BTIC appoints Jon Lane
New boss of telco's direct arm pledges to focus on support tools and MATP scheme
BT has named Jon Lane as the new director at BT Indirect Channels (BTIC), following Mark Hollister's departure in June.
Lane was formerly founding director of BT corporate sales at BT Business, where he was one of the key drivers behind Managing Accounts Through Partners (MATP) - a programme to drive more BT sales through the channel.
He said: "I was very happy running the corporate mid-market segment for BT's direct business, but this is a great time to move into the [BTIC] job."
Lane added that he wants to improve channel support. "If I'm a busy sales guy at a VAR, there's a lot more BT could be doing to make me more effective," he said.
The main areas Lane will focus on will be improving support tools, continuing MATP and communicating BTIC's product range to VARs.
Chris Jagusz, chapter manager at BTIC, stepped into Hollister's position while a replacement was found. Hollister is on gardening leave until the end of this year, and is believed to have been hired by Carphone Warehouse.
John Carter, managing director of distributor DMSL, welcomed the new appointment, but said BT had to reinvent itself.
"Profit has to come from other areas than engineers and lines. It's a big culture shock for it," he said.
"It had to implement MATP because it has to move from direct to indirect sales."
Lane admitted BT has room for improvement. "We're learning from what we did last year and we're going to improve," he said.
Last year, MATP put accounts worth £36m into the hands of eight partners. Earlier this year BT added £200m of accounts and eight more partners to the scheme.