BT 1999 Annual Report Download - page 9

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8
The Business review describes the business of BT and its
activities during the 1999 financial year.
The review is divided into the following sections:
Introduction
Global venture with AT&T
Concert Communications Services
Europe
Asia Pacific
Latin America
Syntegra
The UK
UK fixed network
Exchange lines
International calls
Mobile services in the UK
Private circuits
Customer premises equipment supply
Interconnect
Yellow Pages and other directories
Payphones
Other UK sales and services
Multimedia and Internet
Customer satisfaction and quality of service
Marketing, promotion and pricing offers
Network development and capital expenditure
Research and development
Property
Organisation and employees
Organisation
Employees
BT in the community
BT and the Millennium
Environment
Education
Regulation, competition and prices
Regulation in the UK
Competition and regulation
Pricing regulation
Non-UK regulation
Future regulation
Other significant changes and issues
Relationship with HM Government
Legal proceedings
Introduction
BT’s aim is to be the most successful worldwide
communications group. To achieve this, we have
to generate shareholder value by seizing
opportunities in the communications market
worldwide, building our current business and
focusing on high growth segments, while playing our
part in the community and achieving the highest
standards of integrity, customer satisfaction, and
employee motivation.
We aim to do this by continuing our strategy of recent
years of:
•serving the needs of multinational companies,
wherever they are based;
•moving into growth markets around the world, such
as Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and Latin America;
•building our activities in high growth areas such as
mobile communications, network-based communications
solutions for businesses, and the “datawave”, i.e. data,
multimedia and the Internet;
•continuing to develop and grow our business in the
UK, which we believe to be the most open and
competitive telecommunications market in the world.
Outside the UK, our strategy is to work with local
partners. We now have a number of key alliances around
the world and have made a significant investment in
international services. Mobile services form an important
and increasing part of these activities.
The group’s operating profit is derived predominantly
from UK local and national calls and international calls.
Within the UK, our major services and products are local
and national calls, the provision of exchange lines to
homes and businesses, international calls made from
and to the UK, the supply of mobile communications
services and equipment to businesses and individuals, the
provision of private circuits to businesses and the supply
of telecommunication equipment for customers’ premises.
The principal components of BT’s turnover during
each of the last five financial years are shown in the table
on page 9. In the 1999 financial year, approximately 96% of
BT’s group turnover arose from operations in the UK.
Global venture with AT&T
The major event of the year was the announcement on
26 July 1998 that BT and AT&T, the major US long-distance
telecommunications operator, were to form a global venture
to serve the communications needs of multinational
companies and organisations and the international calling
needs of individuals and businesses around the world.
Business review