BT 2007 Annual Report Download - page 19

providers (operators with more than one line) providing
unbundled services from 1,512 local exchanges and Openreach
fulfilling more than 55,000 LLU orders a week.
LLU volumes (000) quarter end
0
500
1,000
1,500
2,000
The 1.5 million line milestone was critical because, in Ofcom’s
view, it represented the appropriate level of competition to
enable BT to announce plans to reduce our wholesale broadband
prices – offering communications providers a cost-effective
alternative to LLU.
Ethernet
Openreach continues to develop a comprehensive portfolio of
Ethernet products to support backhaul and access services for
LLU operators and a growing number of other communications
providers.
Equivalence
The Undertakings completed in the 2007 financial year included
some major product deliveries – the launch of LLU and Ethernet
products on an equivalent basis and the separation of
management information systems were the most significant from
our customers’ point of view. Further Undertakings remain to be
implemented between now and 2010. (See BT’s Undertakings
under the Enterprise Act, on page 21)
Network investment and service performance
Service involves more than reactive provision and repair activity;
it also includes reinvigorating the access network infrastructure –
improving the health of the network leads to improved
reliability, enhanced service standards and reduced cost.
In the 2007 financial year, Openreachinvestedsignificantlyin
the installation of new network components, focused on improving
the quality of individual workmanship and concentrated on
identifying and upgrading the worst performing parts of the
network. This led to a decrease in the number of access network
faults, while the number of high-bandwidth services provided
continued to increase.
Peaks in demand caused by serious weather incidents are now
resolved more rapidly than they used to be. Our rapid recovery
from the extensive damage caused by the January 2007 storms
is a good example of the advantages of the move to one distinct
organisation managing a fully integrated engineering workforce.
During the 2007 financial year, around 150,000 network
joints were replaced or sealed and 9,000 network black-spots
were upgraded. We also removed or replaced 25,000 defective
telephone poles and renewed or upgraded 32,000 overhead
wires.
Focusing our repair activities on some of the main causes of
faults, we carried out more than 40,000 targeted improvements
to local networks.
Overall activity levels in exchanges rose by 70%, and by
31 March 2007, 655 exchanges had been prepared for 21CN.
Investing in recruitment, training and development
There was a major focus on talent acquisition and accelerated
development.
We recruited 1,100 field engineers during the 2007 financial
year and expect to recruit up to 400 modern apprentices in the
2008 financial year.
We also invested more than £44 million in the training and
development of Openreach people. The Openreach Network
Health Academy trained around 1,250 managers, for example.
By the end of the 2008 financial year, around 8,500 engineers
will be trained in fault prevention techniques and over 10,000
frame engineers will be accredited to carry out frames work. In
addition to such specialist technical training, Openreach’s
employees are required to complete mandatory training to
support the BT Code of Practice. There was a concerted drive to
ensure that Openreach people fully understood the behavioural
implications of compliance.
TRANSFORMING OUR COSTS
We remain focused on financial discipline and on delivering
efficiency programmes to generate sustainable cost savings.
We continue to benchmark ourselves against the best in the
industry. In the 2007 financial year, efficiency programmes
delivered savings of over £500 million, enabling us to invest in
growing our new wave activities and increase our profits.
A key area of focus has been enhancing the ways in which
customers can deal with BT, simultaneously saving costs and
improving customer service. Programmes have targeted the cost
of failure by, for example, minimising the number of times a
customer call is transferred before resolution and reducing the
amount of call waiting time through better call routing.
The number of transactions completed via bt.com rose by
more than 90% in the 2007 financial year. And at 31 March
2007, we had over 2.8 million customers receiving e-bills – up
22% in the financial year – over 900,000 of whom do not
receive a paper bill – a 90% increase on 31 March 2006.
We have also been reducing the complexity of our systems
and processes. (See IT Support on page 24)
Other programmes relate to innovative procurement and
sourcing and we continue to look at ways of streamlining our
organisation and eliminating duplication.
We also continued to reduce overheads such as
accommodation, using buildings more efficiently and introducing
flexible working practices. In the 2007 financial year, we vacated
around 40 buildings and installed an additional 1,300 flexible
workstations which can be shared by multiple users.
IMPROVING CUSTOMER SATISFACTION AND SERVICE
Improving customer satisfaction remains a significant challenge –
one that we need to rise to if we are to maintain long-term,
mutually rewarding relationships with our customers. This is why
our aim in the 2007 financial year was to increase the number
of customers who are ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ satisfied with BT by
5%, at the same time as maintaining the improvements in
customer dissatisfaction levels we had achieved in previous
years.
In the 2007 financial year, the average score for customers
who were ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ satisfied was around 3% higher
than in the 2006 financial year; levels of dissatisfaction
remained the same.
Report of the Directors Business review
18 BT Group plc Annual Report & Form 20-F