BT's Global Services arm says its plan to invest and skill up in Asia Pacific, Turkey, the Middle East and Africa (AMEA) has progressed well as it is winning eight out of 10 bids, and growing revenue at double the industry average.
Kevin Taylor, president of BT AMEA, says the company, which has added 300 people to its staff, is now represented by 5 000 employees across the region, which the UK-based entity sees as a high growth area.
Taylor, speaking from Hong Kong, says the company's growth targets include fibre, TV and content, mobility and the future of voice, as well as its global presence in 170 countries globally. He notes the AMEA business unit has doubled orders year-on-year and won 8/10 bids so far this year, indicating the growth potential of the region. "We're winning business."
Oliver Fortuin, MD of BT Global Services for sub-Saharan Africa, notes the telco has connectivity points in 43 of 46 sub-Saharan African countries and, locally, is in talks with potential partners to break out is fibre network into smaller cities. He adds Africa is a key area for growth.
Emerging investment
BT, which claims to be the oldest telecoms company in the world, with a turnover of £18 billion (R312.6 billion), said a year ago it was initiating a new phase of investments in the "rapidly" growing economies of AMEA in a bid to accelerate its expansion into high growth markets.
Although the investment amount was not disclosed, it was focusing on growth opportunities in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey. As part of its investment, BT said it would hire 400 people, 300 of which will be in emerging markets.
BT was also set to invest in five new IP and Ethernet points of presence, starting with India and Turkey, four network-to-network interfaces with the first in Indonesia, and two new satellite hubs in South Africa. Taylor says two new satellite hubs in Africa will be launched next month. "The plan has progressed really well."
Fortuin adds SA is growing slightly faster than the region average, and has received more than its fair share of staff and investment.
Accelerated
Over the past five years, BT has accelerated its business across the region and aims to further tap into the target market that Taylor says is worth £32 billion. He notes the company has added £1 billion to its pipeline in the last six months.
BT is also looking to further its presence in Africa and is examining opportunities in Kenya, Tanzania and Nigeria as it seeks to follow its customers onto the continent, says Taylor.
BT notes its three new global cloud services, launched today, are aimed at helping its customers expand in the AMEA region.
The new cloud services include BT One Cloud Cisco, which is a global platform that features full unified communications capabilities, including high-definition (HD) voice, multiparty HD video and instant messaging. There is also BT One Cloud Lync, which is a fully-managed private cloud service with enterprise telephony and video with the standard feature set of presence, instant messaging and conferencing on a single, unified platform. Cloud Connect allows customers to use BT's network to connect to various other software-as-a-service providers and to more than 200 third-party data centres around the world.
Andrew Small, VP of BT's global portfolio, says the company will add two new data centres in the middle of the region to support the new services.
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