BT has some of the most challenging visions for the future of our telecommunications environment. Strategies making better use of their existing ‘hard wire’ infrastructure and linking this to forthcoming technologies such as wireless, GPRS and satellite have now become central to future investment and ultimately the products they present to their customers.

Such strategies are now forming the ‘bedrock components of their communications vision of the future which BT Group communications have branded the digital networked economy.

However, for some of the divisions and subsidiaries of BT, this vision whilst extremely exciting is a challenge too far, as they have ‘traditional’ telecommunications products that are designed for the needs of current consumers and geared to meet today’s aggressive business targets.

These products may or may not meet some of the technologies portrayed in the ‘vision’. Indeed these products may not have any bearing to the vision what-so-ever, as they are being superceeded by new technology or ways of working and lifestyle.

This is the position that BT Mobile and its ‘mobility strategy’ found itself. Known as a traditional mobile phone device and tariff provider, how could they play their part in the vision of the digital networked economy? Many of their products were residual ‘voice’ devices, so this would not simply translate into an ‘anywhere’, ‘any type of use’ and ‘any time of interaction’ proposition that the digital networked economy envisaged.

Anderson Baillie were engaged to provide a bridge between the vision of BT’s future and the need to meet today’s products from a traditional and transitory product portfolio. Furthermore, anything presented to BT Mobile had to be broad enough to evolve with new products, meet the changes the vision may undertake in te short-term and long term.

Above all any ideas of strategy and marketing messaging had to be simple enough a ‘proposition’ that everyone in the business could talk about it and understand the value of it.

Solution

Anderson Baillie focused its attentions on a core proposition. They had reviewed the BT Mobile product portfolio and understood current gaps in technology and ‘trends’ appreciating that many of the handsets would be of little direct link to the vision.

For other products and services such as billing, support and communications products including BT Openzone and BT Meetme, Anderson Baillie believed that with careful repositioning these could form a product stable that would easily be sold as part of the new BT Group and BT Mobile’s mobility vision.

The core proposition which would bridge the two commercial businesses was that of a ‘Unified Communications Interface’. Created by Anderson Baillie’s Business Growth Consultants, this interface was totally unique to BT Mobile. No other mobile provider could offer this, as it was a universal connection point for all communications, all devices and linked mobile technology with the fixed network of BT.

Having created the core proposition, all of BT mobiles products were then back flushed into the proposition, ‘devices’ no longer mobile phones but access tools to the unified communications environment, PDA’s or other data and voice tools providing the same access.

Now BT Mobile sales staff leverage the value of their products and service through their clients now gaining access to BT’s unified communications environment.

BT Mobile sales and marketing staff leverage the unified communications environment by explaining that without this single interface a digital networked economy would not be possible to work within or run as there are too many conflicting technologies out in the world making the management or setting up of this digital environment too complex. This simple argument provided the differential, the value and the competitive argument for many renegotiations of large and small client contracts.

BT Mobile and BT group has now one simple argument to express the huge value BT and BT Mobile can bring. This argument is the sale story that excites corporate and smaller customer alike. Customer gain access to one environment accessed through one device regardless of need (voice or data).

This single interface and environment led to the strengthening of other BT Mobile services, the packaging and bundling of BT’s billing services (One bill) and the management of the mobile estate (One provider).

The result? BT Mobile now presents a single argument:

Giving you the power of One.
One provider, One service, One decision.

They now longer worry that mobile phones do not directly link to the digital networked economy vision promoted by BT Group corporate communications – it has been bridged, and the argument is simple, unique and allows their sales teams to exploit all the needs and issues of their clients from a single sales story – gaining access to the digital networked economy through access to BT’s unified communications environment