Former Cable & Wireless boss
Royston Hoggarth will become chief executive of
BT Global Services'
UK arm in September.
The UK provides roughly half of the division's £8bn yearly
turnover.
Speaking to Computer Weekly, Hoggarth said he did not expect
businesses to use BT both for IT and communications services.
There was much industry talk about "converged services" which
bundled IT and communications into a single managed product, but
Hoggarth said he was sceptical of its attractiveness to
customers.
While at C&W, Hoggarth said he did not buy IT services and
telecoms from the same supplier because he would have lost some of
the pricing advantages that competition brings.
C&W had been one of BT's main customers, and Hoggarth said
he had been impressed with its technical and problem-solving
skills. He intended to apply those skills in the service of Global
Services' customers. But first he wanted to hear what they were
looking for.
His comments echoed
the remarks of BT Global Services CEO, Francois Barrault, who said
last month that he wanted the firm to develop a more intimate
relationship with customers, to the point of sharing the risks and
rewards of joint product development.
Hoggarth said many of his projects at C&W involved working
closely with businesses to develop custom solutions. "There is a
point where you go from 'mass customisation' to highly bespoke
development," he said.
Hoggarth was coy about which business sectors BT will target
first, but the FTSE 100, banking, central and local government will
be high on his priority list. "I know many of the chaps from my
time at C&W and at Logica and IBM before that," he said.
Referring to the credit crunch's effect on ICT budgets, Hoggarth
said, "Unfortunately, I am old enough to have been through this
cycle a couple of times. We are seeing less activity among the
private equity groups, but more among the mainstream banks. We just
have to do the basics well."
BT Global Services has more than 3,000 UK customers. They
include KPMG, Unilever, NHS, Ministry of Defence and Department for
Works and Pensions. UK customers contributed around £4.5bn of
almost £8bn of BT Global Services' revenues in 2007/8. Nine out of
10 UK financial institutions use secure data networks from the
company.
Royston Hoggarth CV
Royston Hoggarth was CEO of Cable & Wireless UK, Europe and
US between 2003 and 2004. From 2001 to 2003, he was CEO of Logica's
international business, overseeing the Middle East, India, South
East Asia, Australia and Americas regions after a stint as
supervisory managing director for Logica Mobile Networks. Prior to
Logica, he worked for IBM. He holds several directorships with ICT
and venture capital firms.