Javette Nixon's big leap

Point Global opens offices overseas

Avia Collinder, Business Reporter

Midpoint its incubation period at the Technology Innovation Centre, Point Global Marketing (PGM) has opened offices in Port-of-Spain even while the company is still hunting its own operating space inside home-market Jamaica.

Point Global has operated out of the innovation centre, an incubator for start-ups at the University of Technology in Kingston, since early 2012. It's from there that the company planned and executed its push into the Trinidad & Tobago market.

Now CEO Javette Nixon says its own offices in Jamaica will allow the company to more fully pursue growth plans. He expects to make that leap within two years. Its period of incubation ends in April 2015.

Point Global targets small businesses, which need to market their products and services on online and international platforms; and want to master social marketing and search-engine optimisation, the latter referring to a technique used to raise the profile of entities through keyword searches online.

Its team designs and implements marketing plans and conducts market research; provides pricing advice; new-business development services and sourcing, and analysing marketing and advertising opportunities.

With budgeted start-up costs of US$250,000 (J$26 million) and an operations model based on producing web properties and programme design from Jamaica, Nixon predicts that the Trinidad operation will be paying for itself inside of a year.

The subsidiary operation known as Point Global Marketing Trinidad & Tobago, is being overseen by one staff member, a marketing executive who Nixon said has deep knowledge of the eastern Caribbean market. Back-office operations for Port-of-Spain remains in Jamaica, he said.

"What T&T has is a healthier economy, and it is second in market size to Jamaica within the English-speaking Caribbean. Our goal is to be the largest integrated marketing company in the Caribbean, and T&T is important to achieve this," Nixon told Sunday Business.

The twin-island state gets a lot of foreign-direct investment from sources domiciled outside of its borders which Point Global expects to leverage, he said.

"There are a lot of oil and gas, creative industries and tourism entities which are based outside of T&T. There are also T&T companies which are operating in Jamaica and who want to roll out a marketing programme here. We see a lot of synergies in the market."

ORGANIC SOURCES

Expansion, he said, is being funded from organic sources. "We have tried to be very lean in roll out and stick to the resources we have. We are using a similar incubator set-up to ensure that the operation in Trinidad will soon be self supporting."

The local operation, he said has grown revenues by over 50 per cent over 2012; and that annual revenue amounted to J$10.5 million at April 2013.

"We expect by financial yearend (April 2014) it will be above that," said Nixon.

"We have been very conservative in our assumptions and we are expecting that with the addition to T&T we will see growth in sales and revenue of 50 per cent again in 2014/15."

In February 2011, Nixon created the platform which is now the basis of his marketing-management service. In April 2012, he gave up his job as special projects manager at EdgeChem in Kingston to start Point Global with four associates at the UTech incubator.

In 2013, the group has added two full-time workers and one part-time employee.

He is now in discussions, Nixon said, with his banking adviser at Scotiabank Jamaica regarding whether to pursue a private placement to raise J$40 million to J$50 million needed for expansion.

"We really believe in the tremendous opportunity for growth in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean," he said.

In addition to the company's exploration of debt financing, Nixon and partners are also considering selling equity stakes in Point Global to investors.

"We are just looking for the right fit," he explained.

Point Global start-up costs in Jamaica amounted to J$2 million, according to Nixon, who said the business was capitalised with J$500,000 of equity financed from personal savings, and a bank loan of J$1.5 million.

To push sales, the company offers employees 10 per cent profit share as incentive, Nixon said. The same performance-based incentive model has been implemented in Trinidad, he said.

Point Global is planning further expansion overseas, but its future Caribbean push will see services being offered from the current offices. Nixon adds, however, that he plans to open physical offices in New York by mid-2014.

avia.collinder@gleanerjm.com