THE PROBLEM with Jamaica's cable operators and the content providers, as reported in your Business section yesterday, is just one of the problems with regional structures in the international business.

Most multinational and global companies tend to merge Jamaica and the other Caribbean territories in the Latin American group structure. As such, it is easier to manage the region for internal and most market support purposes.

This, however, carries liabilities or disadvantages for the customers in the English, Dutch and French-speaking countries, because most of the population is obviously Spanish-speaking. As such, written consumer information is always multilingual and supported by icons and pictograms.

Impatient customer

This approach with audio-visual products, such as music videos and movies, creates difficulties for the average consumer, who will not be patient with recreational and entertainment products.

This will always continue to be a problem as long as the LatAm management insist on catering for the main audience solely. In some companies, the Caribbean is categorised as a sub-region and concessions made to facilitate customer management and product options. Another option is a Caribbean sub-region reporting to the North America group (United States and Canada) because of the common English-speaking cus-tomer base.

So, as simple as it may seem, this situation is not unique to the cable industry.

I am, etc.,

LLOYD BUTLER

reltubjam@gmail.com

Kingston 20