DTW 2022: BT outlines complex journey towards simplification
Josie Smith, chief architect at BT’s Digital division, attempted to create a sense of camaraderie among her peers at Digital Transformation World as many of them grapple with simplifying legacy telco networks.
During her presentation on Tuesday, Smith conducted a quick poll to discover the level of complexity facing many in the room, measured by the number of applications or platforms in their “landscape”.
For Smith, BT is probably hard to beat on this particular measurement. “Just over five years ago, when I walked into BT, I couldn’t actually believe its complexity,” she said. At the time, BT had 2,465 applications.
That number has subsequently been trimmed to below 500. In addition, the number of telco stacks is on track to be reduced from 58 to 14 by 2025, while the cost of supporting legacy applications is set to fall from £600 million to £300 million by that point.
“It’s very, very hard because every single one of those applications has, I don't know how many dozens of interdependencies. And it’s absolutely critical to our success not just to reduce our cost base but to actually get to the point where we’re investing in platforms of the future, ecosystems of the future, innovations of the future,” Smith said.
BT is committed to doing this, she said. “That’s the journey we’re on and we’re doing well so far this year. But it’s a journey.”
Smith emphasized that there is no future in continuing to build on complicated stacks. “You have to have a future which is data and customer-driven platforms that just naturally occur. And so we’ve really started to think more about platforms as the future.”
She added: “We have to get to a point where we’re not just talking about telco anymore, not our traditional territories but different territories.”
But how is this to be achieved? According to Smith, product is the industry’s biggest challenge. “If you don’t have product simplification somewhere, maybe even at the heart of your strategy, I don't think it will work,” she said.
Other critical challenges, she said, are simplifying the customer journey, creating an architecture that focuses on outcomes, and learning new skills.
In particular, BT has made sure its architecture is composable, in alignment with TM Forum Open API standards and ODA.
“You could choose any tech as long as you can you fit it together. And that way you can have a much more flexible, agile architecture,” Smith said.
“We’re by no means through this journey at all,” she added. She also noted that all telcos, no matter how big their estate, have no choice but to go through the same transformation.
“Hopefully we can work together as a sector to exist for the future of our businesses and the future of our customers,” Smith concluded.