back to article BT announces Gavin Patterson to become ex-CEO

Hard pressed BT boss Gavin Patterson has agreed to leave the telco after five years in the role, with the group citing a "need for a change of leadership" following disappointing results and a flagging share price. Patterson will exit later this year, with the board having already begun a search for his successor. Last month …

  1. Aitor 1

    Something is wrong.

    If you decide to fire your CEO and at the same time he gets a bonus, something is wrong, both things should not happen at the same time.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Devil

      Re: Something is wrong.

      Welcome to the CEO world, were pink unicorns farting rainbow money actually do exist...

      1. Matt Ryan

        Re: Something is wrong.

        And despite his ejection from BT, he'll be exactly the right person to lead some other telco into ruin. Of course, he'll probably drain a few 10s millions of pounds from the next one before he is booted again.

        1. tmTM

          Re: Something is wrong.

          Maybe if they hadn't wasted Billions chasing football rights their bottom line might look better?

      2. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

        Re: Something is wrong.

        pink unicorns farting rainbow money actually do exist

        But I want royal-blue unicorns! Make it happen immediately!

        So what if it costs £200m? My needs are paramount..

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          "But I want royal-blue unicorns! Make it happen immediately!"

          For that you need to be part of those families who clawed power in some usually cruel ways centuries ago, and deceived others to believe they have a right to be considered above others just because of the family they are born in - still in the XXI century.

          Of course if you're a second class actress still young and appealing enough you get a chance to get your royal-blue unicorn, and also a large crowd of idiots cheering at you and believing you're a great woman because of that.... #metoo, empowered working woman and STEM studies my ass!

          All of that while a lot of people vote against those nasty "elites" - just to drool in front of the very epitome of them.

          Elite, after all, are bad only if you don't belong to one. People just look for an easy way to become part of one, usually one that don't imply hard work but just some form of bribery...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Something is wrong.

      The terminology is "Golden Parachute" and, unfortunately, their insertion during contract negotiation is all too common.

  2. djstardust

    BT

    Thing is, if they tried actually being nice to their customers they might get more business.

    They need to get above the broadband rat race and stand out.

    No more discounted 12 month contracts that double after the first year

    No more stupid introductory prices for new customers whilst the current ones get increases

    No more false promises about broadband speeds

    No more rip-off out of contract costs on BT Mobile

    No more line rental increases to pay for the sport that most users don't want

    And on it goes.

    BT have become a toxic company like M&S and BA and it's going to take a lot of work to get customer confidence back.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: BT

      Thing is though they don't need to, unless you have cable or use mobile broadband you are indirectly paying BT anyway.

      1. Aladdin Sane

        Re: BT

        Isn't most mobile backhaul BT? Not to mention EE.

  3. adam payne

    Simply changing the CEO isn't going to work. Fundamental changes to the way BT conducts it's business and treats it's customer needs to happen.

    How about not having to pay so much into your line rental slush fund?

    How about not going cap in hand to the government to get your hands on taxpayers money so we can pay for upgrades to your network?

    Maybe even improve your tech support?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "How about not having to pay so much into your line rental slush fund?"

      *what* fund? Openreach charge about 90 quid a year for wholesale line rental, if I remember correctly. All the ISPs, including BT Retail, make a point of marking this up by about double.

      This is done because it simply isn't realistic to offer broadband for a fiver a month - it costs more, and line rental masks that cost. There are ISPs who place almost no markup on the phone service - but their broadband costs a hell of a lot more than the big boys.

      Openreach has "broadband only" service in the works - it's called SoGEA. I would not expect an 18.99 a month saving once you can get it, though.

      FWIW, Virgin does precisely the same thing, and their service has nothing to do with BT or Openreach infrastructure. They do offer broadband only service, but the price is almost the same as BB + phone.

      "How about not going cap in hand to the government to get your hands on taxpayers money so we can pay for upgrades to your network?"

      But then you would moan because you're still on dialup. Rural broadband is expensive and hard - and if Openreach didn't do it, few others would - and especially not without subsidy.

      1. julian_n

        A&A offer Broadband only - £10 pm - but on a TalkTalk backhaul.

        1. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

          A&A offer Broadband only - £10 pm - but on a TalkTalk backhaul.

          A&A have got a lot more clout than you or I to kick TT up the backside if standards slip.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          A&A offer Broadband only - £10 pm - but on a TalkTalk backhaul.

          Are you sure you don't mean "phone only" - A&A and 'cheap broadband' simply don't go together, even if they are using TT Wholesale.

          They are the ISP I was thinking of when I said "some providers don't mark it up". But 35 quid a month for ADSL and 200GB of usage is not exactly great value for money, and for reasons unknown, you don't actually get a phone service, which is rather odd when Openreach charge about that much for an actual phone service with the ability to make and receive calls.

          (yes, yes, you can quote XKCDs all you like - the fact is that A&A are obscenely expensive and not necessarily technically better than say BT - though the customer service will be superior)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @ Adam Payne

      "How about not going cap in hand to the government to get your hands on taxpayers money so we can pay for upgrades to your network?"

      Where the Government gives away national infrastructure for a quick lump of cash to give high earners a "much needed tax break" then all sucessive Governments are going to have to keep proping them up forever.

      Captive audiences rarely get any say and you can see it in every privitased industry, free hand in the citizens pocket with public fund availible everytime they grab too much.

      Fact is that if they had not given our stuff to the people who already had more than enough to live then we would all be paying less tax, and our fellow citizens would not now be starving in the streets.

      Look at you council tax, if the local councils had not been forced to give away the housing we all paid for then they would have money coming from places other than directly from the taxpayers pocket each month. I could go on but privisation of essential infrastructure never benefits the majority of citizens, only those who grab the quick profit which they then have to pay back over and again if they live in this country.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm sure he's thinking...

    "...I got a lot less hassle flogging shampoo for a living."

    1. Commswonk

      Re: I'm sure he's thinking...

      "...I got a lot less hassle flogging shampoo for a living."

      I'm sure he's hoping for something like this obligatory Dilbert: http://dilbert.com/strip/1992-08-27. All it needs is the name changing.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm sure he's thinking...Wash and Go.

      Gavin (hand swooshes hair)

      "Take two bottlenecks FTTC and Pointless G.fast from the shower of shit (BT)?"

      I'd simply rather take 2 in 1, FTTP. Job Done.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "...I got a lot less hassle flogging shampoo for a living."

    Hair today, gone tomorrow

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Hair today, gone tomorrow

      Well, it needs to be gone. Gavin Patterson's hair is a crime against humanity, and you have to wonder how BT's board originally thought that somebody who wasn't even competent to commission a decent hairstyle would cope with the decisions needed to run a big company.

      For those unfamiliar with the facts of this case, and the heinous nature of Patterson's mop, a google image search quickly returns multiple evidence that the man needs to be dragged to military barber's for a squaddie regulation haircut (and then made to eat the hair clippings).

      1. Commswonk

        ...the man needs to be dragged to military barber's for a squaddie regulation haircut...

        Ah yes; the famous tale (probably not aprocryphal) about the RSM inspecting some squaddies prior to some major parade: Am I hurting you laddie? I ought to be because I'm standing on your hair.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    To be fair...

    ...he has better hair than his fellow Pantene Mafia mate John Petter, who was the first of them to fall on his sword at BT.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: To be fair...

      To be fair......he has better hair than his fellow Pantene Mafia mate John Petter

      Au contraire, Patterson has MORE hair than Petter, but he doesn't have better hair. I can't think of any big company exec with worse hair than Patterson. You can only imagine what goes on in the Patterson household bathroom each morning as he sees himself in the mirror:

      "Good morning, me"

      "Good morning you, you handsome, stylish dog, you! I'll bet the ladies will be after you today"

      "I'm sure they will Gav, I'm sure they will"

      "They don't say you look like George Clooney for nothing!"

      "Of course they don't Gav! The old dog's still got it, eh?"

      "Too right, Gav, you're The Man"

      "And clever with it..."

      "Of course old boy, you've a stellar reputation with all your former colleagues, and now you're a FTSE 100 CEO. The non-exec gravy train beckons! But before that let's get PLENTY of "product" into that crowning glory, eh?"

      "Too right, handsome, I've got four jars here just for today's application"

      "Well good luck today, you old dog. Don't forget to shower in Old Spice! And get the chauffeur to play the BeeGees on the way into work"

      "Pippip old bean!"

  7. Bert 1
    FAIL

    What they need is...

    What they need is one phone number where you can contact one person on a help desk who will log a fault and see it though to resolution.

    What they have is multiple phone numbers (take your pick), with people at the other end trained to say:

    "Ah, you've come through to department A, you need to speak to Department B on this phone number."

    "Ah, you've come through to department B, you need to speak to Department C on this phone number."

    "Ah, you've come through to department C, you need to speak to Department A on this phone number."

    Sometimes, just for shits and giggles, the department list is longer. I've set aside whole afternoons to (fail to) resolve issues with BT.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Now is the time to take take back the network or loose it like ARM

    Just adding this so that when all the shareholders rush to sell our infrastructure I can say I told you so.

    That anyone buying shares in BT is self selected to put their own benefit before the country's should be obvious to all, given that is precisely what they did to get those shares in the first place.

  9. StuntMisanthrope

    Donations for the Gite Fund!

    So to recap, free broadcasting centre, paid for by us,

    OpenReach a shambles and still notspots everywhere, zero sign of any innovation, bills still being received for properties with other geographical numbers, no open mesh network which has been through at least 4 names and with routers everywhere, losing margin share by a BT:NPower factor and Jobs binned/prices to keep bonus ratio above, cricked my neck and the ruining of Plusnet who cannot bill two business circuits to the same address concurrently. #imightevenbuyashare

    1. StuntMisanthrope

      Re: Donations for the Gite Fund!

      I’ll hold the record for new leased fibre provisioning in central London. Nearly 5 years and a had to social engineer the subcontractor to get half a circuit BTW

  10. Anonymous IV
    Thumb Up

    All praise to The Independent

    Headline from their story on 10th May:

    "You're the BT boss: how do you fix the company? Fire yourself or fire 13,000 colleagues?"

    It took a month, but it happened! The article is well worth a read, even now.

  11. Ken Moorhouse Silver badge

    The boss of a company I used to work for...

    ...announced one day that he needed to speak to BT about various changes he wanted to make to his telecomms.

    So he rang them up and after placing an order for the first thing on his list he said Ok that's all and terminated the call. I reminded him that he wanted to speak to them about other things too, to which his response was "BT can only deal with one thing at a time, if you place multiple orders they will invariably get them wrong." He was spot on about that one, in my experience.

    --

    One of the craziest sets of conversations I have ever had with BT was concerning a customer of mine who had placed an order for Broadband. On the day following the appointed date of go-live, the router (supplied by BT) was still not indicating a broadband signal. I rang them and after several conversations it was apparent that there was no order on their system for broadband. Yet the customer had received a router with correct delivery details on the delivery label. Eventually the problem was resolved, the broadband sprang into action (well, it worked satisfactorlly at least), and I heard nothing more from the client... until shortly after the anniversary of installation. "Broadband's not working." So I went down there and did the usual checks: no broadband.

    Rang BT and it was a total déjà vu experience. There was no order on their system for broadband. "But it's been working fine for a year". At which point a light-bulb appeared above my client's head. "Do you know what? I've never seen a bill for broadband come to think of it."

    He had had a whole year of broadband (and a free router) at no cost. He then signed up with a different provider who confirmed to him that there was no broadband on the line, so there would be no migration issues.

    No wonder BT have problems.

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