CBL encouraging staff to return to work but says it won’t be “business as usual”
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Cable Bahamas saw a nearly 11 percent increase in its first quarter revenue compared to the same period the previous year, the company has reported.
Franklyn Butler, the BISX-listed communications provider’s chief executive, told Eyewitness News: “We are continuing to improve our results revenue, with revenue up nearly 11 percent versus the same period last year, and our operating income is up significantly as well.”
The company, in its 2022 first quarter report for the three months ended September 30, 2021, saw revenue of $53,402 compared to $48,217 for the same period in 2020.
Butler told Eyewitness News that based on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, the company will continue its digital transformation push.
“Digital transformation is here to stay. We are going to be continuing to drive our digital transformation. It is one of the areas we think, coming out of pandemic, that is here to stay,” said Butler.
“We are still seeing just shy of 80 percent of our payments being done digitally. We will do what we can to continue to encourage customers to use digital means of payments.
“We have our payment portal and we are integrated with the likes of payment systems like Kanoo.”
According to Butler, as the economy, particularly the tourism industry, improves, the company has seen some of its hospitality business return.
“We are definitely seeing some of the hospitality business come back. Not everyone has responded or has recovered as quickly,” said Butler.
“The major hotels have responded the quickest and even now as the emergency orders fall away, we are seeing an uptick. We remain pleased and positive about the future but cautious as well.”
Butler said the company is encouraging staff to return to work to ensure the human connection, however, it will likely not be business as usual.
“We haven’t quite finalized it, but we are encouraging departments to start to come back together to ensure the human connection remains here,” said Butler.
“I’m certain we will not go back to full business as usual as it was pre-pandemic.”
He added: “We’re back to pre-pandemic levels in terms of staffing. With the uncertainty of the pandemic, we initially did some downsizing in sales areas and other areas. Once we started to see some relaxation of the restrictions, we immediately began to ramp back up to meet customer demand.”
