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August 8, 2006

Why is BT focusing on Small Business IT?

Recent acquisition of Dabs.com by BT has prompted the question, why is British Telecom (BT) suddenly focusing on small businesses - away from telecom towards IT?

Perhaps the reason has to do with the fact that there are about 1.5 million small to medium size businesses (SMEs) in the UK – that offers BT revenue potential through the traditionally close relationship that SMEs have with local suppliers.

Analysts at BT would say small business are incredibly diverse and their requirements vary and as such there is huge potential to offer their products and service to small businesses - whether it's through web site development, running websites, cutting call costs with Voice over IP phone services, or using the latest in laptops, PDAs and wireless access to run their businesses on the move.

BT is not the only conglomerate that's focusing their efforts on small businesses; Microsoft currently launched it small business servers and it already provide financial accounting software including other products and services.

BT’s acquisition of Dabs.com is recognition of the fact that smaller businesses often prefer dealing with local suppliers, so there’s now BT Local Businesses all around the UK that can attend to customer's needs on a one to one basis.

With competition from VOIP (voice Over Internet Protocol) that offers lower if not free telephone costs, BT needs to recognize the new competitive environment and like other large telecoms and IT companies they cannot ignore the purchasing power and shopping habits of small businesses.

David
Small Business Resource

Posted by David at August 8, 2006 5:14 PM