He said the British telecom carrier was caught napping when the telecom sector was liberalised in Jamaica three years ago and the dominant slice of the cellular pie was virtually served up to Irish cellular provider Digicel.

The hard truth ­ C&W Jamaica was "fat and lazy" at the time. "We are not gonna have a Jamaica re-run here because we were asleep in Jamaica and we're not asleep in Trinidad," he stated recently.

Lapthorne said C&W will manage the situation and help its managers, who have grown up in a monopoly environment, understand how to deal with new competitors. He was interviewed at the Hilton Trinidad shortly after delivering a feature address at the Euromoney/Latin Finance Investment Forum.

OTHER CHALLENGES

On his request, Lapthorne was accompanied by Sam Martin, CEO of Telecommunications Services of T&T (TSTT) in which C&W holds a 49 per cent interest. The fact that he must consider other interests before speaking about any aspect of the local telecom company's operations is precisely one of the challenges facing the company.

As he sees it, TSTT's very ownership structure makes its operations more difficult to manage ­ it is the only C&W interest in the region in which C&W does not have controlling interest, the majority shareholding being held by the Government of T&T. Lapthorne said this was almost setting up the company for failure in a competitive environment.

"The key issue, however, is that TSTT will not succeed if it is facing new entrants who have a very simple command and control structure and we do not have a very simple command and control structure on the operations of the company."

As an investor, he said, Government had a multitude of agenda items and could not be as clearly focused as a private investor. While they may not be the big ticket issues, he suggests other agenda items may creep into the management process and compromise the ability of the company to compete.

"Government's agenda is massive, and how do they balance everything whilst also focusing on the fact there's somebody trying to kill them, called the new competitor? We know with a new incumbent, prices will fall and the market share will change and that's fine as long as you know how you're gonna deal with that. But if you then say we can't do something because there's this agenda item which has got nothing to do with TSTT, then life just gets complicated."

The about-turn in the leadership style of the C&W management is directly related to the loss of revenues. Seventy-five per cent of the markets in which C&W operates is now liberalised.

CARIBBEAN MOST PROFITABLE BUSINESS AREA

The Caribbean remains its most profitable business area, although there has been a constant dip in revenues in markets where C&W monopolies have been broken. For governments, there is also a loss, since the company is now paying half the sums in tax revenues to regional governments than it did in 1999. Just as with British Telecom in the UK, Lapthorne said C&W, as incumbent in the Caribbean, will always be the natural whipping boy.

However, he feels if C&W can engage regional governments early enough and strategically enough with issues, normal discussions would not be conducted off the back foot. "There's a better way of dealing with people and if we fail to recognise that we're managing a strategic asset when we manage the telco then I think we will lose," he said.

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