BT - Beware the Friday afternoon call

(By Richard Holway) Can I suggest that, if you know any senior executives at BT Global Services, you refrain from calling them this afternoon to arrange to go to that football match on Saturday afternoon. On the BT concall yesterday, new BTGS CEO Hanif Lalani told analysts how he had arranged to call all senior managers every Friday afternoon for an update on their cost cutting programme. If he didn't get the answers he expected, he would personally call again on Saturday afternoon and again on Sunday. Last Friday was the first call and £20m operational savings were identified on top of the savings from the jobs cull announced.

Tough times call for tough actions and all that.