Cable & Wireless has a new name in the Caribbean.
‘Today and going forward, we’re no longer Cable & Wireless,’ said Country Manager Tony Ritch Friday. ‘We’re LIME.’
However, the name change to LIME – an acronym for Landline Internet Mobile Entertainment – is not just a re-branding exercise, but also a company transformation, Mr. Ritch said.
‘LIME is a new and different business with a new and different approach,’ he said. ‘It’s about… changing the way we do business and how we operate.
‘Our language is going to change. Our posture is going to change. How we relate to customers will change.’
The transformation does not, however, involve a change in shareholding. Cable & Wireless remains the corporate entity owning LIME and the Cable & Wireless brand will remain – at least for now – in other countries outside the 13 Caribbean jurisdictions where LIME operates.
Customer service and making the Caribbean a better place are priorities of LIME, Mr. Ritch said.
‘LIME’s aim is not simply to make money for its shareholders, but to improve things for customers and for the communities in which it operates.’
Joel Abdinoor, the executive vice president with responsibility for the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos and the British Virgin Islands, said a company management restructuring – which had already begun – will allow for better efficiencies going forward.
‘We will be one Caribbean-based business rather than 13 different businesses,’ he said, explaining that the Caribbean Cable & Wireless entities had been basically operating as separate businesses.
The restructuring will lead to a standardisation of products and services, which will make customer service – and other company functions – easier.
‘We’ll be one group doing it one way and executing it 13 times,’ he said.
The standardisation will mean LIME offers fewer products and services than Cable & Wireless did, but there will be a focus on quality, Mr. Ritch said.
‘We won’t be doing as many things, but we’ll be doing what we do very well.’
With regard to customer service, LIME is promising in its manifesto that calls to its customer service centres will be answered within one minute and that LIME customers will never be without the ability to communicate through at least one of its services for more than 24 hours, even in the event of a disaster like a hurricane.
LIME also promises customers will not be sold any products or services they do not need, even if it means losing money on a sale.
Staff downsizing
One consequence of the transformation to LIME will be a reduction of staff.
Mr. Ritch said there had been a tremendous amount of duplication of functions across the Caribbean. LIME will centralise its functions to gain better company efficiencies.
‘That will result in a reduction in the number of colleagues needed to conduct our functions.’
Mr. Ritch said LIME currently had about 3,700 employees across the Caribbean region. The plan is to reduce the number of staff to around 2,500 within 12 to 18 months as the company works on centralising its systems.
‘We’re trying to transform this giant,’ he said. ‘We can’t do it all at once.’
The 1,200-person reduction in work force will represent almost a third of the current Cable & Wireless employees. Mr. Ritch said the percentage of employee reduction would not carry over equally to all jurisdictions and that it was not yet known how many employees would be reduced in Cayman.
Mr. Ritch said there were no current plans to close any of the old Cable & Wireless retail stores or office spaces.
New business culture
LIME will bring with it a new business culture, Mr. Ritch said.
‘It doesn’t really bear a lot of resemblance to Cable & Wireless,’ he said. ‘LIME is not Cable & Wireless.’
Mr. Abdinoor said LIME will do away with the stuffy, slow-moving and reactive culture of Cable & Wireless and replace it with a younger, proactive and fun business culture that focused on the customer.
The name LIME, which was suggested by a Cable &Wireless employee, is even associated with good times and socialising, particularly in the Eastern Caribbean.
In its efforts to make the Caribbean a better place, LIME will also commit to several social or community programmes, which include:
- Ensuring every child in the markets where it operates has access to a computer and the Internet;
- Investing $5 million annually in local community events such as Carnival;
- Operating on a ‘Caribbean supplier first’ policy for its products and services to ensure economic growth in the region;
- Providing and promoting employment opportunities to Caribbean residents as a priority;
- Reducing its paper wastage by 15 per cent, as well as implementing a number of other environmental initiatives.
With regard to its environmental initiatives, the company will commence a LIME Green campaign to reduce its carbon footprint in places where it operates.
Entertainment
The ‘E’ in LIME stands for entertainment.
Cable & Wireless in Cayman did not offer any entertainment services, but other C&W operations in the Caribbean did. Although there are no immediate plans to bring entertainment to Cayman, it will likely provide some sort of video entertainment here in the future, Mr. Abdinoor said.
‘We recognise going forward will be something we need to bring here.’
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