James Rose

We spoke with Senior Manager, James Rose, about the savings his team are driving across Networks, and why he's so passionate about Diversity & Inclusion

What do you and your team do?

I am accountable for driving the transformation savings across each of our units within the Networks domain.  This typically involves looking at smaller discrete datasets, right to the way through to data sets driving multi-million costs into the accounts.  The journey to the savings starts right at the conception phase all the way through to the final phase where the savings are delivered to a steady run-rate – in other words, permanent savings over multiple accounting periods. 

My team is responsible for driving through the transformation strategy across Service Platforms to deliver bigger, better, faster, and cheaper outcomes across a range of initiatives.  The customer and our colleagues are at the heart of everything that we do across all our initiatives including building out autonomous networks, support processes with robotic process automation, strategic planning and continuous improvement.  The units we support on the transformation journey are the backbone of BT and hold the DNA of our products and services.  

What does your day-to-day role consist of?

This is a very dynamic role, each and every day is different with varying initiatives across the portfolio.  Understanding the portfolio of initiatives, the level of maturity that supports these, and how these then translate in to impacts to the productivity of our teams and return on investment for every pound that is spent across the unit is key.  Bringing people together and demonstrating the power of collaboration across the business is absolutely critical.  Whether it be looking at resourcing models or implementing new emerging technologies – our people are at the heart of everything that we do.  

What’s exciting about Technology at BT?

Being at the heart of what is changing across the industry and how our innovation pipeline continues to grow to support the pivot to growth of the company is a really great feeling.  Technology is evolving at a pace, quicker than we’ve ever seen it moving – somewhat driven from the effects of Covid-19, that demonstrates the real value of connecting for good, whilst at the same time, enhancing our networks to provide even greater speeds, stronger reliability, and the best performance.  The next wave of technological advancements is super exciting. I can’t wait to see some of these ideas translated in to proven beneficial products and services for our customers and for our colleagues to be at the heart of bringing these to the industry.  

What impact does your work have in the business and/or customers?

We’re shifting to move away from on-prem solutions to cloud infrastructure, software-defined networks (SDN), and cloud-based IT software and platforms.  My impacts the business each and every day, and the customer each and every day.  My key impact is on how optimised our cost base is here and now, as well as how sustainable this is for the future in connection with revenue streams as more value is driven back into the business.  In my view, the two go hand-in-hand.  If we have happy colleagues, we will have even happier customers.  If our people are happy in what they are doing and can see the drivers for change, they will be supportive of the journey. We’re transforming at pace, and act as the catalyst to bringing out new and exciting opportunities.  

What’s the best project you’ve ever worked on?

Now that’s a difficult question as there are so many great initiatives I have running across the portfolio, so I’m going for two! It would be the automation capability that is continually building across the unit where we are stepping outside of the comfort zone and heavily investing in upskilling our people to be able to automate processes themselves and drive further opportunities into the units.  Our people are really at the heart of everything that we do, and I’m super excited by the opportunities this provides for our people to support their career journeys and give them the best possible experience and exposure to wider capabilities.  The second, would be a new piece which is really gaining momentum across the business delving in to Blockchain (an immutable transaction ledger storing blocks of digital information). The real key to this is how can it be leveraged to provide greater assurance and controls, whilst also supporting us to have the insight to getting things done as I mentioned earlier – bigger, better, faster, and cheaper.  This all started from a conversation with my team and is now nearing further opportunities to drive value back to the business and enhance our customer’s experience.  

Are you involved in any specific Diversity and Inclusion initiatives?

Yes, and I’m a firm believer in D&I. There is so much that can be learned from other cultures and the backgrounds that people have.  We have many initiatives running, but one I am super passionate about is where we have a group of women looking to build out a career in IT – we’ve supported with the training and upskilling and mechanisms to enable them to practice across the business what they have learned from the development programme.  Seeing more women coming into technology and evolving into more senior roles is something I am very passionate about too. I’m super excited for this diverse group of talent to join our organisation this quarter.  

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