BT Professional Services helps businesses think smart with Quick Start

Despite the current economy dampening corporate spending, BT has seen a tenfold rise in business customers adopting green working practices and three times more companies moving to flexible working, through its Quick Start programme.

Since October, consultants at BT Global Services’ professional services unit have seen a three-fold increase in multinational businesses using its Work Anywhere Quick Start package, which provides companies with consultancy on the best processes, technology and working practices to adopt when it comes to employees working more flexibly.

Showing that environmentally friendly working practices can save business money by reducing energy consumption, BT Professional Services has also seen a tenfold increase in the take-up of its Carbon Impact Assessment Quick Start since October. BT’s Carbon Impact Assessment - which audits an organisation’s carbon emission levels and models how they can cut costs by reducing energy consumption - has seen significant uptake, particularly in the security and defence sectors, which are facing pressures from central government to reduce carbon emissions.

A recent engagement initiated by a Carbon Impact Quick Start by BT Professional Services’ sustainability consultants found that one government organisation could dramatically reduce its carbon emissions whilst saving tax payers £3 million, if it switched to a thin-client computing system and green data centres.

“Organisations are embracing new ways of working and becoming environmentally friendly, even during these challenging economic times, or perhaps as a result of them,” said Emer Timmons, President Global Professional Services.

“The increasing adoption of flexible working practices, for instance, is resulting from companies looking to reduce travel and office costs whilst at the same time ensuring compliance with regulatory needs such as the European Working Time Directive,” she added.

BT Professional Services’ Quick Starts are a series of short, focused assessments, in areas including security, sustainability, flexible working, collaboration and unified communications – providing companies with a high-level business case for change that addresses the financial, behavioural and political dimensions of adopting new working practices.

“Not all customers, at the moment, are looking for long-term commitments with a large financial implication, such as transformational programmes. Instead they are looking for speedy assistance providing tangible results, and this is where our Quick Start programme can help,” said Emer Timmons.

BT Professional Services launched its Quick Start programme in 2008, to ensure that public and private sector organizations around the world have quick access to BT Global Services’ 10,000-plus consultants. Quick Starts’ have now been adopted by businesses in the oil and gas, pharmaceutical, financial services and retail sectors, as well as by government organisations worldwide. They have also spread beyond security to cover ten topics including operational efficiency, risk and compliance management and business continuity.

“The new Work Anywhere Quick Start service provides customers with a well-structured methodology, with which to delve into the complex issues that relate to flexibility and mobility,” said Kathryn Weldon, Principal Analyst, Enterprise Mobility at Current Analysis. “Many companies have been throwing together solutions to allow mobile access without first analysing all the implications from a workflow or organisational perspective.”