BT Plc Research Articles

The ‘value’ of business archives: assessing the academic importance of corporate archival collections

ABSTRACT Corporate archives represent the primary source material for business and management historians. Given that many of the most extensive and important business archives are held and managed by the corporations that generated them, maintaining corporate ‘buy-in’ to preserving records and making archives available to researchers is vital to our discipline. However, corporate archives have to justify their existence and are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the value of their function (and, by implication, their records). Meanwhile, corporate archivists often find it particularly difficult to assess, and demonstrate, the value of their collections for academics and other external stakeholders. This article discusses an initiative to provide academic evaluations of the archival resources of companies that were considering increasing the accessibility of their records for external users. The original idea was a response to a request from Marks and Spencer plc for an academic evaluation of their archives, the success of which led to similar evaluations for BT plc and Boots plc. We outline the criteria by which these firms’ archives were assessed, together with how the evaluations informed subsequent decisions regarding the future development of their archives, assisted the firms in gaining external accreditations for their heritage resources, and supported initiatives to boost access, either physically and/or online. We also briefly consider one further consequence of the increased investment in archival resources following these initiatives – the wider interest in, and use of, the archives within the companies concerned – to support a range of business functions and draw on the strengths of their heritage and corporate culture.

Three Forms of BT Separation: Objectives, Solutions and Effects

Following its latest strategic review of the digital communications sector, Ofcom has proposed that BT’s access services division, Openreach, becomes a subsidiary of BT plc. More recently, Ofcom announced that it was proceeding with formal notification to require BT to legally separate the Openreach division as a separate legal entity within the BT Group. BT has put forward a counter proposal it terms Enhanced Functional Separation. This paper reviews the two proposals and compares them with the current situation, known as “Functional Separation”. It finds that the differences between BT’s and Ofcom’s proposals are less substantive that might appear at first sight. The paper presents a simple model that analyses whether the incentives for BT to invest in taking fibre access networks closer to the customer are likely to be any different under the two proposals. The paper is sceptical that the legal separation proposed by Ofcom would result in greater incentives than would occur under Enhanced Functional Separation.

Incompatibility of the Digital Economy Act 2010 subscriber appeal process provisions with Article 6 of the ECHR

Through case-law research, this paper critically assesses the compatibility of the Digital Economy Act 2010 (DEA) subscriber appeal process provisions (Section 13 of the DEA) with Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Drawing on the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) case-law, Ofcom's Initial Obligations Code (the Code), and the DEA judicial review decision, namely, BT PLC and Talk Talk PLC v Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills and others, this paper focuses on the three Strasbourg Court principles of equality of arms, admissibility of evidence, and presumption of innocence, in an effort to determine whether Section 13 of the DEA infringes them, and whether this constitutes a breach of a subscriber's right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the ECHR. The paper examines these three ECtHR principles. It contrasts such principles with the Code's provisions, and considers the compatibility of Section 13 of the DEA with Article 6 of the ECHR. It concludes that the DEA subscriber appeal process provisions do indeed infringe these principles, thus constituting a violation of subscribers' right to a fair trial. It also recommends that the UK government start taking seriously human rights in general, and Article 6 of the ECHR in particular.

Improving customer experience through accurate demand forecasting

Accurate demand forecasting is critical to improving customer experience. Accurately forecasting demand ensures that organisations have full visibility of customer requests. Such proactive visibility of demand in service organisations enables the right resources to be deployed at the right place and at the right time. We discuss the challenges faced in developing a demand forecasting system for service organisations. We also discuss the application of such a system at BT PLC, one of the leading communication service providers in the world.

Teleworking: an assessment of the benefits and challenges

Of all the changes in work over the last century, arguably the greatest impact upon the way work is done can be attributed to the exponential growth of flexible working patterns. The basis of flexible working is captured by a BT plc strap‐line: work is not a place where you go but rather something you do! As the renowned futurist, Alvin Toffler, has indicated – “work is not necessarily going to take place in offices or factories. It is going to take place everywhere, anytime” (Toffler, A., The Third Wave, Morrow, New York, NY, 1980). There is a wealth of guidance available on how to improve the flexibility available within organizations from the enormous range of “flexible working solutions” books through to the consultancies that now include flexible working as prominent packages in their service portfolio. In this paper, the teleworking means of flexible working is explored and an assessment is made of its growth, advantages and disadvantages, implementation programs for successful teleworking and a case assessing the advances that BT plc have made in becoming a teleworking organization.

The Migration of Bureaucracy: Contracting and the Regulation of Labour in the Telecommunications Industry

This is a study of the reconfiguration of bureaucracy, based on a case study of subcontracting within BT plc, the UK's largest telecommunications firm. The 1990s witnessed significant quantitative and qualitative changes in the utilization and management of subcontracting. The expansion in the use of subcontractors in this period was paralleled by reforms to the processes of negotiating, administrating and monitoring contracts. This article traces these developments and analyses their implications. The continuing process of reform saw a significant redrawing of the boundaries of responsibility between the patron firm and its supplier, as discrete elements of the production process were transferred to the remit of subcontractors. This migration of responsibility was, however, predicated upon the exportation of bureaucracy, from the patron to the supplier; the relocation of the bureaucratic mechanisms appropriate to the management of the widening range of tasks. The movement towards an increased reliance on external sources of labour could ostensibly bring greater exposure to market imperatives, but it is argued that, contrary to the theme of dismantling hierarchical employment structures, these reforms represented the reconfiguration of the bureaucratic organization of production.

Partnership and workplace learning at BT

A telecommunications company, trade union and university are involved in one of the most ambitious examples of workplace learning undertaken in Britain. BT plc, a company considered to be at the forefront of partnership working, has teamed up with the Communication Workers’ Union (CWU), Britain’s largest communications union, and London University’s Queen Mary and Westfield College in a BSc in computer science that will help up to 500 BT employees at a time, when fully operational.