Logistics Hub

AS JAMAICA looks to attract diverse jobs in the outsourcing sector, local and international firms on the island are working to create employment opportunities in knowledge process outsourcing (KPO), information technology outsourcing (ITO), and shared services. In the western part of the island, the Jamaican outsourcing company Contax360 has made sure to get a head start. They have integrated these higher-value services in their offerings and currently employ agents who provide not only contact-centre services, but financial and accounting services, data support, healthcare process outsourcing, legal process outsourcing, and consulting services. The company has managed to fill these jobs because of on-the-job training, and it is expected that with the implementation of the Global Services Sector (GSS) Project, which has a skills-advancement programme in areas such as Robotics and IT management, more Jamaicans will gain the knowledge required to take on a diverse range of jobs. CEO of Contax360, Jacqueline Sutherland, and the Organisation’s Director of Technology, Caray McKenzie, explained that as the company has matured and adapted to a more technologically driven market, so has its employees. Upskilling “Advancement driven by automation doesn’t necessarily mean that people are out of work,” McKenzie insisted. “It leads to further training and upskilling.” He went on to chart the growth of Contax360 since its inception 12 years ago. “We’ve moved from simply taking phone calls,” McKenzie said. “We started off as a company that did collections for clients. Then we did sales and then upgraded the skill set of our staff from a basic contact call-centre level to a full-fledged contact centre to what we call a business process outsourcing company.” Contax360 is now offering KPO services, including managed security services, finance and accounting, and legal process outsourcing. The company continues to upgrade itself and has matured its offerings to meet the increased demands of today’s clients. Several of the company’s staff are now involved in KPO, an area that the Jamaican Government sees as the future of the country’s global digital services (GDS) sector. Because of this vision, the partners under the GSS Project, such as the Ministry of Youth, Education and Information, JAMPRO, HEART/NTA, and the Global Services Association of Jamaica (GSAJ), are focused on empowering more workers with the knowledge to work in this area. CEO of Contax360 Jacqueline Sutherland points out that in addition to educational institutions working towards teaching these skills, the required education will also come from companies that are expanding into KPO and providing the necessary on-the-job training. She gives the example of her own company’s experience with legal processing. The organisation started doing basic collections seven years ago but expanded into more complex legal-process outsourcing, providing garnishments and other types of legal collections for US law firms. Sutherland revealed: “We’ve taken agents with basic collection and customer service-type skills, and we have been able to enhance their knowledge and capabilities to provide more legal-collection services for several law firms.” She went on to say: “A lot of that training came specifically from the clients, so we had some of the attorneys or the legal attachés at those companies come and work with the agents to help them understand the terminology and ways to process certain types of transactions for law firms. They got very hands-on, on-the-job training.” Training and mentorship programmes allow Contax360 employees to increase their skills, advance their positions within the company, and become more marketable across a variety of industries. “It’s not just technical training or training for legal-process outsourcing,” McKenzie said. “We have a mentorship programme where even if we don’t have the positions available, for example a supervisory or management position, we will still look for staff members who have the potential and train them to that level.” The Contax360 executive says he has seen staff move on to supervisory and management positions within the GDS sector and in other industries such as the hotel industry and the IT sector. “I’ve seen so many former staff, and I ask them what they are doing now, and they are directors, managers, doing well for themselves, and we are proud of that,” he stated enthusiastically. “I tell my staff all the time that if you are working here, even if I can’t promote you or pay you more, you must be able to command a higher salary and position when you leave.” Next Stage of Development The next stage of development being pursued by the organisation is advancing digital services. This will involve jobs that are more heavily steeped in data analytics and business intelligence. “We will require staff that have a certain base level of knowledge, educated people with degrees, in anything that has to do with numbers, data, and statistics.” McKenzie said. “IT degrees, computer science degrees, those would be helpful in helping us drive towards those kinds of jobs.” Sutherland added, “I think Jamaica certainly has the talent and the ability for us to grow our resource pool to support that.” McKenzie believes that local companies that keep pace with constantly emerging technologies and services at the international level will naturally propel the Jamaican workforce into the future. “The more we can market Jamaica as a destination for not just call-centre services, but the higher-value services, the more we can do for Jamaica with training, upskilling, and marketing our potential,” he emphasised. “The things that we are doing now are definitely where we are going to go next.” Contax360 is located in Montego Bay. The firm currently employs almost 600 Jamaicans.   Source: The Jamaica Gleaner

After a hiatus from Jamaica due to its borders being closed to stem the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) earlier this year, Virgin Atlantic has resumed flights to the island. Virgin Atlantic flight ‘VS 165’ from London, England, carried some 192 passengers and 10 crew members to the Sangster International Airport in St. James, on October 2. During a press briefing at the Sangster International Airport, Airport Manager of Virgin Atlantic in Jamaica, Eaton Hubbard, told journalists that the airline was elated to return the island, as it is an important destination to the company. He informed that the airline’s return has been in the planning for some time. “I think Virgin took the decision to do our very best with the changing information that we were getting…to decide very early out that this was when we would start. Obviously it is a very dynamic situation, things have changed since, and will, we expect, continue to change, so we are very grateful to be able to start, and now it is just to be able to sustain and maintain this,” Mr. Hubbard said. He noted that the aircraft, which holds a capacity of 249 persons, inclusive of an on-board isolation zone, was booked to take some 155 passengers to London that same evening. Mr. Hubbard also informed that the airline is planning to send flights to the island twice per week, a number which should increase to three times weekly with the start of the upcoming winter tourist season. He added that Virgin Atlantic has put in place several protocols to protect its passengers and staff from contracting COVID-19. For her part, Visitor Relations Manager at the Jamaica Tourist Board (JTB), Andrea Savizon, told journalists that the JTB was “very elated to have Virgin Atlantic back on the island.” She added that the organisation was pleased that the airline trusts the island’s COVID-19 prevention protocols, which has been put in place by the Government to contain the spread of the virus. The island’s borders were closed to incoming passengers in March of this year to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus and was reopened in June. Source: Jamaica Information Service (JIS) by: Serena Grant

Food distribution company Nestlé Jamaica has partnered with Stoneleigh Coffee to produce a roasted and ground coffee aimed squarely at the premium market. The product, branded Nescafe Jamaican Roast, will be sold in one-pound and half-pound packaging. It is 100 per cent Jamaican Arabica coffee grown at high elevations that Nestlé will source from farmers in the area, said Country Manager Daniel Caron. Nestlé Jamaica has a co-manufacturing arrangement with Stoneleigh, the terms of which were not disclosed. Caron said his company’s investment was limited to packaging and marketing. Nestlé already distributes retail coffee in Jamaica, but it’s imported prepackaged. Nescafe Jamaican Roast will be the first locally made coffee product for the Swiss-owned company. It will be distributed in Jamaica and in markets overseas. Caron said Nestlé saw the opportunity to deepen its coffee footprint after regulator Jamaica Agricultural Commodities Regulatory Authority raised concerns of the surplus beans in inventory for which there is no market. “After learning of the coffee industry’s situation and, by extension, the coffee farmers in Jamaica, we took the opportunity to align the world’s largest coffee brand, Nescafe, with one of the world’s most coveted coffee markets. This is a win-win for all stakeholders,” he said. Stoneleigh, which is principally controlled by St Clair Shirley, David Shirley and Stephen Shirley, will process and package the coffee from its factory at Mavis Bank, in the hills of St Andrew. “The partnership with Stoneleigh Coffee is a long-term, strategic partnership. We have committed to purchasing 40 tonnes of local coffee and there is no set termination date. Exports will commence this year,” Caron said. In Jamaica, Nescafe Jamaican Roast is targeted at supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, offices and catering services. It will also be distributed through Nestlé’s e-commerce channel. Caron was reluctant to state the likely cost of the product, but noted that it would be high-priced, like others in its class. “We will price it in line, to be competitive with the existing premium coffees in the market,” he said. Source: The Jamaica Gleaner by: Neville Graham

Derrimon Trading is looking to roll out a new information technology system that will bring its own accounting system and that of its subsidiaries under one platform. But it’s just one of the projects being worked on by the distribution company. Derrimon Chairman and CEO Derrick Cotterell on Friday told shareholders that the company is looking to grow the business – which involves the distribution of food products as well as operation of supermarket and wholesale outlets, Sampars and Select Grocers – through expansion in both its local and international markets. Progress is anticipated on the plans by year end. “We think that we can diversify the business outside of the existing industries that we are in,” Cotterell said at Derrimon’s annual general meeting. In the meantime, the group is the looking to grow revenue through its grocery unit, comprised of subsidiaries Sampars and Select Grocers. Its latest project has revolved around online sales, which paid off with double-digit growth under COVID-19 restrictions between March and June. “As we can see, the food industry has proven to be very resilient in this COVID-19 crisis and we expect it to last longer. Food, retail and the support services to those business are what has made Derrimon COVID-resistant so far, and so we want to deepen our involvement in those areas,” Cotterell said. “But we don’t want to restrict ourselves to Jamaica. We are looking to do an expansion in a much bigger market than Jamaica later this year to grow our foreign currency earnings,” he added. Financing for the expansion, as noted by Cotterell, will come from the upcoming additional public offering of Derrimon shares to the stock market, a plan shareholders approved on Friday. Derrimon also hopes to use some of the funds raised to pay down its debt, which is currently estimated at around $2 billion. The share offer is expected to hit the market in November. With Derrimon’s share capital now at $140 million, the distribution company could approach the market for as much as $360 million, which would take it to the $500-million limit to which junior market companies are confined. A more ambitious target would require Derrimon to migrate to the main market. The new IT system is projected to cost $100 million, but those funds have already been aside. Derrimon acquired financing for that project from Sagicor Bank in 2019. “The international partners are working with us on the IT system and hope to have it implemented by year end. Being an enterprise system, it will be able to allow us to put all the businesses on one platform. Those businesses include flavour maker Caribbean Flavours & Fragrances Limited, CFF; pallet maker Woodcats International; and the grocery operations. “We are going to start with the distribution business, put Sampars on, then CFF and Woodcat would come on, and it is expected to make our accounting and reporting system more efficient,” Cotterell said. As a group, Derrimon and its subsidiaries now generate revenue of more than $12 billion annually, while profit last year was in the $300-million range. So far this year, sales were largely flat at $6.3 billion over the first two quarters ending June, but profit attributable to shareholders was up from $154 million to $160 million.   Source: The Jamaica Gleaner by: Karena Bennett – Business Reporter

Manufacturing and distribution company Seprod Limited has landed new markets in new territory for the group that will see its grain venture putting another 15 per cent of unused capacity into play. Jamaica Grain & Cereals Limited is currently exporting a by-product from its mill, called wheat middling, to two South American countries, and is looking to finalise negotiations for distribution arrangements in at least three other Latin American countries. The additional production needed to serve those markets is expected to grow capacity utilisation at the mill on the Kingston waterfront by 15 per cent to around 65 per cent, but is gunning for even more. Seprod CEO Richard Pandohie says breakeven for the plant, which was commissioned over two years ago, in March 2018, was 30 per cent utilisation. “We are now at 55 per cent capacity on the wheat mill and 50 per cent capacity on the maize mill,” Pandohie told the Financial Gleaner following Seprod’s annual general meeting on Monday. Jamaica Grain is one of two company’s milling flour locally, the other being market leader Jamaica Flour Mills Limited, which is owned by American company Archer Daniels Midland. Jamaica Grain – which itself is a 50/50 joint venture between Seprod and an American partner, Seaboard Overseas Trading Group, a division of Seaboard Corp – currently lays claim to a 30 per cent share of the domestic market. “At a minimum we want to have about 80 per cent capacity utilisation which would take it to about 40 per cent market share, plus a strong export market,” Pandohie said. He adds that the market opportunities that have opened up in the Latin American region is due to the pandemic. “We can sit and whine about COVID-19, but it’d be foolhardy to pass up the opportunities opening up as a result of the disruption. It’s opening the doors to markets that we’d never had access to before now,” he said. Wheat middling is used for animal nutrition. “We’re shipping four container loads of product per month to Ecuador. We’re also in Colombia,” he added. Jamaica Grain’s links to the Latam markets were facilitated through the partnership with Seaboard. The current contracts are valued at approximately US$70,000 per month. That translates to around $9 million to $10 million monthly at current exchange rates. Pandohie says Seprod is further targeting Ecuador, as well as Panama, Chile and Costa Rica for more business – for supplies of middling, flour, maize and pre-mixed baking products – markets he said that as far as he knows have never been supplied with milled products from Jamaica. It’s always been Seprod’s plan to make inroads into the export market through Jamaica Grain. Closer to home, the pandemic has also opened up markets for the grain mill in Caricom neighbour Trinidad & Tobago. “The mills do both corn and wheat, so we’re now supplying raw material to the Trinidad market for their snack manufacturers,” said Pandohie. “Why, you may ask. That is because the disruption in Brazil has created some opportunities,” he said. Seprod currently earns 15 per cent of its yearly $32 billion of revenue from exports, but he expects that ratio to grow to 32 per cent by the end of financial year 2021. Pandohie says he is looking to finalise at least three export deals, the first of which is expected to close in early October and the others by the end of that month. “We’re looking for global brands where we say to them ‘we’ll make your product in Jamaica’,” he said. “With our contract manufacturing capability, we’re attracting business where we are producing in Jamaica but for overseas consumption.”   Source: The Jamaica Gleaner by: Neville Graham

Port container volumes in Kingston have fallen during the pandemic. The contraction still resulted in Kingston ports outperforming more than half of the other city ports in the Americas, regional shipping data shows. Cargo shipments into Kingston dipped 12 per cent year over year when measured in tonnages, while export tonnages fell 7.0 per cent between January and August, based on data released to the Financial Gleaner by the Port Authority of Jamaica, PAJ. However, the change narrows to a decline of 2.7 per cent when shipments are measured in container volumes rather than tonnage. Meanwhile, other port data produced by regional UN agency ECLAC shows that Kingston still ranks as eighth largest in the region among 47 city ports. The best-performing port in the review period was San Marta in Colombia, up 32 per cent in container movements, while the worst performer was Buenaventura, also in Colombia, down 38 per cent. The ports in Kingston are comprised of Kingston Container Terminal Limited, which is operated by Kingston Freeport Terminal Limited, KFTL; and Kingston Wharves Limited, KWL. Together they handled over 850,000 containers over the first half of the year. The Port Authority expects volumes to improve over the rest of the year. “At KFTL, volumes have increased steadily since the beginning of the third quarter. Kingston Wharves Limited displayed a similar pattern with the low point recorded in June 2020 and a boost in volumes afterwards,” the agency said in response to Financial Gleaner queries. While much of the economy went dormant during the early period of the pandemic, ports remained open because they are viewed as an essential service, required to facilitate international trade and the transport of goods. “Ports utilised viable shipping connections and alternatives to meet consumer demand,” said the PAJ. “As a consequence of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the second quarter results are likely to be the lowest point in terms of volumes handled at the ports. However, as countries relax restrictions and economies begin to recover, volumes are expected to improve for the remainder of the year due to an increase in the demand and consumption of goods,” the port regulator said. French-owned Kingston Freeport operates the Kingston Container Terminal under concession from the Port Authority. KWL is a publicly traded company, whose leading shareholder is food and logistics conglomerate Jamaica Producers Group. Kingston Wharves specialises in motor vehicle imports, but also handles other cargo.   Source: The Jamaica Gleaner by: Steven Jackson/Senior Business Reporter

After securing another good financial year despite the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic along with increased cost from discontinued operations, Seprod Limited said that the company is further seeking to expand its distribution footprint in the domestic and international markets. Speaking in a livestream of the company’s 81st annual general meeting held on Monday, Richard Pandohie, managing director and chief executive officer (CEO), said that while the business has doubled down on equipment investment and retooling activities over the last few years, the entity now intends to give greater focus to distribution (domestic and export), warehousing and logistics. “These areas are the lifeblood of the organisation connecting our factories, production and the brands of our partners to consumers and customers. We are projected to spend a total in excess of $2.5 billion to build out and consolidate our warehousing operation and create a distribution organisation that will be cost competitive, agile and with a customer footprint second to none,” he told shareholders present at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in Kingston. Pandohie said that with the first phase of the project done last year, the commencement of the second phase, which has already started, is expected to be completed by the third quarter of next year. With the company’s foray into the Trinidad markets through its Serge and Supligen brands, it further hopes to take advantage of export opportunities in other countries of the region including Guyana, where the group already operates other types of business. “Opportunities do not come in a linear fashion and if opportunities came for purchasing and distribution business or working closely with the people that we work with or any opportunity, we will certainly look at that, but we do have relations in Guyana that we would want to grow and maintain.” “We see Guyana as a big opportunity, we’re going to work with our partners in that country to continue in building out that market,” said Seprod’s Chairman P B Scott in responding to questions from shareholders. Among the new products up for disribution are Supligen’s newly added cookie & cream and coffee flavours as well as a gluten-free cassava flour which was launched a week ago. “We are targeting a 20 uplift in volumes primarily by increased export sales. We have a very active innovation pipeline, as this will be key to improving our volume and profitability. The target is to launch a minimum of three new products quarterly, some will be renovations of existing products,” Pandohie told the Business Observer. Source: Jamaica Observer By: KELLARAY MILES

The Government of Jamaica’s joint agency initiative, Port Royal 2020, has received support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to the tune of USD$110,000. This funding will support the continued technical assessment and Master Urban Planning for the town. The Urban Development Corporation (UDC) is the coordinating agency for Port Royal 2020. Formally known as ‘Programa Patrimonio Vivo del BID’ (IDB Living Heritage Program),  the initiative is sponsored financially by the Spanish Government and seeks to strengthen the capacities of cities in the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) Region, to promote the conservation and enhancement of heritage as a means of achieving sustainable urban development and improve living conditions. The Program is based on a new paradigm for intervention in heritage areas, which builds on the idea of heritage as a “valuable sustainable, equitable and resilient asset”, with the intention of contributing to the generation of compact cities, with mixed uses; social and economic diversity; and promoting the use of smart and energy-efficient technology. The Living Heritage Program was identified as a seamless fit for Port Royal 2020 as the project seeks to transform the town into a SMART, safe and secure community with a vibrant local economy, preserved cultural heritage and protected natural environment for the sustainable use by citizens and visitors. The regeneration and enhancement of Port Royal’s rich heritage present a unique opportunity for urban sustainability and allows for cultural preservation and the opportunity to renew and revitalise the town’s infrastructure towards improving the overall environment and generating positive effects for local economic development, urban mobility, equity and social cohesion. Gilberto Chona, Lead Specialist, Urban Development Economics at the IDB spoke to the organization’s partnership with the UDC on the Port Royal 2020, stating that “the IDB is honoured to be part of this important collaboration that has the potential of sustainably improve the lives of the residents of Port Royal and the Kingston (Harbour), by investing in the valuable tangible and intangible assets that Port Royal possesses.” UDC’s Deputy General Manager for Planning Development & Project Management, Loy Malcolm shared that “The strides made with Port Royal 2020 have been significant and major milestones have been met since the project formally got underway in November 2019. While COVID-19 has slowed the pace with which the project is developing, we welcome the Living Heritage Program on board to provide this much-needed support. The Corporation is pleased to know that Jamaica has been selected to form part of this global heritage preservation initiative and that Port Royal will serve as the flagship.” Port Royal, Jamaica is one of only two Caribbean localities on the Living Heritage Program thus far, with Speightstown, Barbados being the other. Source: The Jamaica Gleaner