BT outsources learning services to Accenture

Citation

(2005), "BT outsources learning services to Accenture", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 37 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.2005.03737gab.004

BT outsources learning services to Accenture

BT and Accenture have signed a five-year, $127 million business-processing outsourcing contract for learning services. The contract renews a previous learning agreement between the two companies and complements the ten-year $575 million human resources outsourcing contract signed by BT and Accenture earlier this year.

The services to be provided include technical and safety training around switching, data, transmission and network technologies. In addition, the contract covers the design, development and delivery of sales-force and management training programmes for BT employees. The services will be delivered by Accenture Learning, an Accenture business that provides outsourced learning solutions to government agencies and corporate enterprises world-wide.

“This contract will play a key role in BT’s continuing transformation into a leading information technology and network services organisation in the digital networked economy”, said Alex Wilson, BT Group human resources director. “Accenture is able to provide a fully flexible deal structure combined with the security of a scalable, first-class delivery organisation with global reach”.

“Learning is becoming a strategic function that is instrumental to achieving business results for organisations, and this deal marks another bold step by BT to put itself at the forefront of the industry by placing learning at the heart of its business”, said Ellen Balaguer, managing director of Accenture Learning. “It is also is a vote of confidence in Accenture’s ability to meet the needs of large multinational clients to deliver learning globally at scale, and to partner companies to achieve high performance in their businesses”.

Meanwhile, BrightWave has teamed up with Accenture to deliver two new e-learning programmes for BT on the topics of health and safety and confined spaces. BrightWave specialises in custom-made learning solutions that support companies to improve the performance of a large number of employees quickly and cost-effectively.

To date, more than 24,000 BT employees have taken the Be Safe, Not Sorry health and safety course, while almost 12,000 people have successfully passed the confined-spaces course. Feedback from both courses has been positive.

“We have seen a very low failure rate on the confined-spaces course, which we think reflects the successful launch of the course”, said Steve Lisney, of BT. “What is even more encouraging is that Accenture usually gets lots of calls to the help desk when a course is launched but this time it was completely different. Accenture told me that, over the last four years, this is one of the best launches it has seen. This is a great tribute to all involved in both BT and BrightWave”.

“We chose BrightWave because of its partnership approach and track record of developing effective e-learning programmes”, said David Wallington, head of group safety at BT. “We opted for e-learning because it is future-proof, flexible, and directly delivered to every user’s personal computer”.

“We are well known for working closely with our clients throughout projects to make sure that the e-learning we develop really works”, said Lars Hyland, director of learning services for BrightWave. “Coupled with our extensive experience in the telecommunications sector from working with companies such as T-Mobile, Vodafone and Orange, and our integrated approach to delivering learning solutions that are fully aligned to business objectives, we are confident that BT will continue to gain benefits from the new courses”.