Above: Marcelo Oliveira, C&W Business’ Director Data centre, IT Infrastructure & Continuity, speaks to guests of the Round Table presentation. Image courtesy C&W.

No matter what the industry, Information Technology (IT) has become essential to every business. Regardless of whether it is energy, manufacturing, education, commerce, fashion or the arts, IT is fundamental to drive innovation, enhanced productivity and improve a company’s overall competitiveness.

These were the opening remarks of Marcelo Oliveira, Director Data Centre, IT Infrastructure and Continuity at C&W Business. Oliveira was speaking to executives of some of Trinidad’s leading enterprises at the C&W Business Round Table event held recently at the company’s Trincity Operations Centre.  Presenting on the topic “A Strategic Conversation”, Oliveira introduced the concept of transforming IT from a cost centre into an innovation hub.

Oliveira explained how C&W’s Managed IT solutions facilitate innovation. “By utilizing Managed IT solutions, an organization is freed from the rigour of day to day low-value administration of operating systems, backups, hardware, and software and will be able to dedicate time to work with their business counterparts to achieve strategic innovations like new product development, addition of new distribution channels, formulating new marketing campaigns, enhancing financial reporting, or improving customer service.

In addition, none of these initiatives will require incremental capital expenditures. Rather, the computing resources required to support them can be accessed from C&W’s Cloud, on an “as needed” basis. Customers realize lower operating costs as well as increased efficiency since they can now refocus on the specific activities that are core to the business’ success,” he said.

Oliveira also highlighted the importance of reliable connectivity, noting that connectivity is the foundation of IT.  C&W owns and operates the region’s most advanced network and can guarantee both the data transmission performance and resiliency of the network, something no other regional player can do. Oliveira further explained that this network serves as the backbone of an eco-system of data-centres.

Elizabeth Ammon, Vice President of C&W Business said this was the first of several round tables planned for customers in the coming months. She noted that, “Our customers need cost effective mechanisms to improve efficiency. In this current economic situation, in which many local companies are mindful of budget and spend, the cloud technology offers an opportunity to be efficient and strategic. We are giving our customers more options.”

Following several years of significant investment, C&W Business has become the region’s premier hosted solutions and ITaaS provider, with world-class Tier III/IV facilities located in Bogota (two), Panama, Miami, Cayman, and Curacao, all inter-connected via our unmatched subsea fiber network (50,000 km and growing) reaching over 40 markets. C&W Business is globally recognized by Gartner which has named C&W Business to its coveted “Magic Quadrant” for the last three years and Ovum ranks C&W #4 globally for our Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solutions.