Design at BT

BT has had to evolve rapidly in order to maintain its position in its traditional markets, as well and gain a foothold in new ones. The company sees design as an integral part of its marketing and brand strategy.

Key elements of the BT's design strategy include:

• Use of an extensive roster of outside design agencies
• The importance given to brand within the management of design
• Control of brand representation by capability building within its agency roster and internally
• Ongoing brand education and help for everyone within BT through brand web sites, the Brand Helpdesk and brand web conferences for global teams
• The use of dynamic interaction between external agencies and internal design management rather than through any formal design process.

The communications industry is rapidly evolving. Historically, fixed line operators, with their background as nationalised industries, enjoyed a robust competitive position thanks to their control of the expensive ‘last mile’ infrastructure connecting subscriber homes and offices to central telecommunications networks.

Today, the situation is very different. Consumers can choose between a variety of network options including services bundled with cable TV and Internet provision, and mobile telephony infrastructure. Fixed line networks are also open to competition and capacity on BT’s infrastructure is bought by competitors and sold to consumers using different business models. In some of these models, access to the network is free to the user, with money being made by selling extra services.

After abandoning product design almost entirely in recent years, BT is now returning to the development of its own products having recognised that they can perform an important role in differentiating its brand and service offerings in consumers’ eyes. The company is now evolving its design strategy with the ambition of delivering a totally consistent user experience across all points of contact with the company.

Innovation

BT has an extremely strong record in innovation. R&D underpins BT’s increased focus on developing innovative products and services for a converged, networked world. Innovation work on key areas support BT’s business and technology strategies, which included filing patent applications for 141 new inventions in 2006. The company has a large research and development centre capability, at its research centre at Adastral Park, near Ipswich.

As the use of design is spread so widely in the BT organisation, the company relies on formal processes to ensure that design resources are procured and used correctly. There is a company-wide process for the purchase of design inputs, and business units must select from a roster of agencies. Agencies on the roster include graphic designers, online agencies, and product design agencies, events and direct mail agencies.