Management Profile of Cameron Rejali, Managing Director, Products and Strategy BT Wholesale
Cameron Rejali joined BT Wholesale as Managing Director for Products and Strategy in January 2005 from Sprint Corporation in the United States, where he was Vice President of Product Management and Development. Sprint is a global communications company with annual revenues in excess of $25 Billion, providing wireless and wireline, voice and data services to consumers, businesses and multinational corporations.
Over a 13 year period, Cameron has held a range of senior strategy and product management and development roles with Sprint. He is a graduate of Harvard and Chicago universities.
What do the BT Undertakings mean for you in your day to day work?
“The BT Undertakings mean that I, like all of us in BT Wholesale, need to be very careful when discussing product related business issues with our teams as it’s critical that customer or commercial information is not shared inadvertently across the Chinese Walls created to ensure this doesn’t happen. Other than that, my day to day work is to achieve improved service levels for customers and to ensure that we continue to deliver value to all our customers, whether the products are SMP, un-regulated and new or significant. ”
What specifically have you done to ensure your team delivers the Undertakings, in word and in spirit?
“The key deliverable was the creation of three distinct teams in product development – Core Network Services (CNS), Value-Added Network Services (VNS) and Un-Regulated services (UNS). We achieved this, together with the various governance, processes and procedures necessary to make the teams work without sharing sensitive information to those people who are not entitled to have it, earlier this year.”
How can industry be confident that the Undertakings are being met?
“First off, we’ve split our in-life and product development functions into three separate departments, supported by a number of common functions which handle work common to all products.
“We’ve provided a wide range of guidance on how to comply with the Code of Practice with a supporting computer-based training package, interactive training road shows, together with specific guidance tailored to the needs of product managers and unit specific guidelines for the common functional units.
“It is important to note that there is no restriction on information that is in the public domain. This therefore provides a clear incentive to share as much as possible as soon as possible with all customers.
“We’re also focused on transparency and information sharing, which includes the publication of product roadmaps, regular account bi-lateral meetings, open and full presentations at Consult21 and other industry forums, the production of customer facing strategy documents for the fixed, mobile and Service Provider sectors, as well as customer events to develop a stronger solution or partnership-based approach with our customers.”
What do the BT Undertakings mean for other service providers when BT Wholesale develops new products and services?
“It means that we will be more active in engaging with other Communications Providers (CPs) in the development of new products and services or enhancements, whether they fall into the CNS, VNS or UNS areas, roadmaps will be published earlier in the cycle and planning times should be shortened as a result.”
Are there any other changes other CPs can expect to see from your area as a result of the BT Undertakings?
“CPs can expect to be treated equally and transparently. Also, because information that is on the public domain effectively removes any doubt about with whom it can be shared, industry should enjoy open access to more information than has ever been available to them before.”