BT’s Digital unit signs £30m deal with tech workforce platform Distributed to accelerate its transformation

BT Digital today announces it has signed a £30m deal with Distributed, a company providing access to on-demand Elastic Teams™ of technology professionals to enable BT to better serve its customers. This resource will empower BT to accelerate its digital transformation and innovation agenda by rapidly bringing together multi-skilled digital teams, enabling the business to build high-quality digital products and platforms faster and more efficiently.

The Distributed contract, the first of its kind for BT, secures a board seat and an equity stake in the business.

Crucially, the deal allows BT to be able to access a new pool of talented and highly skilled tech professionals, giving the opportunity to work on transformational projects remotely and for varied durations. This is vital to meeting BT’s ambitious transformation goals. Distributed’s Elastic Teams^TM offer the ability to source and deploy highly skilled, globally dispersed tech talent at both scale and speed.

Harmeen Mehta, Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, BT Digital said “Our work with cutting-edge start-ups like Distributed will help us extend our internal pool of talent, accelerate the digital revolution within BT and help to make BT, and the UK, a key hub for the digital innovation economy.”

Mark Murphy, Director of HR, Technology Units at BT will be taking the board seat at Distributed. Mark said, “Distributed’s Elastic Teams^TM approach is closely aligned with our mission of building an agile and innovative digital company. This partnership creates another avenue for us to attract great talent who share our ‘Digital Way’ philosophy and approach to work.” The Digital Way is a set of principles, behaviours and practices that will embed a digital mindset in the company, helping BT deliver its digital strategy by boosting productivity and reducing costs.

Cal Adamson, CEO & Co-founder of Distributed said, “Our partnership represents a huge milestone in the use of on-demand talent within enterprise and demonstrates BT’s strategic foresight and commitment to providing the very best outcomes for their customers. This partnership will allow BT to engage the very best talent the world has to offer and will supercharge our mission to deliver independent careers with more benefits than permanent employment through Distributed’s Elastic Team™️ platform.”

The Distributed partnership is the first output from BT Digital’s start-up amplifier, which aims to grow and scale start-ups with investment, industry knowledge and strategic support.