Caribbean Ops Lead: Eight Keys to Navigating Through the Turbulence

Marvin Bartholomew, senior vice president of Caribbean operations at KM² Solutions in St. Lucia, recently spoke with Nearshore Americas to detail how the operations world is shifting in the Caribbean, and where things may be heading next.

Bartholomew has worked at KM² for nearly 20 years, with 14 years spent as site director before being promoted to vice president of operations and, in 2022, senior vice president of operations. He holds an MBA from the University of Liverpool.

AI Requires Balance, Not Extremes

Artificial intelligence continues to dominate conversations, but Bartholomew says many leaders are approaching it from the wrong angles.

“You kind of have one camp that thinks AI is going to take everything over. And then you have the other camp saying people don’t want to talk to machines.”

Instead, he emphasized how quickly the technology is evolving.

“The part that you’re not accounting for is the exponential change of AI, so that what is improbable today, could become very probable in 6 months.”

For operators, the challenge is not whether AI matters, but how to respond to it.

The Right Strategy is to be a ‘Fast Follower’

Rather than trying to lead the market — or lag behind it — KM² focuses on staying close and moving quickly.
“We are trying to be fast followers. We want to be close to the front, not necessarily the front, and be quick to adapt and quick to adopt,” Bartholomew said.

That approach helps balance risk and opportunity.

“Who wants to go out there and put a ton of capital into something when 6 months down the road doesn’t quite pan out the way you’re hoping.”

The Biggest AI Gains Right Now Are Internal

While much of the industry focuses on customer-facing use cases, Bartholomew says the most immediate value is inside the operation.

“A lot of times people think about AI as being customer-facing, but there’s also AI from a ‘just making your business better’ standpoint,” he said.

That includes improving onboarding and agent performance.

“How do you take an agent who is brand new and get them up to speed faster? How do you use these tools to enhance that?”

Customer-facing deployments, however, remain more complex.

“How do you bring AI to the market in a customer-facing way, given all of the tools that you have to sync up, the regulatory environment, data, those are the things that still need to be figured out.”

Not Everything Marketed as AI Is Real

Bartholomew also warned that some companies are overstating their AI capabilities, likely because stakeholders influence future profitability calculations.

In some cases, he said, AI is even used as a narrative cover.

“Companies were even blaming layoffs on AI, and really, what you’re masking is the fact that your whole business isn’t doing well.”

Global Consistency Only Works with Local Flexibility

KM² operates across regions but maintains a consistent operating model.

“If someone visits our site in Bogota, and then they come and visit a site in Barbados, then they are seeing a very centralized sort of theme of how we want to do the business.”

That consistency comes from structure and cadence.

“We have the same sort of structure. We have weekly executive-level operations meetings and quarterly town halls,” Bartholomew said. “It would be irresponsible to just say, look, here’s the way you should do it with no regard to the local laws, the local customs, the people hiring.”

Talent Strategy Depends on Geography

One of the biggest operational differences comes down to labor markets, where Bartholomew said Latin America offers a more educated populace and a larger hiring pool.

“It would not be unusual in Latin America to hire someone with a first degree, perhaps even working on a master’s,” he said. “In the Eastern Caribbean, you are focused primarily on frontline things and can this person do the job.”

Scale also plays a major role.

“There’s not a single Eastern Caribbean country that has a population of 800,000, so you have to be a little bit more strategic in your recruiting.”

Employee Engagement Must Be Built Into the Strategy

Bartholomew emphasized that engagement is not optional and must be a part of the strategy for senior operations leaders.

“It can’t just be a buzzword; it really has to be part of the strategy,” he said. “An equal part of the conversation should be around employee engagement, not just KPIs or productivity.”

In the Caribbean, that means respecting cultural celebrations across the region, such as Carnival, a yearly gathering that in St. Lucia takes place in July but occurs at varying times across the islands.

“Things like that are big to employees, so we need to know how to strike the right balance of being a good employer, but still generating the same high-quality productivity,” Bartholomew said.

Clients Now Expect Strategic Input from Ops Teams

Bartholomew pointed to a noticeable shift in client relationships.

“Most people would have seen this as, they’re the vendor, our job is to tell them what they need to do, and it’s their job to say ‘yes,’” he explained, but added that the dynamic is quickly changing. “We have clients who have come to us and said, ‘We need you to be part of (strategy discussions) and bring your thoughts, your ideas, and what you see from the front lines.”

Clients are also increasingly engaging directly with agents.

“They walk the floor and talk to agents,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘This tool isn’t working well,’ or ‘this process doesn’t make sense.’”