Bill Murphy
BT Business
Managing Director

What's my job...

Bill Murphy, managing director of BT Business, the United Kingdom’s largest business telecommunications operator, talks us through a trajectory that took him from teacher training to the cutting edge of the telecomms industry

Bill Murphy is a personable man. He speaks with an engaging mid-Atlantic drawl, the result of many years’ continent-hopping; and his ideas and observations are expressed with the skill of a born communicator. Talking to Bill is a bit like talking to a seasoned college professor or don. So it’s not that surprising to learn that he began his trip to the top at teacher training college in the United States.

“I think that teaching as a career is hugely demanding,” he says with a smile. “It’s as simple as this: I didn’t feel I was as good as I needed to be to continue.”

It is this uncompromising attitude that has underpinned Bill Murphy’s career and taken him from the Liberal Arts College where he graduated in history and education, to managing director of BT Business, a role that he has occupied for the last two years.

“I had a lot of different jobs coming out of university. I was coming into the job market in 1980 at an interesting time. Although my background wasn’t in technology, the emerging IT industry was a fascinating world.

“Deregulation was coming in and there were opportunities opening up for people like me to get trained and get into the industry.”

The sales route was a good means of getting a foothold in the industry and provided an environment well tailored to Bill Murphy’s appetite for success.

“Sales represents a dynamic place to work. Every day you win and lose. And while there is always that element of luck – I have seen talented, smart people drop by the wayside – I think the real secret to success is simply working hard. There is no short cut.

“If there is one thing I learned as part of my sales training, I guess it would be listening. You really have to listen to what you are told, in order to make the right decision.”

Bill started his career as a ‘sales guy’ in New York’s Bronx and Queens districts. In 1988 he was hired by BT, the United Kingdom’s biggest telecommunications company, to run its New York sales office. He transferred to the United Kingdom in the late 80s to head up its international sales team.

Bill then took over BT's institutional finance sales sector team, where his customer base included all the major finance companies in the City of London. He then moved to head corporate sales, dealing with all of the major businesses in the UK. After a successsful run there, he headed up BT Enterprise - a group of seven stand alone businesses with a combined turnover of 2 billion pounds.

In the last two years Bill has taken over as managing director of BT Business. His organisation serves the needs of small and medium-sized companies in the UK, providing everything from traditional telephony services and mobile technology to Internet access and Web-based services. BT Business has roughly 1.5 million customers, representing a cross-section of business: from start-ups and 'micro-businesses' (with one to 10 employees) to established small businesses (10-250 employees) and medium sized businesses (250-500 employees).

His two decades at the top of his game in the industry have been full of change, challenge and variety.

“One of the great things about working in this industry is that you are never far behind what is going on. The main thing is to be hungry for knowledge and willing to change when you have to.

“My career maps to the beginning of the IT industry as we now know it. When I began we were working with Telex. The Internet revolutionised the way we communicate. The fundamentals of communication don’t really change – it’s the means we have of communicating.

“A phrase I like is being ‘limited by your imagination’. We have come a long way since the early days, but we are still not exploiting what’s possible and what might yet be to come. One of the most exciting things in the field I work in is convergence – seamless services. Unified communications, IP networks, mobile networks – new services need to be created. The Internet used to be a means of getting things, now it is part of things. So we need to be better connected, more productive.

He adds: “After the dot com crash we had time to reassess. Now I believe there is more potential than I have seen in many years.

“Networks, individuals, organisations all need to collaborate more. But the possibilities are endless; mind-boggling. This is an exciting time to be in IT and network services.”

And for those starting out in a career in IT: a word of advice?

“I’ve been lucky. I started out as a young salesman in ITT. I guess I was in the right place at the right time. But my lucky break really came because I was prepared to put in one more call at the end of a long day on a dormant account.

“That call meant that that account grew into a large account for ITT. It launched my career.

“My advice to people starting out today is really very simple: be prepared to work hard; never give up; persevere and be tenacious.”

The kind of good advice you might well expect to hear from a good teacher or an experienced lecturer, after all. And if things hadn’t gone so well in IT, is there a career that Bill Murphy would have found as rewarding?

“That’s an easy one – centre-field for the New York Yankees,” he laughs. “Though it’s not as different as you might think. You need optimism and enthusiasm to make it in baseball and to make it in telecomms. After all, in both worlds, you get challenged every day.”

Bill Murphy was talking to Aine Doris.

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