Business
JAM | Feb 3, 2025

C&W Business in ‘reset’ mode to better support clients

Josimar Scott

Josimar Scott / Our Today

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Reading Time: 4 minutes
C&W Jamaica’s headquarters on Carlton Crescent in St Andrew

Following a year of disruptions from inclement weather, including Hurricane Beryl and Tropical Storm Rafael, regional telecommunications provider Cable & Wireless Caribbean (CWC) is recalibrating to better serve the Jamaican market, including business clients through its subsidiary C&W Business.

While noting that 2025 will see the group continuing the implementation of plans from 2024, C&W Senior Director of Business Delroy McLean explained that in the aftermath of both cyclones, “we had to reset”.

“We had to look at our network and how we can bring more value for our customers in a more meaningful way. So, in the final quarter of last year, we sat down and we looked at our connectivity—how we can strengthen it, how we can bring more value through that; our data centres and our infrastructure and how we can improve that; and finally, how we can engage our customers [to address the] more complex needs and tasks,” he told Our Today recently.

Partnerships & customer support

Consequent to that review, C&W has secured new partnerships to provide more sophisticated and sustainable solutions for its customers, McLean explained. Describing the partners as agile, he said they will leverage C&W’s infrastructure, tools, network and contact centres to help customers achieve their business objectives.

A Cabe & Wireless technical conducts maintenance work on the company’s infrastructure and network.

“And so, with these partnerships, we are able to engage small businesses, medium businesses, and enterprises with 100 per cent customised or off-the-shelf solutions for them. So, regardless of where they are on their journey, we can meet them in an agile way—very quickly, very rapidly,” McLean continued.

Some of the partnerships C&W Business has engaged in will help the telecommunications provider to help their customers navigate the intricacies of the Data Protection Act 2022, which came into effect on December 1, 2023. The director of business was quick to point out that some partnerships were being onboarded before the legislation was effected.

“We started that one actually in 2022, where we formed key partnerships with a couple of players in the market, both in Jamaica and overseas, but they are Jamaicans overseas,” he explained.

MCLEAN: ‘We are able to engage small businesses, medium businesses, and enterprises with 100 per cent customised or off-the-shelf solutions for them’

“So, we have key players in the market who help us on the consultant side with our customers regarding the Data Protection Act and then implementation, and then once implemented, how they sustain. So, that’s how we built that pipeline. These partners work with our customers from small, medium, and large through social media, through direct engagement, through coming to our office, going to their office, meeting them where they are, and helping them even for free, myself included,” McLean added.

As part of the support offered to its customers, C&W teams and partners work with customers to create a “roadmap” to determine their readiness for and needs to comply with the Data Privacy Act. Based on the requirements of the legislation, the company offers hybrid cloud data storage—domiciled server management and cloud storage—with Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google.

To complement the partnerships, C&W will be embarking on upskilling its contact centre and technical support teams. Already some of its staff have benefitted from the upskilling, but the company will have ongoing training to meet the changing demands of customers and to keep pace with the progression in the telecommunications industry.

C&W Business contact centre employees at work

In addition, McLean said as part of the review, the communications group has assessed to scale its customer support systems by “10x”.

“So, care has become the number one driver for us. So, we have the partnerships, we have the legal care. That’s on the custom solutions side,” he stated.

New products and services

To amplify customer support, C&W Business last year launched its Software-Defined Wide Area Network.

“We’ve been connecting our customers through it, lots of customers with that, but helping them to manage the workloads and getting into their operations. So, we’re no longer saying, “Hey! Just tell us what capacity you need.’ We’re saying, tell us what platform you’re using,” McLean shared with Our Today.

“You have your own provider, that’s fine, but let us sit with that provider of the ERP platform to better understand what you’re doing so we can right-size it, so you don’t overspend it, and then we can grow with you,” he added.

The company will continue investing in its infrastructure and connectivity.

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