BT Global Services` South African arm intends to double its revenue, from $100 million to $200 million, and double its staff complement from 80 to 160 within the next two years.
So says BT head of Professional Services EMEA and Asia-Pac Adrian Saunders. BT Professional Services is the consulting arm of BT Global Services.
According to Saunders, it intends to realise this growth through providing more and more so-called "value-add" services around the network space. The company has moved to providing solutions that encompass the network layer and the IT layer, in addition to its core network offerings, he states.
Saunders says the company will develop its capability as customer demand grows. "If you look at security, for example, in North America and Western Europe we have a significant demand, and are thus providing services. As Asia-Pac and EMEA needs develop, we are finding that demand is starting to grow, and we can transport these capabilities into these markets while we grow the local presence. This also ensures globally consistent service," he adds.
Saunders expects at least half of the anticipated 80 new employees to be brought in around the Professional Services space. "In some areas we already have significant capacity and will thus not need to grow," he says. "But there will be a need for more networking capability, as we are still seeing demand develop in this market locally. We`re moving away from customers talking about the network or IT or applications and rather seeing them ask for assistance with their new SAP solution, or moving to SaaS. Our workforce mix will mirror what our customer requirement looks like."
Saunders says that it looks, to BT, like business continuity security will be `big plays`, as well as what BT calls `IT transformation`, which refers to how companies relate the network and infrastructure to the business, as convergence between computing and networking continues. "Beyond the next two years we will be taking on more people in the services space to provide for the demand that we see growing," he notes.
"If local customers want pure telco services, there are plenty of providers which provide good quality telecommunications services and solutions.
"There are also companies that provide IT services and solutions and often customers go to them. Where we see a gap is in that convergence space, where customers don`t want to talk to a local telco because they want more than pure networking, and they don`t want to talk to a company which just, for example, offers middleware because they require convergent solutions.
"Customers want a company that can help with that convergence and provide bespoke solutions. No one else is doing that," he claims. "Our strategy is to take advantage of the demand for networked IT services and customers` need to develop in that particular space, which no one else is doing and which is continuing to grow."
While the company will provide services and solutions to telecommunications operators in this market, it has no plans to play as an operator in the region. Says Mark McCallum, head of technical design and sales engineering for MEA: "We will never become an operator in SA. As part of the global services organisation we`re focusing on delivery to some of the operators through BT`s Global Telecommunications Markets group, as well as delivery to enterprise customers, but we will never play as a telco ala Telkom and others."
McCallum adds that BT does have a physical infrastructure presence in SA, which is connected to its 170-country global MPLS platform.
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