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Through our IT division, BT Exact, we offer the services of thousands of IT professionals with knowledge of leading-edge network design and IT systems and application development, together with skills in innovation, change management and IT operations.
Over the last year, we have transformed our approach to internal and external systems development through the establishment of 90-day design, development and delivery cycles, accelerating our ability to deliver systems which support product development and all our customers to much tighter
timescales and much higher levels of ‘right first time’ delivery. We are also developing new high-quality online ways for customers to deal with us, in an intuitive and comprehensive manner.
The GCTO (Group Chief Technology Office) sets and drives the innovation and technology strategy for BT. GCTO includes a global technology intelligence scouting unit, teams focused on innovative new wave service opportunities, an innovation design and media team, strategic technology analysis
units, a network and systems architecture team and world-class research and venturing facilities in Adastral Park (England) and Malaysia.
The work undertaken by GCTO is part of BT’s £257 million investment in research and development in the 2005 financial year. This compares with £334 million and £380 million invested in the 2004 and 2003 financial years, respectively. We continue to focus our innovation work on key areas which
support our business and technology strategies, filing 109 new patent applications in the 2005 financial year and maintaining a total patent portfolio of 7,400 patents and applications. Among the awards won by our technology research team was the British Computing Society’s IT Developer of the Year.
BT is a limited partner in the independent corporate venturing partnership, NVP Brightstar, which generates value by launching key innovations as new high-technology businesses.
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