BT to accelerate investments in APAC, Middle East and Africa

By Digital News Asia December 2, 2013

New strategic service assurance centre in Malaysia adds to Global Shared Service facility in KL
Total addressable ICT market in these high-growth economies evaluated at around US$52bil

BT to accelerate investments in APAC, Middle East and Africa BRITISH Telecommunications (BT) has announced a new phase of investments into Asia Pacific, as well as Turkey, the Middle East and Africa, describing them as rapidly growing economies.

It would be accelerating its expansion in Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa (AMEA) by hiring more people in the region, launching more competitive capabilities across a larger number of countries and delivering a “differentiated service experience.”

This would put it in a strong position to capture opportunities in a total AMEA market evaluated at around £32 billion (US$52 billion), according to an ‘addressable ICT market segmentation study’ it conducted in 2013, the company said in a statement.

This new phase of investments builds on the success of earlier programmes announced in 2010 for the Asia Pacific region and in 2012 for Turkey, the Middle East and Africa.

Earlier this year, BT brought those regions together into a single integrated market unit to better address the needs of a new generation of regional multinationals and big domestic players that are increasingly expanding from China and India into the Middle East and Africa.

The combined geography is expected to generate 44% of the global GDP (gross domestic product) growth by 2025, with three billion people expected to enter the middle class over the next decade, BT said, citing studies by the McKinsey Global Institute and Brookings Institution.

“In 2010 we launched our first phase of investments to accelerate our expansion in Asia Pacific,” said BT Global Services chief executive officer Luis Alvarez. “This has allowed us to generate strong growth in the region and to nearly triple the number of new Asia Pacific customers signing with us.”

“We are investing again to further grow our business, in a wider region combining Asia Pacific with Turkey, the Middle East and Africa. We are doing this in close consultation with our customers. A new generation of regional multinational companies look to us to help them grab global growth opportunities, and the more established multinationals are determined to invest for growth in this vast region.

“We help them succeed and reap the benefits of instant globalisation by aligning our investments to their requirements, and providing them with our market-leading portfolio of networked IT services wherever they need them,” Alvarez added.

Developments announced recently will include the following:

400+ new people focused on regional business growth across all key markets, including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey;

New hires will include industry specialists focused on sectors such as logistics, healthcare, consumer packaged goods and financial services, and professional services experts based in 11 countries;

These hires will be additional to the 600 positions announced earlier this year for BT’s Global Development Centre in Bangalore and to the approximately 600 hires expected for BT’s new Global Shared Service facility in Kuala Lumpur announced in April;

Securing new value added services licences in various countries, enabling an extended portfolio offering;

Better infrastructure through five new IP (Internet Protocol) and Ethernet Points of Presence starting with India and Turkey, four Network-to-Network Interfaces (NNIs) with the first in Indonesia, and an enhanced satellite capability to support remote coverage and disaster recovery;

Stronger portfolio capabilities in the fields of security, cloud, unified communications, mobility and contact centres;

New sector solutions in domains such as health analytics, a suite of point-of-sale solutions for the retail sector and high performance supply chain management services;