Management Profile: Angus Flett, Director, Product Management, BT Wholesale
Angus Flett, 42, joined BT Wholesale as Director of Product Management in January 2005 from telecoms equipment company Ciena. He has spent his career in the IT and telecoms industry, including 13 years spent in various management roles with Mercury and Cable and Wireless.
Angus is also BT’s representative on NGN UK, the industry body set up this year to oversee the introduction of Next Generation Networks into the UK market. He is married with four children and lives in West Sussex.
What attracted you to BT Wholesale?
The key attraction was the opportunity and challenge presented by BT’s 21st century Network Programme, which is huge. The programme really is about changing the shape and remit of the telecommunications industry, both in the UK and internationally. It was an exciting prospect to be a part of it.
How would you define your role at BT Wholesale ?
My role is to drive BT Wholesale’s product portfolio so that the business, and the Communications Providers, whom depend on that portfolio, continue to thrive. More specifically, my remit is to ensure that BT Wholesale’s Product Team deliver the spirit and letter of the Undertakings and that we’re successful with the products and the markets where we choose to compete.
It’s also about helping to deliver deregulation where that makes sense, and to have communication providers buy our products because they are compelling, not because the customer has no other choice.
How do you manage the various product 'divisions' within BT Wholesale?
I try to take a simplistic and pragmatic approach. We are governed as a team, in part, by the Undertakings but I want to ensure that this doesn’t mean we tie ourselves up in knots.
I try to encourage my team to be conventionally commercial, while fully respecting and complying with the Undertakings. I tell my Product Managers to do the best job they can for their products and to make them the best in the market.
This could be a tricky balancing act. But the key for me is that the more information we can provide to the marketplace on an open and transparent basis, the less of a barrier the Undertakings become in our day-to-day activities.
What are your aspirations for Broadband in 21CN?
We have to move broadband away from the battle for speed to a battle for applications, where speed is simply a function of the application the end-user chooses. 21CN will accelerate and enhance the market.
Where do you think broadband goes beyond 24M?
I think we need to think of the future market in terms of applications and not raw standards. If we move the debate away from raw headline speed and closer towards the really strategic area of applications, customers will choose the product platform that best meets their needs. I want to strive for highest possible stable line rate both upstream and downstream. ADSL2+ is firmly on the product roadmap and we are working with CTO to look at how and where we deploy VDSL.