Francesco Caio

Cable & Wireless Jamaica (C&WJ), having spent billions of dollars to lay out its cellular service infrastructure, says it will now shift focus to an aggressive marketing campaign in order to claw back market share lost to its rival, Digicel Jamaica.
"We spend billions of dollars to put these things in the ground, and we could spend a little on telling the people about it," said Francesco Caio, the chief executive officer of Cable and Wireless PLc, the parent company of C&WJ. "We have a great opportunity to improve on marketing in Jamaica."
Caio was in the island attending a C&WJ function at the Terra Nova Hotel in Kingston.
Neither he nor C&WJ's president Gary Barrow would place a dollar amount on either the past or future marketing budget, but it is apparent that the company already spends tens of millions of dollars each year on advertising, promotion and public relations.
The new marketing thrust comes on the heels of an executive reorganisation. In that restructure, Patrick King, head of mobile services, was replaced by Ian Neita. King, who was then named vice-president of residential services, subsequently departed the company - in November.
As part of the reorganisation, Andrew Cherry replaced Rakish Goswami as vice-president of finance.
But at last week's meeting in Kingston, the C&W bosses declined to link the company's new focus on marketing to the management changes.
Since last year, C&W has not only faced stiff competition in its cellular market, but has lost 10 per cent of its residential customers - mainly those who have racked up huge bills and opted for cellular service rather than settling their indebtedness.
In a previous round of restructuring, the regional division, which oversaw the Caribbean operations, was dismantled. Both chief executive officer, Errald Miller and George Brown, chief information officer, resigned.

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