Facey consolidates technology firms
Published:Friday | October 1, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Facey Commodity Company Limited, the large Jamaican distribution company, has brought together its information technology and business support services in 12 countries under its flagship Productive Business Solutions (PBS) brand.
PBS was established in 2001 after Facey Commodity, a member of the Musson Jamaica group, acquired the Jamaican operations of international document and printing company, Xerox.
Since then, PBS has expanded across the Caribbean and Central America, setting up companies with different names in Barbados, Belize, Aruba, Curacao the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica.
"By the end of 2009, we had 14 entities, doing the same thing, virtually servicing the same kind of customers with the same multinational principles, but with different names, different systems, different procedures," said Dr Nigel Clarke, Facey's chief executive officer.
"If left unchecked, (this) would not allow either ourselves or our customers to enjoy what would have been the obvious synergy, and there began a process of integration of the operations," Clarke said at the launch of the consolidated business in Kingston on Tuesday.
General manager of PBS, John Burrowes, told the Financial Gleaner that there were distinct advantages to be gained from the move in terms of customers benefits.
"Right down to our invoices, we are trying to look the same so that if a customer is doing business with us in three or four countries in the region, he won't feel as though Barbados looks so much different from Dominica Republic," he said.
"He will feel as if he is dealing with one company rather than several different ones."
Burrowes declined to say how much the consolidation was costing, but suggested that it was relatively little as all the relevant services were being provided in-house.
The company, PBS, provides document-management solutions for businesses, production capability for graphic arts firms and enables its clients to digitally store customer records. It also represents leading brands in security and identification card technology solutions, among other services.
The customers of PBS include governments, banks, schools, the mining sector, airports and professionals, including lawyers and doctors who need printing solutions.
Partners of PBS include big-name international businesses such as Xerox, Cisco, Datacard, Kodak, NEC Computers, Verifone, Johnson Controls, Motorola, HP, Sony Medical and NCR.
With 1,300 employees across the region, PBS now pulls in more than US$140 million of its parent, Facey Commodity's US$1 billion in annual revenues. Facey employs more than 3,000 persons and does distribution in 28 countries.
And this is not the end of the road for PBS, as Burrowes explained.
"I decline to say where it is, but I think that they (PBS) will add another major country in the region, probably, before the end of this year."