BT Global Services

BT Global is a division of United Kingdom telecommunications company BT Group that provides global security, cloud and networking services to multinational companies worldwide, with operations in 180 countries. It was established in July 2000 as BT Ignite.

History

Renaming

BT Group began operating as a private corporation after the Telecommunications Act 1984.

During the 1990s, between the loosening of national telecom monopolies and the current (largely) liberalised market, BT Group entered into a number of alliances in order to serve its mainly, then, UK-based multi-national customers. From the 90's through the early 2000s, BT Group, then known as British Telecom, struggled. The company failed to secure a strong partner, struggled to expand internationally, and had significant debt.

In 2002, the attempt at an alliance (Concert 2 with AT&T) was disbanded. Thereafter, the company brought together a number of joint ventures, partly owned assets and wholly owned subsidiaries into the single entity that exists today.

On April 1, 2002, BT’s contracts with former Concert customers were transferred to BT Global and BT Retail. BT Ignite was renamed BT Global in April 2003. By late 2003, around 50% of BT Global ’ about 5,000 staff were employed outside the UK.

Acquisitions

Between 2002 and 2009, the Global division made a string of acquisitions to expand its global footprint and broaden its business offer to customers. Most notable are Radianz, the then network arm of Reuters in 2005; the global network operator Infonet in 2005;
managed security market leader Counterpane in 2006;
US IT consultancy company International Network Services Corp. (INS) in 2007;
and Asian systems integrator Frontline in 2008. In 2016, Global signed an agreement to acquire IP Trade S.A., a provider of unified communications and collaboration solutions for trading floor environments and command-and-control dispatch centres.

Customers

In 2005, Global won a multi-year worldwide outsourcing contract to provide communication and IT services to FIAT in a deal worth €450 million (£303 million) over five years across 40 countries. BT also acquired Fiat's subsidiary, Atlanet for €80 million which provides domestic telecoms services to Fiat and other business customers across Italy. In 2006, Atlanet was merged with Albacom to form BT Italia.

In 2006, Global agreed a £100 million seven-year worldwide outsourcing contract to provide communication and IT services to PepsiCo, across their 900 locations in more than 60 countries as well as upgrading their network infrastructure.

In 2008, Global agreed a $650 million (£332 million) five-year worldwide outsourcing contract to provide communication and IT services to Procter & Gamble, across more than 1,100 locations in more than 80 countries.

In January 2016, Global agreed a £100 million seven-year contract with the BBC
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