Interview - Flow Grenada

COMMITTED TO CONNECTION

Sustainable Business Magazine speaks to James Pitt, Country Manager of Flow Grenada, about changing demands, supporting the local economy, and ensuring Grenada has a fast and reliable telecommunications infrastructure.

By Will Vincent

Flow Grenada is a communications and entertainment company, providing landline, mobile, broadband, and cable television services to the island nation of Grenada. Formerly Cable & Wireless Grenada, Flow Grenada is owned by communications giant Liberty Latin America. Since the 1990s, Flow Grenada has led successful pushes to expand landline, broadband, and cellular network access across Grenada; today, according to Flow, 80% of Grenadian households have landlines, 70% have broadband – with Grenada consistently ranked among the top five countries in the Caribbean for internet speeds – and the entire island is covered by Flow’s mobile network.

EVOLVING NETWORKS

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to economic disruption across the Caribbean, where many countries rely on the travel and tourism industry. Grenada has been particularly affected, as another primary economic driver is international students studying medicine and veterinary medicine at St. George’s University. “Over 90% of the students at St. George’s departed the country during the early stages of the

“OVER 400 KIDS HAVE BENEFITTED SO FAR, AND A SELECT FEW OF THEM HAVE THEIR FIRST TWO YEARS OF TERTIARY LEVEL EDUCATION PAID FOR. IT’S A COSTLY INITIATIVE, BUT IT’S MONEY WELL SPENT.“

pandemic,” explains James Pitt, Country Manager at Flow Grenada. “The university and its students are major customers for Flow. The student absence combined with the other economic impacts of the pandemic have led to projected decline in sales of 1417% for us.”

Despite taking a financial hit, Flow Grenada recognized early on that the COVID-19 pandemic meant Grenadians would be reliant on fast, effective telecommunications services. “People under lockdown have been forced into remote work, remote schooling, maintaining relationships digitally, and all of these depend on having reliable broadband,” says Mr. Pitt. “We have become an increasingly essential service in the last fifteen months and in turn, we have placed an emphasis on evolving our networks to meet the growing demand. It is important for us to make sure we create an environment in which our customers receive value despite a challenging economy.”

To help customers whose use of telecommunications services have been growing even as their financial situation grows more precarious, Flow have adjusted their pricing. “We’re in the business of keeping our customers happy,” says Mr. Pitt. “In the last year we have directed our focus to bringing extended value to our customers. The more products of ours that you use, the more benefits you receive in the form of reduced prices. Households that have bundled and fixed services are rewarded a 50% discount on mobile network services. The pandemic has left us in an environment facing economic challenges, but customers still need good value and reliable connectivity.”

INVESTMENT IN INFRASTRUCTURE

As a result of the pandemic-accelerated increase in demand, Flow Grenada have been investing further in infrastructure. “Speed and broadband are a continuous and growing insatiable appetite for more customers, and especially since the pandemic, we’ve seen how that appetite can increase,” says Mr. Pitt. “We’ve invested millions of dollars into our infrastructure to ensure that our customer’s need for both bandwidth and reliability are met. Our fixed network is where customer demand has exploded, which means we’ve had to focus on enlarging its capacity. We have increased our node infrastructure and built more redundancy into our systems, as well as installing more fiber in homes and businesses. A distributed workforce can become severely impaired when people are not connected to each other. The whole notion of an online economy has shown us the importance of this industry and Flow in our economy. We’ve been pivotal in ensuring that we provide the framework for people to operate.”

HUMAN CAPITAL

Flow also has a long-standing commitment to develop social programs in Grenada. “Through our annual 30-year-old scholarship program, we identify kids based on their needs and competence, and fund a significant portion of their education bills,” explains Mr. Pitt. “Over 400 kids have benefitted so far, and a select few of them have their first two years of tertiary level education paid for. It’s a costly initiative, but it’s money well spent. Not only has our scholarship been appreciated by our beneficiaries, but we’re also helping to build the human capital

of Grenada. That’s a key part of what we do as an organization. We connect communities and enable progress. We facilitate the building of local economies, of human capacity, and social interaction within Grenada.”

“In spite of a challenging time, we did everything to ensure the pandemic did not impact our current Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activity, from our scholarship programs to our support for the local government infrastructure for COVID, foreign services, and more,” says Mr Pitt. “In addition, we are co-sponsoring a program with the Government of Grenada to provide internet services to the indigent segments of our society. This will benefit circa five percent of all households in Grenada, with kids that are facing financial distress. Both Flow and the Government of Grenada are ready to launch the joint initiative, assisting the most vulnerable segments of society and giving them the opportunity to get further discounts on programs.”

BUILDING UP GRENADA

Flow Grenada continues to drive investment in local telecommunications infrastructure. “We’re going to deploy more fiber optic-based services and continuously develop our mobile network,” says Mr. Pitt. “We’re also going to fund other areas of the value chain, whether it’s supporting local or regional businesses, as we’re so intertwined within the space that we operate. At some point, we hope to have a 5G network to build upon the connectivity demands of customers.”

“We will maintain affordable prices and excellent service, as without our customers we don’t have a business,” says Mr. Pitt. “While we have the privilege of serving Grenada with telecoms, we will continuously make every effort to ensure that we deliver on the promises made to the public. We can adapt and evolve quickly, and that is the hallmark of what we’re doing in a rapidly changing environment. We will ensure we keep abreast with changing demands and do so in an effective and affordable manner. We will continue to hold ourselves to our customer expectations of delivering good service.” c