BT announces plan to drive retail growth

BT have announced plans that will transform the company into a leaner meaner fighting machine over the next four years.

Likening the transformation of BT to that of the change from a ponderous Sumo wrestler into a lean and agile Samurai swordsman BT’s CEO Pierre Danon said BT would finally break its losing streak.

He told city analysts that BT would set out to achieve steady growth via several initiatives that would build on the core strength of BT Retail and achieve a three per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR): "It really is a case of think you know BT, think again. We are building on the solid foundations established over the past year and the last five months in particular. With innovative and aggressive defence of our core business and a whole raft of exciting new initiatives, we will not only halt declining revenue, but increase it by three per cent CAGR.”

Promising customer satisfaction and to drive down costs, Mr Danon said that BT would be the undisputed customer champion within 18 months. Announcing another addition to the BT Together family, which he said would help to “defend core revenue,” he said that in the New Year, customers would benefit from an attractive new pricing package offering unlimited national calls at evenings and weekends at a fixed price.

Mr Danon was speaking on December 4 at a BT Retail presentation to city analysts, to demonstrate how deep and radical the transformation had been within the business.

He revealed five initiatives:

• Increased focus on mobile solutions with mm02;



• Wireless LAN solutions for business and consumers;



• Extension of the Digital Office concept into the home;



• Partnership with Btopenworld for gaming and entertainment;



• An assertive push into broadband.

Mr Danon added: "One particularly exciting initiative is the proposed extension of our brand into the mobility market. While we are committed to maintaining and growing our role as an agent for O2 in the business market, we will become a service provider in our own right.

“We will bring value to our customers by building for them mobile solutions fully integrated into their ICT infrastructure and compatible with their existing voice and data networks. Such solutions could involve Customer Relationship Management, e-mail and convergence of fixed and mobile.”

He said that enquiries from potential customers seeking Digital Office packages for small and medium-sized businesses had increased five-fold. (SP)