Mervyn Eyre takes Fujitsu to new heights

by Al Edwards, Business Co-ordinator

Excerpted from the Jamaica Gleaner – March 7, 2003

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Fujitsu Caribbean, valued at US$30 million, is headquartered in Jamaica and is headed by local boy wonder, Mervyn Eyre, who is the region's president and chief executive officer. Last year was a good year for Fujitsu, largely brought on by the deregulation of the telecoms sector in Jamaica. The company worked assiduously on the NCB IT transformation project. It's objective there is to grow its relationship with that account. It also installed the PBX system at Digicel's call centre and put in place its data security systems.

Mervyn Eyre says he fell into the IT industry by divine accident. He was fiddling with some wires one day and almost short-circuited the family home. His father decided he would have to go to college to master electrical engineering. He studied in England and then pursued a career in computing. He says his time abroad proved invaluable, giving him exposure and experience, which he would later use back home in Jamaica.

"People worry about Jamaicans migrating but I think it is good if you can acquire international experience, provided you can return and help to make a contribution to the development of the country. We have to start benchmarking ourselves against global standards," he says.

He returned to Jamaica in 1983 and took up the position as general manager of Computer Point, a distributor for ICL. It wasn't long before the distribution operations outpaced ICL itself. He then became sales manager for ICL and five years ago, became Fujitsu's CEO for the region.

"Fujitsu is not driven by mandates from above (the parent company). Performance is the watchword. This company allows individualism and dynamism. I have been here for 15 years now and I have never been bored, I am constantly being challenged and engaged," he says.

Under Mr. Eyre's tenure, the company has seen quarter-on-quarter profitability, which has doubled in size over the last five years. And the staff compliment headcount has risen from 115 to 150.

"We are unique in being the only truly regional IT company and that has been a major differentiation for us. We have exploited the skills base across the islands in which Fujitsu operates, namely Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados and the Bahamas, with agents across the entire region. We have taken success stories in one location and replicated it in another. Last year, the population registry system in Trinidad was expanded by using Fujitsu expertise. Regarding the travel industry, in Barbados we are maintaining the airport systems at Grantley Adams Airport. So you see we are offering a good cross section of infrastructure products and services. This comes at a time when our competition is weakening and the industry globally is re-strengthening.

"The way I think Fujitsu operates is that once it has a successful operation in one region they tend to leave that alone to operate as is. The Caribbean has proven to be a successful sphere for the company and has been growing consistently for the last five years. In fact, some of the successes the company has had in the region have been of interests to governments and the models used by them in other areas.

"We have convinced the parent company that it is vitally important that Fujitsu maintains an operational presence in the Caribbean. In terms of Fortune 50 Caribbean businesses, it is just IBM and ourselves at the moment as far as IT is concerned.

Read the full article in the Jamaica Gleaner