21CN: Changing the way we work

In early April, BT confirmed that the company’s 21st century network (21CN) programme had successfully met its year-end targets with Ethernet and broadband service availability numbers looking particularly impressive.

“We’ve seen a tremendous amount of progress with 21CN over the last twelve months,” said George Nazi, managing director of BT’s 21CN programme.

He explained: “It wasn’t so long ago that our 21CN Ethernet footprint didn’t actually exist, but today we’ve got the largest footprint in the UK. Our Openreach colleagues have delivered Ethernet Backhaul Direct from more than a thousand nodes - and they’ve done it three months early. There’s also our new 21CN broadband service – Wholesale Broadband Connect – which is now available to 40 per cent of the UK population when, just a year ago, it was just five per cent.”

“What’s more,” he added, “Our global footprint is also ahead of schedule with 21 MPLS locations now in place.”

George is very clear about the reasons for the programme’s rapid progression.

“It’s down to two main reasons,” he said. “Firstly there’s been some exemplary teamwork and collaboration going on across both the 21CN team and the rest of the business over the last year. But secondly it’s because as a company, BT is successfully adapting to radical new and innovative ways of working.

” Explained George: “There’s an established awareness that 21CN is BT’s global innovation platform. People understand that it’s about improving the customer experience and offering customers exciting new services faster than ever before as well as enabling them to create or co-create their own services.”

“But there’s another really important aspect. The 21CN programme is also responsible for underpinning BT’s own transformation - moving from being a telco company to becoming a 21st century software-driven services organisation.”

Brand new model

“Achieving this,” said George, “requires a real cultural change. That’s why we now employ a new operating model which echoes the software world’s way of doing things and is based on our drive to become a truly customer-led organisation.”

A particularly important step in this operational evolution has been the introduction of BT’s open innovation platform which enables BT, other communication providers and thousands of third party developers around the world to create software applications based on BT’s 21CN capabilities. Already, BT’s Software Development Kit is being used by thousands of independent applications developers worldwide with hundreds of new applications already in production.

In addition, BT has devised a set of re-usable components, known as the ‘common capabilities’ which can be used to build products and services. Re-using proven components in this way can save time, reduce costs and increase consistency for customers, as well as meaning that new services can be brought to customers faster than before.

“Our common capabilities are very much like the Periodic Table of chemical elements,” explained George. “In the same way that there are a hundred or so elements that make up everything around us, so we have a collection of standardised re-usable components and capabilities that enable us to create the innovative products our customers want without the need to build things from scratch time and again. It’s a new way of working that delivers a positive impact for both BT and our customers.”

The practicalities of BT changing the way it does things has also involved the undertaking of a number of new operational processes. One of the most important of these is what’s known as continuous integration testing.

“This means everything must start with the customer,” said George. “It also means our product development teams co-locate with our customers. We devise, develop and test the products and services in close collaboration with these customers. Not only that,” added George, “we also involve our supply chain in this process making it a totally end-to-end procedure.”

Made to measure

Another key activity that BT now engages in is known as statistical process control. Here, the entire customer journey is mapped out with every single process step being empirically measured.

“We measure any defects we find along the way and we embed science into what we are doing,” explained George. “This helps us to ensure the predictability of delivery is spot on when it comes to getting it right first time.

Changing the way the company operates is leading to BT producing better quality end-products, getting it right first time and dramatically reducing cycle times.

“Eighteen months ago it took us 412 days to get a site ready for service at an internet location,” said George.”But because of our new working methodologies, that cycle has been fundamentally reduced beyond recognition. Twelve months ago,” he continued, “it was 300 days. Now we are talking of a process lasting just 59 days – and soon it will be 29 days from start to finish. That is an incredible difference and it’s thanks to the twenty first century working ethos we are subscribing to.”

Concluded George: “Because we’ve changed the way we do things, we’ve begun to hit the targets and make things happen. Now it’s really all about making things even more customer-led and driving that progress from a customer perspective.”