The Institute of Telecommunications Professionals

Collaboration for Innovation - How to Get the Most from Your Suppliers

 On 1st August in the tranquil surroundings of The Bank Restaurant, close to Buckingham Palace, 25 members of ITP took advantage of a special breakfast,  to network with colleagues and peers from the telecoms industry, while listening to Meryl Bushell, BT’s Chief Procurement Officer. 

With 20 years experience in the telecoms industry, latterly as one of the key negotiators with the main suppliers of the 21st Century Network project, who better to hold everyone‘s attention with her presentation on  “How to get the best from your suppliers”?

The audience was fascinated to hear about the way in which she has moulded the worldwide BT procurement team to rationalise and segment their supplier profiles, develop close links with their prime suppliers and establish Innovation teams to ensure that BT, in association with their key suppliers, identify and provide effective and efficient products/services for the future. It was evident from the attention that the audience gave and the content of the Q&A sessions afterwards that everyone there could see how some of BT’s practices could be applied to their businesses.

This was one of ITP’s increasing number of networking events that brought together a wide range of telecoms hardware and software/systems  suppliers.

In spite of the early start and perhaps stimulated by Meryl’s presentation, there was some animated discussions concerning the implementation of closer relationships between supplier and customer.

We sounded out one of these “early birds”, Jason Deverell who, as Head of IT Service Management at Clifford Chance LLP, was a newcomer to ITP networking events,  to get his comments on the morning.

“My breakfast at the Bank, was the first of ITP’s networking events that I had attended. I was interested in hearing Meryl’s views on how BT approaches its supplier/buyer relationships and how this might benefit me in my role. I was pleasantly surprised by the whole event.
Meryl’s presentation contained some useful information about supplier classification and relationship building, both of which could be applied to any organisation, small or large. I have begun to use the models discussed to help shape my own organisation's approach to its IT suppliers.
As a networking event, there were plenty of people there who were keen to discuss their particular suppler issues, which added different contexts and angles to the approach advocated by Meryl. Even though I come from outside the telecoms industry, I exchanged details with a number of other IT professionals and I’m confident that we’ll be in further contact.
The breakfast was pretty good too!
Certainly, I am looking forward to attending more of ITP’s events in the future”