Philip Jansen, CEO of British telecoms giant, BT, has told the board that he will step down in the next 12 months.
On 10 July, chairman Adam Crozier said in a stock market announcement that the board is considering “all appropriate candidates,” adding that they will have an update over the summer.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Jansen, who took over as CEO in February 2019, oversaw investment at BT on rolling out fiber optic connections across the UK while streamlining the rest of the business, such as merging internal business-to-business units and putting sport broadcasting into a joint venture.
Commenting on BT’s fiscal results for the full year to March 2023, Jansen said: “By continuing to build and connect like fury, digitise the way we work and simplify our structure, by the end of the 2020s BT Group will rely on a much smaller workforce and a significantly reduced cost base. New BT Group will be a leaner business with a brighter future.”
Jansen recently announced that BT will lay off approximately 55,000 of its 135,000-workforce by 2030.
London-headquartered BT has re-architected its network making it cloud-centric by launching its Cloud Fabric service in July 2023. The company has also simplified its product portfolio, focusing on high-growth areas like SD-WAN, cloud, managed security services, 5G, and IoT.
How well do you really know your competitors?
Access the most comprehensive Company Profiles on the market, powered by GlobalData. Save hours of research. Gain competitive edge.
Thank you!
Your download email will arrive shortly
Not ready to buy yet? Download a free sample
We are confident about the unique quality of our Company Profiles. However, we want you to make the most beneficial decision for your business, so we offer a free sample that you can download by submitting the below form
By GlobalDataJansen’s replacement will oversee the company’s continued investment in optical fiber, next-generation broadband, AI, security, IoT, and 5G in the UK.
BT, a former state-owned organisation, continues to struggle with intense competition from it rivals both in the private and public sector, including by Vodafone, which offers services to the public sector.
According to GlobalData, BT’s overreliance on the UK market has also made the company vulnerable to country specific risks.
The UK market accounted for 87.8% some £18bn ($23bn) of the company’s revenue during the 2023 financial year with the Americas accounting for only 3.3% and Europe, Middle East and Africa, excluding the UK, making up 6.6%.
BT struggled with the UK government’s request in 2020 to strip out Huawei equipment from its network by 2030.
At the time Jansen said that the government’s request was “impossible” and warned that a rushed reduction of Huawei’s involvement could lead to “outages”.
After requesting several extensions by BT, the government agreed for a compete ban to be postposed to 2027, as long as it removed all Huawei equipment from critical areas of telecoms networks by the end of January 2023.
