• BT CEO Philip Jansen was interviewed on stage at this year’s Great Telco Debate in London
• He discussed his five years at the UK telco and how he views the its relationship with its customers
• He is proud that he stuck to his investment plan during his tenure
• As a result of that focus, Jansen believes he is leaving BT in a better state than when he joined

LONDON – The Great Telco Debate – After five years in the role, and with just weeks left before he hands over to his successor Allison Kirkby, BT’s CEO Philip Jansen believes he is leaving the UK national telco in much better shape than when he joined, thanks to his determination to stick rigidly to his network investment plan, he told attendees at this week’s Great Telco Debate in London. 

During a 17-minute on-stage chat with Chris Lewis, managing director of Lewis Insights and one of the figureheads (and the founder) of the annual Great Telco Debate, Jansen discussed his time at the helm of BT and told Lewis that he went into the role with his eyes wide open about what he had signed up for. 

“I did think about it long and hard. There were parts of the job that were unappealing – [having a] public profile being one of them. And I had a long hard think about the chance of success, as the dynamics [of the telecom] industry for a long time have been very challenging. So yes, I went in with my eyes wide open and it's proved to be pretty much what I expected. Not everything’s gone to plan, but it's been pretty much what I expected. I’ve loved it, by the way!” he proclaimed. 

Jansen, who announced his impending departure from the UK national telco in July 2023, joined from global payments services group Worldpay in early 2019, so Lewis asked him what lessons he brought to BT from that company and his other previous roles?  

“I hope I've brought a greater focus on the customer and how a customer might change over time – we don’t do enough of that and we think a little bit too narrow sometimes in our sector,” stated Jansen. “From a technology point of view and a plan point of view, I hope at BT we’ve got a much clearer plan that we previously had. The challenge in our industry, and in lots of industries, is that prioritisation is very, very hard… So I hope that at BT there is a crystal-clear strategy with a plan that everyone understands and that we’ve just got to execute really well and I don’t think we had that, for lots of reasons, when I arrived.”

Is that focus on the customer the right one though? At the 2022 Great Telco Debate, former Sainsbury’s CIO, Phil Jordan (who had experience in the telco sector from his time as the group CIO at Telefónica), said that telcos regarded their customers as an abstract concept. Does Jansen think that has changed at all? 

“A bit – not enough… and it's true – [compared with] other industries, we don't think about customers in the same way as many others. When you’re dealing with margins of 2% to 3%, it has a different competitive intensity. I’ve tried really hard… and there’s not a single meeting or conversation I've ever had [at BT] without mentioning the customer. I've tried to get that culture into the company and I’m not saying it’s been universally successful, but it’s beginning to [become] a bigger agenda item and our net promoter score, our customer satisfaction [level] and our complaints are the best they’ve ever been and I’m very pleased about that. But I think there’s so much more we can do and there’s a long way to go.”

During his time at BT, Jansen – who told Lewis he is looking forward to at least six months of rest after he leaves BT in January before deciding what to do  next – battled with the telco’s legacy bureaucracy and struggled with the challenge of needing to appease too many stakeholders, namely, BT itself, its customers and its shareholders. But Jansen is proud that he stuck to his plan for the telco and he believes it will pay off. 

“You’ve got to have conviction in your plan and in the strategy, because there are so many things that will blow you off course if you’re not absolutely sure where you’re going,” he told Lewis.  “In my five years, we haven’t wavered – ever. The board has never wavered on the strategy – investing a fortune on making the company better [with] stronger new networks, new IT, new technology, new digital interfaces everywhere across the whole company. So that is working. Now the impact of that [level of investment] is that for one set of stakeholders, the shareholders, the share price has gone down. Now I personally think it will come back. And so the job is trying to balance all the different stakeholders… What I’ve tried to do is say – we’re going over here, this is the direction of travel and there’s no debate. We’re all in on building a better company. And it’s obviously built on the best networks, on fibre, on 5G… and it’s worked out alright except for one thing: the share price isn’t where I’d like it to be. But you've got to have conviction in your plan and if you don’t have conviction in your plan, you will end up never being focused,” he concluded. 

And what is he most proud of as he prepares to pack up and leave his BT desk? 

“I really believe [BT’s] prospects are much brighter than when I joined… I will leave it much better than I found it,” stated Jansen. 

You can watch the full interview on-demand here. 

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV