The BT design dhowcase exhibition at Adastral Park

BT’s Adastral Park is one of the world’s largest development and testing centres for emerging technology and is a hotbed of innovation. It is also home to the BT Showcase where new ideas are brought to life in real life situations. Sheline Clarke spoke to Steve Kempt, the man in charge of BT’s shop window.

IF YOU think BT is all about phone lines and internet access think again. This global giant, which has its main research and development hub here in Suffolk, is at the forefront of cutting edge technologies that are changing the way we live our lives and run our businesses.

The BT Showcase is a series of real life scenarios where technology is in place to demonstrate the beneficial applications for all this technical wizardry and is key to taking new innovations to market.

There’s a shop, for instance, and a bank, a government showcase, the ‘hospital of the future’ and an area dedicated to the whole retail supply chain. Walking through it is truly awe-inspiring.

“The showcases consist of a lot of things that are here and now, and we can demonstrate how they can be used and some things that would take a little bit longer to bring to the portfolio,” said Steve Kempt, head of customer loyalty with BT Innovate and Design, sitting in the lounge area of the hi-tech home showcase.

“The whole idea is to change customer perception and help them understand the opportunities available.”

Steve runs a mixed team of technical staff, facilitators and a support staff who between them contribute hundreds of millions of pounds to BT every year.

They work on behalf of every line of business within BT, in the UK and abroad, who will bring customers to see for themselves the opportunities available.

This is done by organising tailor-made events when customers - largely blue chip companies or other organisations such as county councils - are invited in for a day or two to look at specific areas that could benefit their processes. The day I visited a delegation from Superfast Cornwall was in residence. The list of previous visitors includes Tesco, Glaxo Smith Kline and Lloyds TSB.

“We run about 200 major events like this every year,” says Steve, “and typically you get about 15 people from one business attending and they will be senior decision makers. We will have tailored each event to the client with about eight items on the agenda and that will be a combination of going through the relevant showcases and meeting some of the clever people on site – we have 3,000 scientists and developers on the park so if it is appropriate we can call on the experts to meet the customers and answer any questions.

“The showcases are aligned to key vertical sectors so we can show them specific areas that would work for them, or solutions we have to areas they have told us they are interested in.

“On some occasions we can also take them to see the network testbed – where we have £500m worth of equipment – and there really is no better place to get the look and feel and actually touch the stuff. But the main principle we use is to let them see the benefit first and then, if they like it, we can talk about the technology behind it, rather than blowing their minds with RFID (radio frequency identification) for example.

“There is never a one size fits all; each showcase has between 25-30 triggers of technological opportunity so that’s a lot to take in. It’s far better to focus on a few key things. Having said that some customers say ‘show me lots and lots’ while others prefer a deep dive into just a few things.”

As well as showcasing existing and emerging products and services from BT, Steve also welcomes input from a worldwide scouting community which has representatives in Silicon Valley, Japan and Israel, for example, all seeking out new ideas and opportunities which could potentially be included in the showcases. He is also keen to champion new products coming from non-BT companies at Adastral Park.

“It adds to the whole richness of the customer experience,” said Steve, “and we are very happy to share good ideas. I am completely agnostic about what goes into the showcases, the thinking being that is it’s all about sharing ideas.

“There is a real benefit for some of our start-ups on the park for their product to be included in the showcase because it gives them our stamp of approval and exposes them to those 200 events we organize for the decision makers in major blue chip companies or government organisations which is fantastic exposure.”

And while Steve and his team facilitate all this, he is keen to point out that none of them are salespeople.

“The way I run the events and my team is not a sales pitch and none of the people that engage with the customers are selling; they are there to work with the customer in a consultative discussion that tends to uncover ideas and opportunities and that’s really important.”

Once a customer sees something they would like to develop, further visits and a hothouse exercise is organized before Steve’s applied technology team get involved to help embed the new technology into the customer’s processes.

“It’s excellent to see something from idea to inception, it really is great.

“It changes people’s perception of BT. The most common statement from customers is ‘I didn’t know BT did that’ and I would say there is a perception shift in 99% of the people who come through here and experience the showcases and it is really rewarding to share the breadth of what we do.

“It might be that people go away and take a year to come back but that’s ok and I would be happy to see a customer and help introduce something that would benefit their business. It might not benefit BT financially but it will give them a good feeling about BT and that BT is here to help and support.”

‘Everyday I learn something new’

Steve Kempt has spent his career with BT, starting 30 years ago as a sales manager before moving to product development and marketing.

Along the way he was responsible for launching the 1571 service for the UK – the free answering service that still serves millions of customers. “The strongest word in marketing is ‘free’” he says, “and I knew we would sign up the millions of customers we did and the benefits were huge for the customers and for BT, so that was good.”

He has also introduced contact centres, his mantra as ever being finding a solution to a public demand.

Today, as well as managing the customer showcases, Steve also runs a platform for the world economic forum, a social networking site with 25,000 members, which is hosted by BT in London.

He has been based at Adastral for the past six years and says he loves being on the park.

“When I used to run a product group, I wouldn’t deploy anything onto the BT network until I had put it on the test bed here so I have always been huge advocate of this place because as an internal client I always used it. I really am proud of the people here because their knowledge is second to none. What you can’t buy easily in the world is knowledge and there are lots of hugely clever people here who have been in the business a long time and we can give our customers interaction with that knowledge which is so important.”