Founder and CEO of ChannelPro and newly appointed vice-president of marketing at Jamaica Technology and Digital Alliance (JTDA) Twitty-Ann Thomas recounts that working in her father’s business at the early age of nine nurtured her entrepreneurial flair. Being the eldest of five children, Thomas would soon undertake operational duties, such as drafting quotations, making payments, and generating invoices for customers.

Years later, those early experiences helped land her positions in the corporate world of Fujitsu, Digicel, and DLM Group (Hawkeye and Ranger Security), where she rose to the challenges and excelled in her various managerial roles. However, Thomas, the innate entrepreneur, intuitively knew that, with her over 15 years of combined experience, it was opportune to launch a business, leveraging her dynamic skill set and business acumen.

ChannelPro is a business and outsourcing services company serving customers in Jamaica and abroad. As an entrepreneur, Thomas is most proud that ChannelPro helps customers, particularly the MSMEs, achieve sustainable growth, positively affecting their bottom line through increased revenues.

Her team always appreciated and leveraged technology, even before the pandemic, making it easy to transition to remote work. ChannelPro used cloud services, allowing her staff to work remotely seamlessly. They used Zoho, a customer relationship management (CRM) tool, to manage pre-sales, post-sales processes, and ticketing systems. Other online tools included Microsoft Teams for customer engagement and in-house virtual staff lymes. Thomas also noted that her company integrated its private branch exchange (PBX) system with staff’s mobile devices with soft clients, an application that enables VoIP telephone calls from a computer, tablet, or a mobile device. “Technology has always been an integral part of organisational workflows and communication, but since COVID that has intensified,” Thomas noted.

One realisation from the pandemic was how technology went beyond daily tasks, such as purchasing food, doctor visits, and conducting bank transactions. “All of these services, which are usually available through face-to-face and physical interactions, could be accessed exclusively online. This taught me how important digital technology is to our daily lives,” Thomas added.

She asserted that it became more evident that technology is no longer nice to have but a necessity for doing business and daily tasks, and with videoconferencing solutions and the adoption of the cloud more prevalent than ever before. “We saw the boom of food delivery apps to access our basic needs and the use of telemedicine for doctors’ visits. We have also seen a shift in the traditional brick-and-mortar businesses, where the pandemic has taught us that through digital transformation there is no longer the need for this as more and more business transactions are conducted online,” Thomas said.

ChannelPro plans include expansion to other markets in the region, and in partnership with Genius Digital Commerce, to offer e-commerce, website development and digital marketing, and introduce market research and data analytics services in the second half of 2022. Thomas observed that her company has evolved from an outsourcing company to a fully enabled digital service provider because of the new way of doing business and embracing the digital trends resulting from the pandemic.

Ultimately, Thomas wants to continue charting a path that allows other females to lead and dominate in the business and STEM (science, technology, engineering, maths) landscape. She believes that, through her foundation and mentorship programme, she can help young girls realise their dreams and unlock their full potential, regardless of their present circumstances.

Thomas is convinced that, through paying it forward, she can provide her mentees with the tools, resources, and platforms needed to excel while reducing the statistics associated with girls failing from lower socio-economic backgrounds. “One step at a time, this will change the face of our future and Jamaica and will ultimately benefit us all,” Thomas emphasised.