BT have faced a trying year so far, and those difficulties have culminated in a hugely downgraded outlook, 4,000 job cuts, and a range of problems for bonuses amongst senior management. These issues seem to arise as a direct result of the scandals that took place at BT’s Italian sector, which lead to some serious write-downs.
Though the company expects to save around £300 million over the course of two years by banishing those jobs, it will be taking a charge of £3,000 million as a consequence too. The division is also undergoing a strategic review to make it more “digital”, with a focus on cloud-based services.
A Challenging Year for BT
According to Tony Ball, the Remuneration Committee Chairman, the past year has been extremely challenging. Though the company has made some progress in a number of areas, their performance has continued to be affected by the irregularities that occurred with the Italian business, and the issues that arose regarding OpenReach.
BT have been facing some serious issues in the public sector and international corporate markets, and are being forced to re-think what they know about their business, while looking at the problems in their Italian sector. Additionally, OpenReach also received a fine from Ofcom after investigations into Deemed Consent found that the group fell short of the necessary standards.
The company noted that they have undertaken a strategic review of their global services, and that the technology trends in the industry have meant that they can change their structure to one that’s less focused on owning physical network assets.
What Does the Future Look like for BT?
According to BT, the brand is still aspiring to be the digital champion for the UK. In order to achieve this, they’re going to need to invest in a digital infrastructure, and improve their customer service experience.
In an attempt to support that idea, OpenReach recently announced that it’s consulting with industry stakeholders and customers on business solutions that could help to support greater fibre-to-premises routing, and rural broadband over the UK.
The brand believes that with the right support and resources, they could deliver complete fibre connections to 10 million homes and businesses by the time we reach the mid-2020s. However, before they can get started, they claim that they need to make sure that there’s enough demand in the country to justify such a huge rollout.
For people in the industry, this seems to be an indication that BT isn’t willing to pay for such a huge development in British broadband themselves. In other words, the “right conditions”, will be affected by the amount of money BT and OpenReach manage to earn from its customers in the coming years.
