Barbados
Business Machines (BBM) is a wholly owned entity
of Facey
Commodity Limited, which is headquartered in Jamaica.
The company's history dates back to January 1969, when its founder
Brian Barnes started Barbados Business Machines Limited as an agent
for Xerox Copiers. The business started modestly with three employees;
Mrs. Beverley Clarke who is today our Accounts Director, and a messenger,
Mr. Auburn Cox.
BBM occupied a small office in the building of A. Barnes and Company
on Bridge Street. The building is now occupied by Trimart Supermarket
formerly Julie'N Bridge Street.
It expanded in that same building and increased its offering to
include IBM typewriters, Dictaphones, furniture, carpeting, and
Pitney Bowes postal solutions amongst other small office equipment.
The furniture trade stopped with Government's restructuring of import
duties to protect local furniture manufacturers.
By 1978 with 29 employees the Company showing solid growth, acquired
more operating space. The sales operation then moved to Cavan's
Lane, though temporarily, with the offices in another location on
Chapel Street. A third building was rented next to the City Centre
Complex to house the work-shop and inventory departments. Eventually
the Sales Department launched the Copy Centre in the Old Chase Manhattan
Building in the heart of the capital, Bridgetown. In March 2001
a second Copy Centre was opened in Wildey and consolidated with
the new administration offices, inventory and workshop.
However, during the course of 2002 the company purchased a new building
at Warrens and relocated the Sales Department there at the end of
that year. By the end of September 2003, the Administration, Accounts,
Inventory and Communications and Security Departments were also
moved to Warrens, bringing the company's core business units together
under a single roof for the first time in over a decade. BBM now
has over 50 employees.
BBM has introduced many innovations to the island over the
years including the following;
Fax Machines (Xerox)
Electric typewriters (IBM)
Electronic Calculators (Canon)
Pagers (Motorola)
Word Processing (IBM)
Copy centre (Xerox)
Mr. Charles Vanderpool, the General Manager who reports to the Board,
has responsibility for the daily operations the business. All other
executive managers report to the General Manager.
The Sales and Marketing Manager is Mr. George Connolly.
Today BBM, through its 50+ employees offer one of the world's best
document management technology, cash handling solutions, postal
solutions, office and radio-based communication equipment.
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