WA-7, Report on BT PDF

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Case Report on British Telecom

Anonymous Business School, University of the People BUS 5114: Management Information Systems Dr. Charlotte Barrett May 26, 2021

2 Case Report on British Telecom British Telecom (BT), headquartered in London, United Kingdom, is the biggest provider of broadband, mobile services, and fixed line. BT also provides its customers' information technology (IT) services and television subscriptions. Description of the Case and Identification of Major Issues BT found itself struggling in 2004, for not being able to deliver large and complex processes as they were still using traditional approaches. BT was using a waterfall-based delivery approach for a long time. BT then appointed a new CIO who changed the waterfall-based approach to Agile. The following paper will discuss how Agile development added to the company's competitive advantage. The paper will also analyze Porter's forces and their impact. And lastly, the paper would discuss the primary and support activities in Porter's value chain that are impacted by BT's implementation of an agile development process. How does BT Agile development contribute to competitive advantage? Which force/forces does it impact and why? Michael Porter's five competitive forces are traditional competitors, new market entrants, substitute products and services, customers, and suppliers (Laudon & Laudon, 2007). With the traditional waterfall-based delivery system, BT had poor requirements capture, disconnected design, crushed delivery timelines, headaches, and deployment nightmare (Evans, 2006). After the CIO implemented Agile development, the company was able to focus and prioritize its processes and projects. At BT, Agile started with an aim to introduce short delivery cycles, increased customer value, and strong collaboration between IT and business communities (Evans, 2006). BT implemented a standard to deliver programs within a 90-day delivery cycle (Evans, 2006). The 90-day delivery cycle gave BT a competitive advantage since they were

3 earlier delivering their programs in 12+ months (Evans, 2006). "The company's shift to 90-day and often 30-day software iteration cycles is at least four times as fast, meaning they could deliver the end product that much faster" (Hoffman, 2008). With Agile, BT quickly changed its standards, they were able to deliver high-quality services and made changes in between the processes whenever required, something that was not possible with the waterfall-based method. I believe BT had an impact on Porter's all five forces. With the new approach, BT was quickly able to engage its customers. Agile improved customer relationship management along with the value of their brand. Due to this, customer loyalty increased, and the threat of new entrants reduced. BT started developing everything in-house with the help of cross-functional teams. Due to this, BT had less dependency on the suppliers, hence empowering the organization. Agile gave BT the advantage of making changes and developing new products at a lesser time than its competitors, therefore, BT eliminated the threat of substitution. Which primary or support activities in Porter’s “Value Chain” are impacted by BT’s implementation of an agile development process and what benefit (if any) does Agile bring to these activities? The value chain model identifies the point where information technology (IT) can be best used (Laudon & Laudon, 2007). The value chain model can be categorized into primary activities and support activities (Laudon & Laudon, 2007). According to Bourgeois (2014), the primary activities are inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, sales/marketing, service, whereas support activities are, firm infrastructure, human resource management, technology development, and procurement. The primary activities that were impacted by BT’s implementation of an agile development process are operations, marketing/sales, and service.

4 Agile helped the company with better supply-chain management, cost reduction, and better flow of communication. The Agile software also helped the employees of the company to directly communicate with the customers. The employees were able to provide better customer service and were able to take action quickly based on the customer's feedback. This all helped in accumulating a bigger market share. The support activities that were impacted by BT’s implementation of an agile development process are technology development and human resource management. Agile saved delivery time from 18 months to 90 days and this helped the company to reduce labor hours too. With new technology, everything had to redevelop accordingly. Human resource management, on the other hand, has to recruit people with expertise in Agile, provide training, and design new job descriptions. The organization's infrastructure may or may not change, but the procurement and finances definitely changed. Conclusion Usage of Agile methods proved that a company sinking like, BT, can also boon and emerge as a successful company. Agile provides competitive advantages as it gives better customer satisfaction, provides better control of the process/ project, increases the flexibility to do a project, provides continuous improvements, and reduces risks.

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References

Bourgeois, D. T. (2014). Information Systems for Business and Beyond. Saylor.org. Licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY) Attribution. Evans, I. (2006). Agile Delivery at British Telecom. Methods and Tools, 14(2), 20-27. Retrieved May 10, 2016, from http://www.methodsandtools.com/PDF/mt200602.pdf Hoffman, T. (2008, March 11). BT: A case study in agile programming. Retrieved May 10, 2016, from http://www.infoworld.com/article/2650760/application-development/bt--a-casestudy-in-agile-programming.html Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2007). Information Systems, Organizations, and Strategy. Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm 10th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall....