ENTERPRISE IT AND ERP IN BRITISH TELECOM(BT)

Enterprise IT Development Strategy and ERP in British Telecom(BT)

Enterprise IT Development Strategy and ERP in British Telecom

Outline

In this paper, we give a brief introduction of British Telecom and its businesses. Further, this report focuses on the interrelationship between enterprise strategy and IT for British Telecom (BT). This includes a brief overview of the IT sector in United Kingdom. This will continue with proposing a suitable enterprise IT strategy using a suitable planning method and approach. A conclusion about the overall study has constituted the final words of the report.

Introduction

British Telecom (BT) is the largest telecommunications supplier in the United Kingdom. Thousands of employees including 22,000 field engineers alone were supported by an aging UNIX system that offered no room for growth. BT executives knew their cost of ownership was high. The IT infrastructure included more than 100 servers and ran multiple platforms. IT managers saw performance slowing down. Adding new functions was difficult given the condition of the equipment. Results are dramatic. The server hardware shrank from more than 100 to six. These six machines Sun Enterprise 10000s offer greater scalability than the older equipment. Failover recovery and availability are much improved as well. Average failover time is now five minutes; it used to be one hour. Availability is promised at 99.95%, but BT has maintained 99.97%. Greater partitioning capability and no single point of failure in the new servers provide confidence that this is the best solution.

Businesses of British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York. (Tushman and Anderson 1996 65)

BT runs the telephone exchanges, trunk network and local loop connections for the vast majority of British fixed-line telephones. Currently BT is responsible for approximately 28 million telephone lines in the UK. Apart from Kingston Communications, which serves Kingston-upon-Hull, BT is the only UK telecoms operator to have a Universal Service Obligation (USO) which means it must provide a fixed telephone line to any address in the UK. It is also obliged to provide public call boxes.

BT's businesses are operated under special government regulation by the British telecoms regulator Ofcom (formerly Oftel). BT has been found to have Significant Market Power in some markets following Market Reviews by Ofcom. In these markets, BT is required to comply with additional obligations such as meeting reasonable requests to supply services and not to discriminate.

As well as continuing to provide service in those traditional areas in which BT has an obligation to provide services or is closely regulated, BT has expanded into more profitable products and services where there is less regulation. These are principally, broadband internet service and bespoke solutions in telecommunications and information technology.

Interrelationship between enterprise strategy and IT for British Telecom (BT)

A. O'Brien (1998, Ch 1) discuss the subject about business processes, he said that's a manner in which work is organized, coordinated and focused ...