From Gavin Patterson ....
BIG DEAL BIGGER FUTURE
This is a momentous day for us all and I wanted to take this moment to send a personal welcome to everyone joining the BT family today.
It’s a hugely exciting time. We’ve bought a great company. Combined, we’ll have reach, scale and capabilities that mean we’ll be able to do things that neither company could do alone.
Over the past few months we’ve worked together on the best way to bring EE into BT Group. I believe we’re bringing together two similar cultures; two businesses of like-minded people to lead the next era of innovation. I look forward to us building on the best that both organisations have to offer: creating a future where we can provide customers with truly seamless connectivity; and transforming the shape of communications through more innovative, converged products and services our customers want.
I hope everyone sees this as a personal opportunity too. While our heartland is in the UK, we’re not just a UK company. We have operations that stretch around the globe and a hugely diverse range of businesses. I believe people want to work for a company which is innovative and empowering. Together we’ll build a culture that continues to support this.
BT leadership team and proposed organisational structure from April.
As we embark on the next phase of our journey, I’m pleased to provide details of our proposed organisational structure which, subject to consultation, will take effect from April. The changes will enable us to better serve our customers, leverage our national and regional strengths, and use our scale and reach to best effect.
EE: this will be a new line of business (LoB) responsible for the consumer part of EE’s business, including the retail stores and the delivery of the Emergency Services Network contract. The EE brand in the consumer market will be retained as a result of its strong association with leading 4G services. It will serve its customers with mobile services, broadband and TV. Its CEO will be Marc Allera, who will report to me and join my leadership team.
Consumer: the largest ISP in the UK, Consumer will continue to offer the same products and services to ten million households with a mix of superfast broadband, telephony, TV and mobile services. John Petter remains CEO Consumer.
Business and Public Sector: a new line of business consisting of the existing BT Business organisation, along with the EE business division and some of BT Global Services’ UK corporate and public sector customers. It will have revenues of around £5bn and will serve business customers of all sizes, as well as the public sector in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. This will enable us to create one of the UK’s leading providers of fixed and mobile communications and IT services for business customers. Its CEO will be Graham Sutherland.
Wholesale and Ventures: we’ll create a new line of business to include BT’s wholesale services and EE’s wholesale business, which provides mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) services, together with the machine to machine (M2M) team. In addition, we will look to move a portfolio of standalone units from BT Business to Wholesale and Ventures, such as operator and directory services and BT Fleet, to enable innovation, entrepreneurship and to serve every customer segment.
I’m delighted Gerry McQuade has been appointed to lead this. Gerry is currently chief sales and marketing officer in EE, responsible for the B2B, wholesale, product development and business development areas. Prior to this, he was chief development officer at Orange Ltd and operations director at Virgin Mobile. Gerry will report to me and will join my leadership team.
Global Services: the new organisation will be a more focused business, well positioned to grow. It will provide secure and efficient business communication solutions, networked IT products and services to multinational companies globally. In the UK, its attention will now be on global corporate and financial services customers. Luis Alvarez will be CEO, Global Services.
Openreach: will continue to serve UK communication providers; offer equivalent access to its network; be responsible for the rollout of superfast and ultrafast broadband; and for building Britain’s connected future. Clive Selley will be CEO Openreach with effect from today.
Technology, Service and Operations: we propose to bring the EE technology team together with BT’s current Technology, Service and Operations team to form an all new line of business. Within this, a dedicated mobile technology function will be created to support mobile technology development and the new EE LoB. Howard Watson will be CEO Technology, Service and Operations with effect from today.
Group Functions: we propose to align the back-office and corporate functions, such as procurement and billing and collections, so some corporate activities will be centralised within Group Functions while others sit in the LoBs. This enables us to use the scale of the BT Group to best effect and share best practice.
We’ll give you more details on our proposal to bring these parts of our business together very shortly, engaging where appropriate with representatives in EE and BT.
Marc, John, Graham, Luis, Gerry, Clive and Howard will report directly to me, as will: Tony Chanmugam, group finance director; Alison Wilcox, group HR director; Sean Williams, group director strategy, policy and portfolio; Dan Fitz, group general counsel and company secretary; Lisa Harrington, chief customer officer; and Michael Prescott, group director of corporate affairs.
As we begin the next chapter in our story, it’s going to be business as usual for many of us. Where there are changes though, we’re committed to being as clear as possible on what will happen, and to work through them quickly and openly to minimise any impact. For now it’s important we all stay focused, respond to customer needs and deliver against our priorities.
As an organisation, our purpose is to use the power of communications to make a better world. It’s fantastic we’re now able to bring together the expertise of our people, our networks and our technology, to develop more products and services our customers value.
And the real opportunity we have together is to create new ways of doing business that nobody has thought of yet.
Here’s to our continued success and to an even bigger future.
Gavin
