BT aims for £25m in savings by leaping towards AI-led operations with ServiceNow

• BT’s Digital unit is working to modernise the Group’s service management with the delivery of a unified service management platform, ServiceNow
• ServiceNow will replace 56 service management platforms and dramatically simplify service management processes across BT Group as part of a huge transformation programme
• Building on the Google Cloud Platform partnership, ServiceNow will be enriched with real time AI insight to boost its effectiveness and pave the path to AI Operations – zero-touch service operations
• BT estimates £25m in cumulative savings over the next five years from the implementation and has seen early deployments showing a 50% reduction in efforts on service and change management requests

 BT Digital today announces plans to consolidate BT’s legacy service management platforms into a single system, ServiceNow, as part of a large group-wide transformation programme. ServiceNow will roll out across all of BT Group as rapidly as possible, replacing 56 legacy applications, 76 different ways of implementing service processes, and forecast savings of over £25 million by 2027.

“We are focused on building great products and platforms, and ensuring that we provide brilliant service on them,” comments Harmeen Mehta, Chief Digital and Innovation Officer at BT. “Our AI and cloud first approach is a core part of how we unlock this at pace and at scale, so we’re delighted Bill and the team at ServiceNow share our vision for the AI Ops model as the way to transform the way we deliver across BT.”

Bill McDermott, CEO of ServiceNow, said: “Under Harmeen’s leadership, BT’s Digital Unit is investing with urgency in technologies that deliver business impact. The era of digital business is in full flight at BT. BT and Harmeen understand differentiated innovation must be built. Together, we are expanding the use of this powerful platform so BT can transform the world’s great challenges into the biggest opportunities.”

The partnership with ServiceNow has already begun to bear fruit, showing early benefits in the management of BT’s own internal IT, as well as in its customer facing units in Enterprise and Global. ServiceNow are working closely with BT on the deployment, supporting BT’s own culture change programme with DevOps and AI perspectives from the ServiceNow team reinforcing and embedding BT’s Digital Way culture change process.

Early read-outs are showing a 50% reduction in efforts required to deliver service requests, and a 20X boost in the speed of deploying changes into customer services. The service management platform is integrated into BT’s data repository, built with Google Cloud, to integrate real-time AI insight into the service management process. It is being rolled out to teams across BT Group, including service management experts in Digital, Networks and BT’s Customer Facing Units.

BT’s Mehta continues: “ServiceNow is not only helping BT improve our efficiency, it is freeing investment and resource for more strategic and innovation focussed programs, supporting our long term strategy to invest in growth.”

###

About BT

BT Group is the UK’s leading telecommunications and network provider and a leading provider of global communications services and solutions, serving customers in 180 countries. Its principal activities in the UK include the provision of fixed voice, mobile, broadband and TV (including Sport) and a range of products and services over converged fixed and mobile networks to consumer, business and public sector customers. For its global customers, BT provides managed services, security and network and IT infrastructure services to support their operations all over the world. BT consists of four customer-facing units: Consumer, Enterprise, Global and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Openreach, which provides access network services to over 650 communications provider customers who sell phone, broadband and Ethernet services to homes and businesses across the UK.

For the year ended 31 March 2021, BT Group’s reported revenue was £21,331m with reported profit before taxation of £1,804m.

British Telecommunications plc is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

For more information, visit www.bt.com/about