“ We have people that run the accounts-facing Army , Navy , Air Force and Strategic Command – the four key pillars of the MoD ; we ' re not just focused on a centralised part of defence ”
JONATHAN COLE DIRECTOR , DEFENCE , BT
BT ’ s defence security strategy and how it excels in its approach Strategically , BT is working very closely with , and gaining an understanding of , the MoD Chief Information Security Officer ' s strategy , as well as aligning itself with the policies and protocols of the National Cyber Security Centre . This is so that they can ensure that they are firstly , compliant , but also that their customer has confidence in the services and products that they provide : protecting data and making it available for those that need it in order to conduct their operations .
“ We work very closely with BT ’ s security team ,” says Cole . “ There is a whole operating division inside BT who actually look after security for all sorts of organisations , globally . It ' s not just defence for whom security is important , so the MoD is , in many ways , mirroring some of the really good practices in other sectors .”
BT ’ s vertical business unit and its ramifications for defence Cole expresses that , during his time in defence , they had a really 2D model where , in many ways , the single services were more powerful than the individual functions within BT .
“ My observation in my last two or three years in the MoD was that it was , however , shifting to an increasingly functional model
– although it still retains a very strong , singleservice organisational approach ( Army , Navy , Air Force and Strategic Command ).
“ By contrast , at BT , I ' ve observed that , while we have our own Chief Executive Officers for each of the customer-facing units – such as inside BT Enterprise ( where I work ), BT Consumer and BT Global , as well as BT Openreach , which is separate for regulatory reasons – the other customerfacing units , the enabling organisations for digital technology , and the corporate sections have a really strong functional model thread running throughout them .
“ What this means for me is that I ' m able to pull from a best-of-class team of people who are doing programme-delivery and excellence . Another area would be our Operations Team who are , I believe , a real centre of excellence for best practice , not just across the defence customer but all of our customers . This means that I ' m supported by leaders in each of those functions to deliver specialist advice , products and services to my defence customers .”
“ The trick is to make sure that I collaborate closely with the Directors of those functions so that we share a collective sense . This means that people are supported by their function , but also that they have a sense of ownership and equity in our outputs and outcomes – and I have the privilege to be able to coordinate those activities .” technologymagazine . com 105