Is BT a good company?

BT Group plc, commonly known as BT and formerly British Telecom, is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, broadband and mobile services in the UK, and also provides subscription television and IT services. BT previously had a monopoly in the United Kingdom, but this ended after the Telecommunications Act 1984. Since demerging with O2 in 2001, BT has shifted its focus to the consumer market, rolling out its fibre broadband services including BT Infinity.

What does BT do?

BT offers a wide range of products and services, including:

• Fixed-line telephones
• Broadband internet
• Mobile phone services
• Digital TV
• IT services and consulting

BT operates through four customer-facing units:

• BT Consumer – provides telephony, broadband and TV services to consumers in the UK
• EE – provides mobile and fixed communications services to consumers
• BT Business and Public Sector – provides retail telecoms and IT services to businesses and the public sector in the UK and Ireland
• BT Wholesale and Ventures – provides fixed-line and mobile services to communications providers (CPs) and voice services to UK customers and those overseas.

In addition, BT has focused its efforts on rolling out fibre broadband through its £2.5 billion Openreach division.

BT’s Financial Performance

Here are some key financial metrics for BT over the past few years:

As you can see, BT’s revenue and profits have declined slightly over the past few years. However, it remains a very large and profitable company. In 2019/20, its revenue was £22.9 billion with profit before tax of £2.35 billion.

BT’s Competitive Position

BT holds a dominant position in the UK telecoms market, although its market share has declined in recent years due to competition. Some key points about BT’s competitive position:

• It owns the UK’s largest fixed-line telecoms infrastructure through Openreach, which provides services to over 580 CPs.
• BT has over 31 million consumer mobile, broadband and TV customers, giving it significant scale advantages.
• However, its mobile market share has declined since the entry of 4G networks like EE and Three.
• BT broadband has around a 32% market share, competing with Virgin Media, Sky and TalkTalk.
• BT faces increasing competition from companies like Sky and Amazon in TV services.

Overall, BT retains a very strong position in UK telecoms but competition is increasing from well-funded rivals. BT is responding by accelerating its fibre broadband rollout and enhancing its TV & mobile services.

BT’s Business Strategy

BT outlined its strategy in May 2019 focused on the following priorities:

• Accelerate fibre roll-out – Targeting 20 million premises passed by mid- to late 2020s.
• Deliver convergence – Providing seamless fixed-mobile services.
• Improve customer experience – Through digitalisation and simplification.
• Simplify product portfolio – Moving from 180 consumer products to around 30.
• Transform costs – £1.5 billion of gross annual costs savings by 2023.

The aim is to build the best converged network, move to fewer, higher quality products and improve efficiency. BT is fundamentally changing to adapt to the evolving market landscape. There are early signs of progress with improved customer satisfaction scores.

Is BT a Good Place to Work?

BT employs over 83,300 people worldwide, with around 80,000 in the UK. Here are some key points on BT’s employment proposition:

• BT offers flexible working options including homeworking, compressed hours and flexible start times.
• 30% of staff work flexibly and BT has set a target to increase this to 60%.
• BT has made strides on diversity. 32% of staff are female and 10% are from BAME backgrounds.
• The median gender pay gap is 5.3% vs 18.4% average in the UK.
• BT scores 3.2/5 on Glassdoor based on 1,700 reviews. The pros include flexible working, good benefits and job security. Cons include bureaucracy and office politics.

Overall, BT seems to provide a reasonable employee value proposition with flexible working, good diversity and solid benefits. Reviews show there is room for improvement on culture and reducing bureaucracy.

Is BT an Ethical Company?

Here is a brief assessment of BT’s ethical and sustainability record:

• BT has committed to becoming a net zero carbon emissions business by 2045.
• It sources 100% renewable electricity worldwide and is transitioning its vehicle fleet to electric.
• BT has robust policies on ethics, anti-bribery and corruption, which it trains staff on annually.
• However, BT has faced criticism for its dealings with regulators and rivals. It was fined £42m in 2017 for breaching contracts with telecom providers.
• In 2020, BT complied with the UK government’s request to ban Huawei 5G equipment by 2027.
• BT runs community skills programs including Barefoot Computing for school children.

BT states a strong commitment to ethics and sustainability, but has faced issues like any large telco. Overall it performs reasonably well on ESG metrics compared to telecom peers.

Conclusion

In conclusion, BT remains one of the UK’s largest and most important technology companies. It retains strong market positions in broadband, mobile and business telecom services despite increasing competition. BT is pivoting its strategy to focus more on customers, fibre investment and cost efficiencies. This should improve its competitiveness, although BT faces structurally declining markets like fixed voice services. As a workplace, BT offers flexible working and solid benefits although there is room for improvement on culture. Its financial performance has weakened slightly but the dividend remains attractive for income investors. BT scores reasonably well on ethical practices such as carbon reduction but has faced issues like regulatory breaches. Overall, BT appears a resilient company that retains strengths but faces challenges requiring decisive action from management.