Executive Summary

BT group plc is one of the oldest and largest telecommunication brands in the world. It has a
long history and has a huge contribution to the communication sector. In this report, we have
analysed the current situation of the BT group and provided some recommendations based on
their leadership policy to gain a competitive advantage over its competitors. Leadership, Culture,
and Mindset are the three most crucial elements required for BT to succeed in implementing this
plan. The paper discusses the current strategic position of BT while identifying the key
challenges faced by its leadership team. The paper also discusses important aspects that can
further improve BT’s capabilities via strategic and innovative recruitment of key leadership
positions and promote an environment of innovation, adaptability, and intrapreneurship across all
aspects of its organization. The paper also highlights how a new innovative leadership board can
further improve BT’s operation in the globally competitive market as well as the local market.

1|Page
 Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................3
1.1 BT Group...............................................................................................................................3
1.1.1 Summary of BT’s Current Strategic Position.....................................................................3
2.0 Evaluation of BT’s current internal and external environment.................................................4
2.1 Internal Environment of BT group.........................................................................................4
2.2 External Environment of BT group.......................................................................................5
3.0 Evaluation of global competitive environment of telecommunication......................................8
3.1 BT Global Services................................................................................................................8
3.2 Strategy of Global Solution BT.............................................................................................9
4.0 BT Competitive Analysis........................................................................................................10
4.1 BT Competitive Advantage,................................................................................................10
4.2 Managing Competitive Advantage in the global and local environment.............................11
4.3 Recommendations................................................................................................................11
4.3.1 Business Divers and Significance...............................................................................12
4.3.2 Expected Outcomes.....................................................................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................12
5.0 COST ESTIMATE..................................................................................................................14
6.0 Project Plan..............................................................................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................16

2|Page
Introduction

BT Group

BT group plc, formerly known as British Telecom, is currently one of the largest communication
service companies. They provide broadband, fixed line, subscription-based TV services, IT
solutions and mobile services. They are currently working in more than 180 countries in the
world. Having headquarters in London, they have more than 100,000 employees.

BT group serves more than 1.2 million customers now. They serve SMEs in three markets: IT
services, Fixed voice and internet services and mobility service. They operate their business
through different divisions and subsidiaries worldwide.

1.2 Summary of BT’s Current Strategic Position

They always promote that they connect for good. They are working to be the most friendly and
trusted connector organisation for both people and machines. They are working to maintain a
sustainable environment. They will achieve zero carbon emission by the end of March 2031. BT
group has already built a strong foundation for their brand and always worked to provide better
customer satisfaction. Now they are working to be the leader of the sustainable future and being
the most trusted connector for people, machines and devices.

1.3Critical Evaluation of Key Challenges

Communication gap: One of the main challenges BT has faced is communication gap, as one of
the largest organisations it is hard to be always connected with the customers, investors, agencies
so that they can clearly understand the business model.
Innovation and agility: Telco industry is one of the fast-moving industries worldwide. So, it is
tough to be competitive towards others organisations besides they are mostly providing
traditional services. Innovation is something where the organisation is lacking.
Financial Management: As a big organisation financial management is a big issue for BT
group. IT is an evolving sector so it always requires a large-scale investment but it is tough to
always get a large scale of investment.

3|Page
2.0 Evaluation of BT’s current internal and external environment

2.1 Internal Environment of BT group

Strengths and weaknesses of BT group:

Strength Weakness

Huge growth opportunity. Highly dependent on the UK market.

Huge physical assets and a large number of High rate of employee turnover.
human resources.
High maintenance costs.
Experienced managerial members.
Constantly changing market demand.
Availability of customised product and
services.

Diversified customer policy to ensure better

service.

Core Competencies of BT group:

Core competencies reflect how the organisation is different from its competitors. It shows the
strength of an organisation and helps to identify the unique proposition that the organisation is
offering.

Business Structure: Operational process of BT has different aspects which made them one of
the most competitive telecommunication brands of the world. The organisation has a large
history as they have been serving the market for so long, they have different levels of managerial

4|Page
system for their different types of business. Because of their longevity their managerial
experience is higher than any other organisation.

Advancement of technology: BT group is one of the oldest brands in their sectors and they are
the pioneers of the telecommunication industry. Though they still provide mostly traditional
services, they are doing well in their innovation sector. Within a few years they will be a zero-
carbon emission organisation. As per their website they are providing 5G services in more than
50% of the UK.

Customer Satisfaction: BT group has designed their product for their every target group. For
example, the business customers of BT group receive BT trade space portal while other users
who are using BT’s services for internet and personal usages receive their customised IT
solution. Besides they are very good at providing customer services which has ultimately
increased customer satisfaction for its organisation.

Evaluation of resources:
Resource evaluation can give a greater understanding regarding how much resource is available
for the business so that they can grow. Resource analysis gives a better understanding how the
brand is managing its wealth and it indicates the growth rate of an organisation.

BT group has a huge brand value and as they have always maintained a good cash flow that's
why that organisation has a greater financial value. Recently they have heavily invested in the
high-speed broadband service which will make them the best organisation in the business.
Because of their global presence the organisation is always open and they have a large number of
human resources available worldwide. Because of these types of advantages, they are receiving
huge investment from the investor. If the organisation can utilise its resources properly like now,
they will remain as one the leading telecommunication organisations.

2.2 External Environment of BT group

5|Page
PEST Analysis of BT group: PEST analysis is used for analysing the macroenvironment of an
organisation by reviewing the organisation’s political, economical, cultural and social aspects.
PEST analysis gives a greater overview of a brand how it is managing its external environment.

Organisations profitability is directly related to the political environment of the country or

market they are operating. BT group plc is a multinational organisation so they have adopted
different policies to operate in different countries. In the mother country BT group EU legislative
policy to operate their activities. For developing countries, they try to maintain a good
relationship with the running government through donations, different philanthropic work etc.

For the economic aspect, As the world is transforming towards technological development, there
is a huge growth scope for the BT group because this globalised world will need efficient
communication products, BT group can easily provide those products and services. But it will
require a large amount of investment but that will ease daily life problems.

Socially BT group has a really positive impact as they are connecting everyone. BT group has
improved the IT sector and helped people to increase their knowledge regarding technology.
Because of their improvement people can work from anywhere and people can easily learn and
earn degrees. It not only helped individual growth but also helped in social life by connecting
one person to others.

BT group is the first public listed telecommunication company. Their technological

advancement not only helped the organisation to grow but also made people's lives easier.

2.3 Evaluation of organisational structure

Leadership is something that can increase organisational excellency. After acquiring EE; BT
now has six sectors to operate their whole operation they are; Openreach, Wholesale and
Business, Global Services, Public sectors, Consumer division and EE. Every individual business
division has a different chief officer to operate the business.

6|Page
There is an established board to take decisions and maintain the whole business. This board
consists of the Chairman, CEO, every chief officer and some dependent and non-dependent
executive officers. This board develops strategies to improve the organisational performance,
increase shareholder value and control the organisation. Currently, they are working on breaking
the top to bottom decision-making policy. They are training their employees to make their own
decisions so that the organisation can get better leaders and reduce decision making time.

2.3 Leadership Styles of BT

BT group has a well-structured board of directors who makes bigger decisions. But there is a
high rate of employee turnover which is a negative remark for the organisations. Currently it is
working as a synchronised organisation which follows top to bottom leadership policies. But
now they are outsourcing employees and giving them the freedom to make their own decisions
which is a better decision for overall betterment of the organisation.

2.4 Recommendation
Telecommunication is a competitive market and has a large number of strong competitors for T-
group. The only way to be ahead in this competitive game is to work more on the innovation
sector so that they can provide better customer service with the latest technologies.

The rate of employee turnover is an alarming situation for the organisation. So, they might need
to adapt new leadership policies and keep the employee motivated to reduce the turnover rate.

As they are mostly providing their traditional services that means they become the same as their
competitors' brands. They should clarify their unique attributes and advertise them properly so
that they can clearly differentiate why they are different from others.

BT should adopt decentralised leadership policy so that every employee can make their own
decision which will also reduce the decision-making latency and will motivate the employees.

7|Page
3.0 Evaluation of global competitive environment of telecommunication

As the demand for telecommunication services increased at a dramatic level in the last decade. In
the last twenty-five years, the worldwide telecom industry has gone through major and drastic
changes. This resulted in it being impossible in making comparable classifications of most fixed
link telecom network businesses. So, the thing that reshaped the market dynamics was basically
the innovative strategy-oriented market transformations of these telecom companies. Because of
this strategy, the whole industry became way more competitive in terms of market structure and
firm, and incumbent business internal processes. The increasing demand for mobile phones,
international calls, and commercial data services aided in this drastic change.

This worldwide demand is heavily influenced by the globalisation of company operations across
all industries, as well as the related labour, capital, and resource mobility. The impact of national
strategic objectives has shown clear shifts away from mostly monopolistic - high bureaucratic,
labour-intensive, and government-run service providers - to independent deregulated
marketplaces - permitting increasingly competitive, creative, and market-led organisations. At
the national level, the rising demand for information and communication services is
accompanied by changes in people's lifestyles and living levels.

The commercialization of UK telecommunications resulted in a change in the nature of

organisational strategic development and the traditional way of leading in a global context. In
this global context, BT was perceived as evolving from a dormant, overweight, inward-looking,
and inefficient organisation to a more dynamic, forward-thinking, creative, and global
organisation. As a result, it is critical for the firm to have the proper employees since it helps to
have the correct culture, which can assist BT in adapting to and navigating macro and
macroeconomic challenges such as covid-19. This will allow BT to improve performance and
maintain an uninterrupted operating process by minimising risk through flexible and adaptive
work practices such as a remote working culture.

3.1 BT Global Services

BT is one of the top network IT companies as a global network service provider. The offer it
gives is global professional services to the people of various countries. So, it needs a good

8|Page
leadership management team in order to fulfil those demands from international clients. The
corporation has placed an invested network in important locations and has also developed service
offers. To sum up they have chosen a development strategy. BT has contributed to Tech
Mahindra's sales, which have decreased to 33 percent of revenues. Tech Mahindra and Mahindra
Satyam partnered with BT Co. as a customer. Furthermore, in previous years, the change in
adjusted revenue has been down 3 percent (2018/19: down 1 percent) (BT Strategic report,
2020). This is mostly due to the impact of government policy & regulations, decreases in legacy
products, strategic downsizing in low-volume operations, and divestitures. This was somewhat
offset by increased sales of new goods and services, as well as higher rental bases for fibre-
enabled equipment and Ethernet.
BT Company established potential by utilising fibre internet, IP voice services, and managed
service solutions. Fibre broadband offers new methods to access the internet, and it provides
various benefits to businesses. BT has a global reputation as a result of its IT network services,
which have entered numerous countries throughout the world, including Asia, Latin America, the
Middle East, and Africa.

3.2 Strategy of Global Solution BT

BT implements a needs-based strategy, by doing this it distinguishes itself from its competitors.
BT focuses on fulfilling the demands of big multinational firms. These companies have strong
components in the global sector industries. It helps to further add value to the global market. BT
differentiates itself from other competitors by adopting the variety of scope provided by its
extensive inter-network. This adaptive model strategy of BT was evolved by their many
managers with different points of view resolving on topics to reach their final decision. This
helped BT in many ways. As they become frontrunners for huge multinational clients. As a
result, bad management behaviour might be identified as a cause of their previous strategy's
failures.
BT's initial goal was to duplicate its business in the UK globally. However, a number of
decisions by the management group came with a realised strategy that was to become focused on
stabilising their domestic market and the European market, while engaging in 'lighter' activity

9|Page
overseas. Their strategy was developed in the framework of the flexible telecommunications
industry, which was influenced by many changes in leadership.

3.3 Recommendation to compete in the global environment

From the analysis it can be concluded that in terms of recruitment procedure BT has a better
process to fill up their leadership and senior management positions, and needs a few reforms in
that. It is recommended that BT place a strong focus on innovative leaders who work with their
followers to motivate, empower, and inspire them to reach stated goals by actively engaging
throughout the process. This leader primarily engages with and evaluates the requirements and
desires of his or her subordinates in order to accurately satisfy employees and market
expectations.

Furthermore, by improving imaginative and unique ideas, this leadership gives value to the
market. As a result, transformational leadership is recommended to add value to the process
while cutting costs, retaining employees, and effectively adapting to gain a competitive
advantage. It is recommended that BT look at the following factors:
● Evaluate customer replies via surveys and feedback;
● Evaluate employee responses and applicant questions;
● Employee and customer - difficulties, how they faced and overcame them

4.0 BT Competitive Analysis

4.1 BT Competitive Advantage,

BT is very concerned about preserving its market share and reputation. In order to expand into
new countries and locations, the marketing approach underwent considerable advancements and
alterations, and managers are coming up with adaptive solutions for this. During this time, the
company's business tactics were constructed by the senior management teams and adopted
innovative management strategies over the preceding five years producing excellent results.
These actions by the senior managers gave the organization a competitive advantage. These
strategies assisted in the creation and expansion of a new image of BT Company.

10 | P a g e
BT today needs modern and new solutions to overcome a deficit and shortage. BT has lost a
great deal of value in a lack of a good management team in product marketing, problems with
repetitive telephones, and high levels of customer dissatisfaction; as a result, BT should do its
best to care about transformational leadership in order to add value to the process while cutting
costs, retaining employees, and effectively adapting to gain a competitive advantage.
BT should invest in good quality managers as well in management training to provide a better
broadband service than its competitors, and its efforts are now manifested in offering
uninterrupted internet services at substantially faster rates. And BT should acknowledge that
market sustainability cannot be achieved without innovative strategies by transformational
leaders working in the organisation and long-term competitive advantages over current or
prospective competitors.

4.2 Managing Competitive Advantage in the global and local environment

BT invests all of its substantial assets in innovation and globalisation activities. However, BT has
made important investments in the past, such as TV Sport, to compete in the TV and
entertainment industry versus large corporations such as Sky Sports, and the EE investment was
to improve competitive advantage, and BT's mobile networks are now EE networks. As a result,
acquiring and integrating with businesses can reduce risk while also allowing for more effective
handling of political and cultural barriers. As a result, an adaptable strategy is necessary to
implement the modifications, as managing the changes of mergers and acquisitions is a critical
issue for BT. Change may take a variety of forms and has a significant impact on employee
behaviour, both emotionally and professionally, making change management vital.
By investing in new mergers and acquisitions, BT must reduce employees and extra resources by
managing it in other ways, which has a negative impact on employee performance because risk
and job security may be a worry. As a result, it is evident that a few roles will be eliminated, and
the company will need to manage this wisely.

4.3 Recommendations
1. Transformational leadership in order to manage the organisation with a new vision and
innovation.

11 | P a g e
 2. Intrapreneurship, or entrepreneurial behaviour in the organisation as it’s a powerful tool
for driving innovation and organisational transformation.
3. BT should have expert personnel and technology in place to provide broadband to
customers seven days a week.
4. Utilise Senior Management Team for BT clients in global services.

4.3.1 Business Divers and Significance

For a better way for the business to be differentiated from others and create significance, it needs
to have a proper approach. Kotter's 8-step approach, which is used by many businesses
throughout the world, is the most successful and proven change management methodology
(Aldemir, 2010). As a result, this model has eight steps:
● Establish a sense of urgency;
● Form a strong leading coalition;
● Create a vision for change;
● Develop a vision; and
● Reduce potential barriers.
● Create short-term victories
● Don't declare triumph too quickly; instead, anchor the change.

4.3.2 Expected Outcomes

These elements enable BT to effectively manage the change process since it has an influencing
aspect, and the first key dimensions or steps to follow are very important for BT in the situation
of acquisition in another nation. Various studies have found that transformation is most often
opposed by team members at the early stage of the announcement due to a lack of knowledge. As
a result, the need for change.
This will also motivate and assist change agents while launching the change project, as well as
empower them. As a result, it is critical to find people who value the concept and build a change
management team inside a business in order to persuade employees to accept the change.

12 | P a g e
Conclusion

In conclusion, BT Group used several leadership methods in response to market conditions and
consumer instances. There is no question that these management policies benefited BT and
resulted in significant growth and development, allowing the corporation to become the
dominant IT network and telecommunications provider in the United Kingdom and other
nations.
According to BT's corporate strategy, the business has certain innovative strategies and training
programs for its management group by corporation intrapreneurship as a Mechanism for
Organisational Renewal. As well as the internal and external management systems were taken
care of in terms of external, internal, and global circumstances. As a result, it has seen
continuous development and progress to support the company's good approach. Furthermore, BT
Group strives for ongoing development in its services and offerings.

13 | P a g e
5.0 COST ESTIMATE

This programme will be based on two resources at a cost of at £800 a day. BT is able to negotiate
on the offered rates and duration but once its confirmed, consultant will not change, and any
variation order will be quoted for by the consultant.

14 | P a g e
6.0 Project Plan

15 | P a g e
References

1. AFŞAR, S. (2015). Impact of the Quality of Work-Life on Organizational Commitment:

A Comparative Study on Academicians Working for State and Foundation. ISGUC The
Journal Of Industrial Relations And Human Resources, 17(2), 45-75.
https://doi.org/10.4026/1303-2860.2015.0278.x
2. Bt.com. 2022. Available at:
<https://www.bt.com/about/annual-reports/2020summary/assets/documents/strategic-
report.pdf> [Accessed 8 July 2022].
3. Bt.com. 2022. Available at:
<https://www.bt.com/bt-plc/assets/documents/investors/financial-reporting-and-news/
quarterly-results/presentations/dc19-202-bt-boosts-uks-potential-with-new-products-and-
skills-release.pdf> [Accessed 8 July 2022].
4. Bt.com. 2022. [online] Available at:
<https://www.bt.com/bt-plc/assets/documents/investors/financial-reporting-and-news/
quarterly-results/presentations/technology-business-briefing-25-june-2019.pdf>
[Accessed 8 July 2022].
5. Cellini, N., Canale, N., Mioni, G., & Costa, S. (2020). Changes in sleep pattern, sense of
time and digital media use during COVID‐19 lockdown in Italy. Journal Of Sleep
Research, 29(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.13074
6. Clover, J., Clover, J., Clover, J., Clover, J., Clover, J., & Clover, J. et al. (2021). Apple's
2021 Event Plans: New Products and Software Coming in 2021. MacRumors. Retrieved
6 August 2021, from https://www.macrumors.com/guide/apple-event/.
7. Cornescu, V. and Adam, R., 2016. Organizational Change — Managing Employees
Resistance. Challenges, Performances and Tendencies in Organisation Management,
pp.381-389.
8. Davies, M., & Buisine, S. (2018). Innovation Culture in Organizations. Science,
Technology And Innovation Culture, 101-115.
https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119549666.ch6

16 | P a g e
 9. Dawers, N., Anders, M., & Scholz, C. (1993). Growth of normal faults: Displacement
length scaling. Geology, 21(12), 1107. https://doi.org/10.1130/0091
7613(1993)021<1107:gonfdl>2.3.co;2
10. Eunni, R.V., Post, J.E. and Berger, P.D., 2005. Adapt or adapt Lessons for strategy from
the US telecoms industry. Journal of General Management, 31(1), pp.83-105.
11. ltd, R., 2022. BT Global Services Ltd - Strategic SWOT Analysis Review. [online]
Researchandmarkets.com. Available at:
<https://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/3978992/bt-global-services-ltd-strategic-
swot-analysis> [Accessed 8 July 2022].
12. Sahni, J., 2019. Role of quality of work life in determining employee engagement and
organizational commitment in telecom industry. International Journal for Quality
Research, 13(2), p.285.
13. Temraz, M., 2010. Viable Strategies for Innovation in Telecom Industry in Tough Times.
IFAC Proceedings Volumes, 43(25), pp.89-94.

17 | P a g e