BT 2014 Annual Report Download - page 20

17
The Strategic Report
Purpose and strategy
Purpose and strategy
Investing for the future
We are investing in the things that set us apart from our competitors,
such as our people, technology and networks. These ensure that our
business model is sustainable (page 23).
There are ve strategic areas that we are focused on. We believe that
investing in these will deliver sustainable, protable revenue growth
and value for our shareholders through long-term cash ow growth
Fibre Fibre remains at the heart of our plans customer
demand for faster broadband continues to
grow. Our progress on rolling out bre in the
U is described on page 44. It is a long-term
investment for us. We rmly believe that it is the
right thing for the future of BT and the right thing
for the U.
TV and
content
Triple-play bundles of T, broadband and
xed-voice continue to grow in importance
for customers. We have developed our T and
content oers  201314 was a watershed year
for us. We launched the award-winning BT Sport
channels and acquired UEFA Champions eague
and UEFA Europa eague football rights for
threeyears from summer 2015. We also added
38 channels to our T service.
Mobility and
future voice
Following our 4G spectrum purchase in February
2013, we announced an MO partnership
with Everything Everywhere (EE) in March 2014.
Together with our U-wide wi- hotspots, we
will be able to create compelling propositions so
that consumers and businesses can exploit the
convergence of xed and mobile services.
UK business
markets
We are excited about the opportunities to use
cloud, I and converged xed-mobile technology
to allow our U business customers to improve
their productivity. We are investing in our
network, portfolio, service and sales channels to
help them make the most of these technologies.
We believe this will help us to grow our share of
their spending.
Leading global
companies
We are also investing in our services, network and
expertise to increase our share of spending with
our large global customers. And we will continue
to support them as they expand further into the
high-growth regions of the world (see page 31).
We are investing in our customer service, as described above. And we
are investing in our people so they can continue to thrive, improve their
skills and contribute further to our business. We say more about this on
page 24.
We believe that we have the foundations in place for an exciting future.
The investments we have made so far are delivering. And we will
continue to invest to achieve our long-term nancial objectives.
<ou can read about how our lines of business have been
investing from page 30
Our strategic priorities
Our six strategic priorities deliver value to
customers and support our overall strategy.
Driving broadband-based consumer services
Broadband is available to virtually all U homes and businesses. And it
is increasingly at the centre of peoples lives. They use it to shop, access
information, learn, watch television and download movies and music.
Customers still cite price as a key reason for choosing a broadband
provider, but customer service, the ability to buy bundled products
and broadband speed are also important factors.
Our strategy is to invest in broadband-based services that help
consumers get more from being connected. This will help us to win
new customers and keep existing ones in a competitive market.
Fibre is at the heart of our strategy. It allows several people in a
household to do more things at the same time. BT Innity is now
available to two thirds of U premises and sales have accelerated
this year.
Televised sport is a must-have for many households. We launched
BT Sport in August 2013  it is free with BT broadband. It makes our
existing customers more loyal and allows us to start relationships with
new ones.
The number of homes taking two or more services in a bundle from a
single provider continues to grow. Fibre broadband and BT Sport help
us to compete better in this market.
Our future plans include
• selectively improving our range of sports content
• strengthening our overall T oering through additional third-party
content and channel distribution deals, and with new capabilities such
as multi-room T
• investing in our people and contact centre capabilities to improve our
customer service and
• combining BT Wi-, our MO agreement with EE, our 4G spectrum
and BT Innity to satisfy customer needs for fast and reliable data
services, wherever they are.
Being the ‘Brand for Business’ for UK SMEs
Businesses want communications and IT services that help them to
grow, manage their costs and operate exibly. Technology changes are
removing the distinctions between xed, mobile and IT services. This
means business users have more exibility about where they work and
also means they can be more productive.
We want to be the rst choice for U SMEs as a single, trusted supplier
for all these services. Addressing this large market will help us to increase
our market share and target growth opportunities.
The SME market is fragmented and competitive. But we have several
areas of strength that we can build on including the national coverage
and breadth of our services the strength of our sales channels and
our brand.
We are the largest provider of xed communications services for SMEs.
We also oer a wide range of mobile and IT services, including cloud,
hosted and unied communications solutions. Many of these are now
integrated with, or use, our network. This helps us dierentiate ourselves
from those mobile and IT services providers who do not have their own
xed network infrastructure.