Caribbean markets simultaneously, he was unable to say what effect the Caribbean-wide marketing blitz had had on revenues and profitability in LIME's 12 other locations in the region.

Operational efficiencies

Zeroing in on the operational efficiencies which had been achieved in just about four months since the name change, Houston told Sunday Business this week:

"Historically, we have been operating as 13 separate businesses across the Caribbean, doing the same thing in 13 different ways. So we have not been able to capitalise on the economies of scales. Neither were we able to simplify our business and we found it much more difficult to become customer focused, given the level of complexity that we were putting in the business."

According to Houston, the re-branding is the start of the transformation of 13 businesses into one.

"All our support functions, such as our marketing, finance and human resource, have been re-aligned to operate the same way across the Caribbean. We are going to become a leaner, more customer-friendly machine in the future," he said.

"The LIME brand, I feel, is a simpler form and we are now in good stead. We have made some fundamental changes in direction. It is not only about the brand."

LIME's promotional energy has appeared to lack the dynamism, frequency and pervasiveness of its mobile-phone competitors, Digicel, and newcomer, Claro, even as all three continue to spend serious money to woo and keep customers.

US$1 million promotion

The just-ended Christmas promotions by the companies saw LIME giving away US$1 million across its 13 Caribbean markets; Digicel making much of its free issue of 14 Mini Coopers valued at about $4.2 million each, plus $1 million each week in December; and Claro upping the ante with nine C-class Mercedes-Benz cars each valued around $6.5 million.

"We started the rebrand over the Christmas period, which was a very difficult period, especially when our competitors had overspent and overbranded; (but) I think we have started to see the LIME brand appear," Houston said.

Cable and Wireless has had to play second fiddle to Digicel since Irishman Dennis O'Brien paid US$45 million for a Jamaican mobile telephone in the 1990s to break the monopoly of the British-based company. The Irishman has since brought a sense of boldness to the market, in which Digicel has managed to build up two million sub-scribers compared to LIME's 700,000 and Claro, with a distant 220,000.

Mobile-telephone giant

Since Claro's parent company, América Móvil - a mobile-telephone giant in central and South America owned by billionaire Carlos Slim - bought out Oceanic Digital Jamaica in 2007, the relationship involving the carriers has grown increasingly acrimonious. There are unresolved lawsuits before the Jamaican courts as the phone companies continue to trade charges and countercharges.

LIME says it will not roll over and play dead as the competition heats up.

"We now have a flexible format, which enables us to be more aggressive with regard to our marketing and through this rebrand process I think we are learning as well that the way we were approaching the marketing in the past was confusing and that we were not necessarily getting our messages across," Houston pointed out.

Rumours of a sell-out

In the increasingly litigious environment, rumours have surfaced that LIME could be planning to sell out to Claro, with which it has forged a working alliance.

"I will give you an absolute, categorical no! There has been no offer," Houston said. "We are a pro-competition business. We believe in a fair-minded, level playing field and we are currently sharing towers with CLARO."

The LIME Jamaica top executive added: "We are the only two networks which are doing this so we are not afraid of the competition and that is why people believe that we are selling the network, but what we are doing is trying to co-exist and trying to operate in a way that is good for Jamaica, not being disruptive and harmful to Jamaica and the economy."

mark.titus@gleanerjm.com