BT makes waves in IT services

BT Global Services chief executive Andy Green has forecast revenues from Chinese, Indian, Japanese and US markets will double by the 2008/09 financial year.

During that period, the company will also aim to build up its business in the German and Italian markets.

Speaking at the BT Global Services Update 2006 today, Green said: "We have very ambitious plans and BT's brand is fast becoming as familiar to businessmen in New York, Tokyo, Mumbai and Shanghai as it is in Europe."

He said margins in the medium term will be healthy and that the telco is now taking a greater proportion — 30 percent — of its sales from services than rivals such as AT&T, France Telecom (through Orange Business Services) and Verizon Business.

BT has won around 1,000 international networking plus IT contracts in the past 15 months, including a deal with Hanjin Shipping in China and Hertz, which was won alongside sometime-partner HP.

Other big customers include the NHS and MoD in the public sector as well as brands such as Bank of New York, Grupo Santander and Lehman Brothers in financial services, aided by the BT Radianz business that came into its stable after a deal with Reuters.

In other BT news, the company has been awarded a £10.5m, six-year global agreement with Unilever for the provision of a managed firewall service. The deal — which builds on an existing long-term relationship with the consumer goods giant — will see BT move the company's defences from a regional model to a remotely managed and consolidated system.

Unilever chief information officer Neil Cameron, speaking at today's event, talked up his company's long-term relationship with BT — one he inherited a few months after it was originally signed in 2002.

He said: "It has delivered and I think that's ultimately the test." He spoke positively about outsourcing to BT, though the company also has a relationship with Accenture, but stressed the main driver is not cost savings.