British Telecom to push for growth in Asia-Pac, Mideast

BRITISH Telecom (BT) is looking to invest in people, capabilities and a differentiated service experience as part of a renewed push into the fast-growing markets of Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa (AMEA), which it has strategically combined into one geographic entity.迷你倉 Kevin Taylor, president of AMEA at BT Global Services, said at a briefing last week that the company was looking to accelerate growth of its business in these three continents because they are expected to generate about 44 per cent of global GDP (gross domestic product) by 2025. In fact, internal studies showed the addressable market of AMEA comes up to about ¢G32 billion (S$65.7 billion), and BT hopes to capitalise on this with its three investment focus areas, Mr Taylor added. As for recruitment, he revealed that the group plans to hire more than 400 people over the next three years and distribute them across AMEA, particularly in key markets such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, China, India, Africa, Turkey, and the Middle East. These would include some 50 vertical specialists in healthcare, logistics, financial services and consumer packaged goods, and another 60 new positions in professional services in 11 markets, he said. Elaborating on South-east Asia, Seb Hills, AMEA head of strategy at BT Global Services, said the region would see 130 people added to its staff of 970 over the next few years. On capabilities, Mr Taylor said that BT is looking to improve its infrastructure with five new Internet Protocol and Ethernet point-of-presence in the AMEA region. It is also looking to add four more networks and network interfaces as well as enhance existing satellself storagete capability, he added. It will also be adopting a "cloud-based" strategy with regard to new products and services. This would mean integrating security, mobility, unified communications and collaboration, and contact centre services and deliver them via cloud deployment, he said. Security, in particular, will receive more attention across the organisation. The group plans to hire 25 more security specialists, said Mr Taylor. Luis Alvarez, CEO of BT Global Services, added it has three focus areas in security: providing consultancy using global experts based in five different markets; project management, and security operations control - whether shared or for specific organisations. Within South-east Asia, Mr Hills pointed to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines as the company's focus markets. Malaysia, in particular, will play a strategic role since the opening of the Global Shared Service facility in Kuala Lumpur earlier this year. The facility is made up of two centres - the Global Development Centre and Contract Delivery Shared Service Centre. The former provides services in ICT (Infocomm Technology) innovation and development, and is part of a global network with eight other centres, while the latter will offer commercial, contract management and project management expertise to multinational companies. Gavin Patterson, the recently installed CEO of BT Group, said that the level of investments on AMEA reflects the region's importance to the company's overall business growth. "The growth revenues will come from those regions outside of the UK, even though the (local) market continues to show good growth opportunities."迷利倉