NEW FORM, NEW FACE, FRESH CUSTOMER FOCUS
The setting up of Openreach in 2006 and the more recent creation of BT Design and BT Operate mean that today BT Wholesale has a new, more streamlined form. For the past few weeks, it has also had a new Chief Executive. But what can customers look forward to from the fresh look and priorities of the organisation? Between The Lines spoke to CEO Sally Davis when she was just 6 weeks into her new job to find out.
EVEN GREATER RELIABILITY
Many people spend their few weeks in a new role familiarising themselves with the culture, systems and processes but Sally Davis has ensured that her introduction to BT Wholesale has been far more outward-looking – as she explains: "I’ve spent most of my time so far meeting and listening to our customers. In the process I’m gaining a deeper appreciation of the critical role that BT Wholesale plays in the nation’s infrastructure. I’ve been really struck by how fundamental we are to the performance of our customers and the customers they serve. What we do really matters – and so we have to be ultra-reliable and get it right first time, every time."
This is one of a number of priority challenges that is already steering Sally’s agenda for change. She continues: "I have also found that, without exception, every customer can cite some fantastic experience they have had with BT Wholesale and with members of the team who’ve really made a difference and gone that extra mile. Many comment too that when they’re in a crisis and the chips are down, it’s great to feel that BT Wholesale is there behind them. But some also say that what they really want from us is a greater consistency right across the piece – a more holistic approach to meeting their needs and dealing with issues and what they care about: from how fast we resolve a billing problem to agreeing contractual terms and conditions."
FREEDOM TO ENGAGE WITH CUSTOMERS
Her own totally customer-focused approach of the past few weeks is also being embraced across the BT Wholesale organisation. Sally believes the sense of liberation that has followed the separation of the business from the network is helping to drive this. She says: "When we had the network, it tended to be ‘this is what we have, this is what we will deliver.’ But now we can stand back and instead really focus every individual on getting a better understanding both of our customers’ businesses and – most importantly – of the end-to-end chain that connects them to their end-customers, as well as what’s going to make them successful. Customers have been telling me that there are massive opportunities if we can get this engagement right."
FASTER, SIMPLER PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Sally believes that the creation of BT Design and BT Operate can also be an important catalyst in helping BT Wholesale achieve another priority: improving the ‘speed to market’ of new products.
"Customers say that product development takes too long" explains Sally. "But now, the new structure has removed the difference between the physical infrastructure and the IT infrastructure. A router is pretty much the same as a server. They both require the same kind of IT disciplines to run them well. Bringing the two disciplines together and creating a truly software-driven global IP platform means that many of the elements of the infrastructure are now ‘componentised’. The result is that we can assemble new services and bundle new products much faster because we’re not having to physically build them from scratch every time."
Sally points out that BT Wholesale has already proved that it can bring products to market quickly. As one example, the development cycle for DSLMax, BT Wholesale’s broadband service delivering service at speeds up to 8Mbps took only six months: "Pretty quick by industry standards". The same new impetus and pace is also apparent in the work BT Wholesale has been undertaking to evolve the broadband portfolio so that customers can be sure of meeting growing mass market demand for even higher speed services. The next generation 21CN based Wholesale Broadband Connect family of broadband services started trials with three ISPs in November 2007 and Sally is confident they will be ready for launch in the first half of next year.
MORE MANAGED SOLUTIONS
Customers can also look forward to a greater range of white label managed services from BT Wholesale. Sally appreciates that an increasing number of companies who once built their business plans on having their own network are now opting instead to reduce their costs by going ‘network-light’. She says: "They want to outsource to a reliable partner who’s also familiar with changing network technologies so they can compete more effectively and differentiate themselves at service level. We know each of our customers will have a different set of services and products that they want us to bundle and provide seamlessly to them to help them gain this differentiation. As a broader partner with a deeper knowl
edge and understanding of both their needs and their end-customers’ needs, we can do that."
GROWTH THROUGH PARTNERSHIP
Sally concludes: "We are already the largest wholesale business in Europe. But our ambitions for the future are greater than that. We want to deliver nothing less than the best to our customers too – and as a result to be the wholesale partner of choice for all Communications Providers in the UK."