Allen Ma, President Asia Pacific
BT’s presence in the Asia Pacific region, dating back to 1985, is through BT Global Services. Currently, there are over 27,000 people directly and indirectly employed (including Global Services, joint ventures, vendors and contact centres) across 17 countries in the region. Operations include a regional multilingual Customer Management Centre in Pune, a Technology & Service Centre in Dalian, a Service Centre in Beijing, a Customer Service Centre in Sydney, a Customer Help Desk in Tokyo, and research centres in Kuala Lumpur and Shanghai.
The countries served include Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam
Regional headquarters office address:
BT Hong Kong Ltd
Suite 1301, Two Pacific Place
88 Queensway
Hong Kong
Telephone number: +852 2525 4481
Fax: +852 2810 0164
The BT Hong Kong office is above the Pacific Place shopping complex on Hong Kong island. The nearest transport station is Admiralty.
Network:
In Asia Pacific, BT has invested over US$100 million over the past three years in network expansion using the latest technology as a result of an average 45 per cent growth year on year (2006) in overall voice traffic on the current global managed voice network.
By September 2004, BT had completed the most extensive network roll-out yet in the Asia Pacific region, delivering a network that is more resilient, more efficient and more widely available than anything we have been able to offer before. It supports VPN, internet, voice, mobility and private line services.
In 2005, BT invested over US$48 million in Asia Pacific on key IP platforms and the transfer of services on to an integrated platform for voice, video and data. The upgrade results in providing a single interface to customers, with high quality voice capabilities over the dedicated IP infrastructure.
In February 2006, BT announced a US$21 million investment in a global IP-based voice platform. The program will see the current legacy TDM network replaced by an MPLS-based network with gateways in 30 countries, serving over 160 countries with voice service connectivity. This dramatically increases the scale and capacity of BT's global voice capability and facilitates the deployment of advanced services for customers. Half of the investment is destined for the Asia Pacific region. The network covers 17 countries or territories including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.
The project, part of BT's 21CN initiative, was completed in 2007, enabling IP voice across all VPN network points. The resulting IP voice network provides customers with a flexible roadmap that allows them to evolve their voice estate to IP for voice. The new network has a distributed packet-based architecture that provides advanced multimedia features with traditional voice quality. It also enables voice and multimedia applications, hosted or premises based, to be seamlessly integrated with data services.
With multiple network paths between Asia and the US, BT ensures a route is always available between these two regions. Connectivity between Europe and Asia is enabled across multiple cable systems, providing the core elements of BT’s first platform that circles the world – with a completely resilient ring connecting India into the UK and Singapore on different cable systems.
In 2007, BT finalised its acquisition of i2i Enterprise Pvt Ltd, a Mumbai-based enterprise services company specialising in internet protocol (IP) communications services for major Indian and global multinational companies, establishing a broad-based platform for growth in India, and creating a single BT-branded channel to the Indian market.
Also in 2007, BT achieved Cisco Multinational Certified Partner Status across four countries in Asia Pacific – China, Singapore, India and Hong Kong – in the key specialist areas of wireless, routing and switching, unified communications, and security. A number of labs, interconnected across Asia Pacific, showcase BT’s capability to deliver converged networked services, in real-time, real-life demonstrations.
Building on our network capability, our Professional Services practice advises global multinational corporations on a range of business issues including security, contact centre efficiency, convergence, mobility and global sourcing. The BT Innovation Centre in Kuala Lumpur and our R&D Centre in Shanghai are also at the forefront of developing new products and services.
All these investments significantly enhance BT’s capabilities, coverage and credibility in Asia, giving reach into all key markets, providing higher quality local services to customers and helping to promote regional growth opportunities.
Customers:
New IP-based technologies and the rapid growth of the Internet have brought about the emergence of the digital networked economy. Many of our target customers are undergoing significant transformation in response to this and are redesigning their business processes, their systems, and their customer offerings.
In Asia Pacific, these customers include National Australia Bank and Westfield in Australia, China Shipping and ZTE in China, Pernod Ricard Asia, Card Protection Plan Ltd and the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, in India Wipro, Tech Mahindra, and HCL, and Samsung Networks, Cyberlogitec, and LG CNS in South Korea. BT dealing room systems are also used by major financial institutions across the region.
Partners:
- BT has partnering agreements in Asia Pacific with a number of companies including PowerTel, Telstra & Optus in Australia; Wharf T&T & PCCW in Hong Kong; KDDI in Japan; StarHub & Singtel in Singapore; China NetCom in China; Bharti, BSNL & Reliance in India; Samsung & KT in Korea; Telekom Malaysia in Malaysia; Chunghwa in Taiwan.
Customer service:
In January 2005, BT opened its Regional Centre of Excellence (RCE) in Pune (India) to enhance its customer service capability in the region. Pune joined Atlanta, Amsterdam and the UK to make up the four key BT RCEs that now cover the globe. In Asia Pacific, the Pune RCE is supported by service centres in Sydney and Tokyo.
In 2007, our customer service support capability expanded via the addition of a Service Centre in Beijing to support our growing China customer base, and a Technology & Service Centre in Dalian. An R&D facility was also installed in Shanghai to support the work of the existing research facility in Kuala Lumpur.
Killer facts:
BT strives to be the international business partner and supplier of choice in Asia Pacific, and has attained several notable awards and achievements.
- BT was chosen by analyst Frost & Sullivan as Data Service Provider of 2005 for most innovative product/service in Asia Pacific
- We were listed in the leader quadrant of Gartner’s 2005 Magic Quadrants for Network Service Providers for Europe, Asia Pacific and globally
- BT was also listed among ZDNet Asia's first annual Top Tech 50 index of leading technology companies used by Asian corporations
- BT was chosen as the Best Managed Service Provider at the 9th Telecom Asia Awards 2006
