BT Japan becomes our newest Platinum member

We are delighted to announced that BT Japan has become the newest Platinum member of the BCCJ. BT Japan joins GSK and RBS in the highest level of BCCJ membership.

British Telecom (BT) was founded in 1981 by the British as a public corporation, but its origins go back to the Electric Telegraph company founded in the 1840s, making it the world’s oldest communications company. Now a plc, it works in more than 170 countries and employees almost 90,000 people worldwide.

BT Japan is part of BT Global Services and has been doing business in Japan since 1985, with BT Japan proud to be the first foreign telecom company to have its office in Tokyo.

In 2012, BT were the first ever official communications services partner for a summer Olympic and Paralympic games. Over one million man-hours were spent on ensuring the 27,500 journalists and 14,700 athletes could share their stories via a network which combined voice and data communications. There were also more than 5,000 hours of live coverage available to broadcasters around the world. Around 850 staff were available around the clock during the Games itself, although the network went live in 2010 to ensure it was ready by the time the event began.

The huge project won the Project of the Year award at the 2013 World Communications Awards. “[BT] designed and delivered a single integrated voice and data communications network. Seven times the bandwidth for Beijing, it carried every official photograph and sports report, millions of phone calls, emails, texts and tweets from journalists, organisers and competitors,” said the citation.

BT currrently offer a range of services in Japan, including BT Contact, which offers complete contact management solutions; BT Compute, which offers IT services; BT Connect, which provides network services; BT Advise, which aims to boost operational efficiency; BT Assure, which offers security and risk management; BT Trace, which provides supply chain solutions; BT One, which provides Unified Communications and Mobility Services, which aim to improve productivity and enable better customer service.

BT, which is currently the world’s third largest provider of cloud services, was awarded the Best Managed Service Provider title at the 2013 Telecom Asia Awards – the fourth year in a row it has won this award.

“BT Japan is going through an exciting transformation with a philosophy of ‘Bringing it all together’ at the heart of what we do. Building on 29 years’ experience in the Japanese market, we are transforming how we serve our customers. We have invested in our portfolio, as well as our people, ensuring we have unique sector expertise in place to address the specific needs of our customers. We are very confident and excited about the future for BT Japan and how we can help our domestic and global customers thrive in this market,” said Haruno Yoshida, Managing Director, BT Japan

Meet our other Platinum members

RBS‘s history in Japan dates back to 1971 when National Westminster Bank (NatWest), a leading UK financial institution, opened a Tokyo Office. As RBS acquired NatWest Group in 2000 and their business of National Westminster Bank Tokyo Branch, The Royal Bank of Scotland plc Tokyo Branch started its operation in 2001. Also the bank is operating trade finance, Deposit, remittance business following business transfer from ABN Amro Bank N.V. Tokyo Branch. As RBS acquired NatWest Group in 2000 and their business of Greenwich NatWest Securities Japan, RBS Securities Japan Limited started its operation in March 2001.

RBS provides the services under its two brands, The Royal Bank of Scotland plc, Tokyo branch and RBS Securities Japan Limited. The RBS group is a large international banking and financial services company. Headquartered in Edinburgh, the Group operates in the United Kingdom, Europe, the Americas and Asia, serving more than 40 million customers.

GSK Japan supports people’s health and well-being through its business in prescription pharmaceuticals, vaccines for disease prevention, over-the-counter (OTC) medication and other consumer related healthcare products.

GSK’s heritage company, Shin Nihon Jitsugyo K.K., a pharmaceutical import operation, was established in Japan in 1953, meaning that GSK has been serving Japanese society for almost 60 years.

In 2011 industry listings, GSK Japan ranked 9^th in terms of pharmaceutical sales, and currently supplies drugs to almost 23 million patients every year. GSK Japan’s pharmaceutical sales in 2011 amounted to 2.318 billion GBP, an increase of 28% from the previous year.

About 3,500 employees work for GSK Japan – among which, 1,900 are medical representatives, stationed throughout the country, who deliver pharmaceutical information to medical professionals. The second largest team is the R&D division, with about 700 people involved in bringing new drugs to, and meeting unmet medical needs within, Japanese society.

The BCCJ would like to thank GSK and RBS for their valuable contribution so far, and welcome BT Japan to our Platinum ranks!

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To find out more about Platinum membership, which is available at the discretion of the Executive Committee, please email [email protected]