Barbara Ellington, Acting Lifestyle Editor
Davis:I like to make my track record speak for itself. - PHOTO BY WINSTON SILL/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
RODNEY DAVIS is the fourth person to hold the top job at Cable and Wireless (C&W) in a very short period of time, but at age 38 he has an impressive list of accomplishments. A chartered accountant and businessman with over 15 years running his own successful chain of barber shops in Canada, Mr. Davis knows that keeping customers satisfied is the most important ingredient in any service-oriented operation. That is something he plans to inject into the culture of a utility company that has taken advantage of its monopoly position for years.
Mr. Davis, who hails from Kingston, is a husband, father, loves a challenge and plays golf in his spare time. In his first interview since taking up the post of president and chief executive officer of C&W, he shares the secret to his success and how he plans to effect a cultural change at the public utility company.
BE: What drives you?
RD: I have been very privileged in my career. I am very fortunate to have been given a lot of responsibility at a young age and grateful that I've been able to live up to expectations so far.
BE: Is responsibility something that you embrace readily?
RD: I have always been a responsible person; I became a single father at age 19 and raised my daughter for the next 13 years while going to school full-time and working; my mother helped but I was the one who provided for her financially and was hands-on her upbringing. So I am used to responsibility and take it very seriously.
BE: I take it you are here for the long haul, so where do you see C&W in, say, the next five years?
RD: I see it back to being the fully respected telecoms provider in all aspects of its business. I see C&W demonstrating that it knows how to compete effectively. That does not mean everyone will love it but it will be much more respected than it is now.
BE: What are you going to be doing differently?
RD: Whether it's good is not for me to judge, but I will do what I've done my entire career and that is meet expectations; and if there is one thing I intend to do it's to see that C&W becomes relevant, accountable and responsive to the marketplace. As long as you run a business that way, you will find that people will support the business. The way that I generally operate my business is that I am always responsive to the customer. It's not that we are not always responsive but we don't always tell our stories and we don't always stay relevant.
BE: You are admitting a lot.
RD: I have to. If you don't admit it you can't fix it. The problem historically is that companies like C&W, that come from a position of a monopoly to a competitive environment, fail to face up to reality. By not facing up to it we allow ourselves to become irrelevant. So what that means is that when we make a mistake, I will be the first to admit it.
BE: You have been in the region and you have done the homework. The major competition came in and pretty much sized up the market quickly. Looking at all that and in the five-year period ahead, how do you see C&W being finally ready to meet and deal with the challenges?
RD: I'd have to say I would be willing to say that the competitor did not anticipate that the marketplace would be like this when they came in. I don't think they could have predicted that the market would have grown to this extent. I'm known for accurate forecasts and I think C&W has not reacted to competition historically the way it should. It's difficult changing from monopoly to competitive as quickly as we had to.
The mobile business back then had 250,000 customers and not many thought that it would be so large. They probably thought they could double that number, and governed themselves accordingly. They probably thought that you can't rob Peter to pay Paul mobile to fixed but today it's a different picture and there's much we see in hindsight such as the size of the market and the reaction of consumers to choice, opportunities, changes in technology, development and so for the next five years, we have a better ability do it better.
I have worked with the company for a while, and having just come out of the Jamaican marketplace prior to my last job, I have a better idea. We have made some good and some not-so-good decisions. We have still not got the entire organisation thinking competitively, so that's what I'm here to do; make sure all that changes.
BE: I know mobile is the way of the future; it's convenient and versatile but it is still very expensive. It is still pretty embarrassing that the number of homes in the island with a landline is so small and so many applications are in this office. Is it that telecoms companies are deliberately moving away from fixed lines. Is the cellular business so important that landlines can just be shelved?
RD: Your question is one I've asked since I first came on board. That is, why is the fixed-line business still treated like a monopoly business? Why have we as a business not behaved like mobile is simply another alternative. Just because there is not a direct competitor doesn't mean it's not threatened. We are seeing switches from fixed to mobile under our noses as we battle to hold our own in mobile.
BE: But you are losing money; there are many persons in rural areas with only a mobile phone and their friends don't call them as frequently, as with a landline, it's so expensive. So what is the time frame for getting the fixed-line business back on track?
RD: I'm a businessman first and a telecoms man second, and we will deliver service and products to where the demand is. To the credit of the team, we have stemmed the decline of fixed lines within the last year; we have not yet turned it around but we have stopped it. I am of the view that we should provide service if there is sufficient demand; there are over 100,000 customers waiting so you will see some changes in the way we do business.
BE: Have you noticed a fall in the number of overseas calls from fixed lines since the96 feature replaced ICAS codes? The procedure has many flaws and after trying it unsuccessfully many times, impatient customers, including myself, have just resorted to using our cellphones to make overseas calls.
RD: It's the same monopoly mindset that rolls out a solution and does not check that it's working, does not go back to make sure that the market has the same or a better experience than before. In some respects, the feature has worked but in others it has not and we have talked about it. The96 is a better replacement but in rolling it out we have to be mindful of the consumers. Products like that have in the past been rolled out from a technical rather than a consumer perspective. A consumer marketing business has far more everyday implications than this company realises.
We will not take the view that it's up to the consumer to figure out how it works and we will not have people alienate our products in the future.
BE: How do you feel about your competitors?
RD: Their track record speaks for itself good and bad some things have been done well and others not, but I will compete with all who come.
BE: As far as the cost of services go, are you satisfied, are they adequate, especially to the consumer? What about the operational costs; have you been in a better position since you streamlined operations?
RD: Yes, we have streamlined but we are in a competitive environment and a lot of the costs of streamlining have been a necessary outcome of restructuring. As far as cost of service goes, prices in some areas of our business are probably lower than they need to be. That's what competition does; it's good for the consumer and we must find ways to get costs to match the available services. There are other areas where we have to try to find better rates.
BE: So will we see you going to the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) for a rate increase any time before year-end?
RD: We have seen them recently regarding some of the simplification of some things, but the whole structure of some of our prices of landlines are subject to change. For some consumers it will be lowered but within the next 60 days you will hear some new changes, for some things it will be sooner, because a 30-day notice period is required. The rate structure will become more simplified. It will result in some customers having higher bills and some lower; it's a function of what calling patterns used to be.
BE: Recent announcements indicate that C&W intends to spark a broadband Internet revolution in Jamaica. This in an environment where we don't have adequate basic landline service?
RD: It is clear that Jamaica does not have adequate Internet access and also very clear that when we look at the recent development of some countries, we can predict the outcome of some things. But access to Internet information will be an enabler to economic development. It is important that Jamaica is not left behind. As Internet penetration increases it will create more opportunities.
BE: What is the rate of Internet penetration in other countries of comparable population size to Jamaica?
RD: Singapore and North Korea have been unbelievable
where Internet penetration is concerned. They have a highly computer-literate population. The growth and development of these countries is due partly to their ability to access information quickly.
Cable & Wireless is committed to the development of education in Jamaica. The Internet opens up the minds to what is happening outside Jamaica. We have been providing free Internet access to primary schools across the island. Through our foundation, when we make donations, we make it a condition that the children should be the beneficiaries.
BE: What is happening with your portfolio of unsold properties?
RD: We have an ongoing rationalisation programme for our properties; we cannot afford to keep so many locations so there are more divestments to come. It will not really affect numbers because it was already in train and we will be focusing more on what we do best.
BE: What are your plans to change the perception of C&W providing poor customer service?
RD: We will have to rid ourselves of the monopoly mindset that says I have what you need and you will have to take it how I give it to you. We will have to put the customer at the centre of the way we deliver service to them. A fundamental cultural change has to take place and once we get that right, there will be more direct and specific accountability in employees for their areas of responsibility. In the time I have been here I make no bones about it when I talk to the staff and managers: if you're seen to be working against customers' interests, start dusting off your resumes.
BE: You are the dominant player with the corporate clientele, are you holding your own?
RD: Yes, I think we are exposed, but so far the business community recognises that we have strong leadership in technology in the marketplace and they count on us to ensure they have the stability and reliability. But we can improve to remain relevant and at the forefront. We will continue to show leadership but we will plug the holes.
BE: You have maintained contacts with Jamaica over the years and worked here before. It's violent and you have young family to raise, why have you come back home at this time?
RD: I have wanted to return home since my daughter was four in 1988. I have always had a feeling there is something I could do here; it did not happen and I put it out of my mind. But after 13 years of working for others, I began my own consultancy business and a job brought me to Antigua where I turned around a software company. When that ended, another opportunity came for the KPMG-Peat Marwick job. I took it.
Do we have crime in Jamaica? Am I aware of it? Yes, but I have been around Jamaicans my whole life and I am not afraid of Jamaicans. My quality of life is better here; I see my children more, they love it here. I no longer have the hectic travel schedule I had overseas and I see my friends more often. I will take the risk for that quality of life. It's wonderful here and I love it.
BE: How we can fix this horrible crime situation?
RD: We don't need to reinvent the wheel, and it won't happen overnight. It starts with education. Every society that has shown success and economic development in recent times has started out by focusing on education, taxation and the development of small business.
BE: Taxation? We don't need to pay more; in our case, we need to be more efficient at collecting what's falling through the cracks!
RD: Yes, we must be more efficient at collecting, but we must be mindful of the level of taxation it takes to stimulate the economy. I cannot tell the Finance Minister how to do it, but what hurts me even more than crime is the level of poverty in Jamaica. Seeing children in the streets is hurtful and we have to start educating them. And we cannot have the best schools charging tuition that is so high, it's unaffordable.
How can we have a situation where for a child to get the kind of education he can leverage in life, it has to cost his parents a year's salary?
You can't say you take education seriously if every child cannot get an education. I say to managers: Show me the people who work for you and I will tell you what kind of manager you are. It's the same with education, show me the quality of the people you are turning out based on the quality of the education and I'll tell you how well you're doing as a country
BE: Did you map out a set of long-term and short-term goals for the job?
RD: What I generally do when I get into a new situation, particularly a difficult one, is to expose myself to as much as I can in a number of ways. Many who have worked for me feel an enormous sense of pressure with my being all over to get an ad hoc and spontaneous exposure. I don't like to be too planned in the first 90 days, I just want to go and see it all, then huddle for the strategy.
BE: Tell me about the three-year plan.
RD: Simpler plans, simpler products, better customer service, far more accountability and much better management of information systems that will allow us to respond to the challenges. I like us to be on the edge. If you're on the edge you can turn and respond quickly because you anticipated something was going to be there. We don't anticipate well at Cable and Wireless; we just kind of react and I am not very good at just reacting. What I pride myself in is that by the time the situation that I need to react to occurs, I'm halfway towards the response.
Part of what I've been doing since my arrival is to set the tone for the staff. So they will walk into the 'war room' and if halfway through a presentation they are not ready, I will say, 'don't even come if you are not ready'. I will cancel the meeting. When the competitor comes, you have to be ready.
BE: Will we start hearing whispers about your management style?
RD: I did the same thing in Barbados, I tell my staff that in the first six months it's irrelevant whether you like me; what's relevant is that I get you ready for competition. I'm the painful kind of manager at the start. That is my style, I'm not for the weak and weary. I'm here to make sure everybody understands his or her role. If you say there are blocks in your way, I become the chief unblocker, and once I remove the blocks, and you have no one to blame it's up to you.
BE: Any major surprises so far?
RD: I was pleasantly surprised by the enormous pool of talent here. When you see that things are not performing on the surface, you realise that you have the talent, so there must be some other reason why it's not happening. The hardest surprise is that the management of information systems are severely lacking. We need information to make decisions.
Send feedback to: barbara.ellington@gleanerjm.com.
