How CICM helped to transform BT's Credit Management and Debt Collections Team
BT Group is an institution dating all the way back to 1846. Over the past 176 years, the company has made it its mission to connect people from around the world and bring them closer together. Whether it’s business or pleasure almost every home or office has a little white box hidden away that connects them to anyone and everyone at any time. So when a global pandemic shut the world down almost overnight, the ability to ‘connect’ became even more important, especially for those BT colleagues who no longer had an office watercooler to act as a mediator in casual conversation.
For Paul Fedarb ACICM, BT’s Interim Billings Director & Senior Manager of Global Wholesale Voice Settlement, bringing his team together became a top priority. his secret weapon turned out to be a programme he’d started in 2018 with his ‘dream team’ learning partner Abul Shahid, BT’s Learning and Development Group Customer Billing and Assurance Lead “The journey started in 2018,” he explains. “We had quite a bit of new talent joining after some organisational changes and our global teams started working closer together so I suggested to one of our directors that we start a new phase of studies with the CICM.”
Having never previously met nor worked with Abul, the two formed an effective ‘dream team’ almost immediately and with Paul having previously completed a CICM Level three qualification, he knew the value it could bring to his team.
“BT has had some 300 people go through the CICM learning structure and I completed mine five years ago,” he continues. “I was leading the Bill to Cash team and recognised that some additional learning was required to support the work we were doing. I studied and thankfully I qualified!”
Having been the student and now being a student sponsor, Paul decided to propose to his directors that a team-wide learning plan would be of benefit. This was based on his own experience, and the fact that throughout his studies he was continually learning new aspects of credit management.
“I knew credit control as an area, having worked in the billings space for a long time, and you often think you know everything. Then you end up on the course and discover that you don’t know everything at all. You know what you have learned within your own organisation and how they do things, whereas the CICM gives you a more general and unbiased foundation to work from. It helps you realise, with an almost ‘ah-ha’ moment why things work the way they do.”
After getting the go-ahead to move forward with his master plan and help train the new wave of talent, Paul leaned on Abul to kick things off.
“The first thing we had to do was reconnect with the CICM,” said Abul. “It had been three years since we had put anyone through a qualification, so initially we agreed on a budget to cover three years for 90 students coming from three key teams: India, Europe and UK & LATAM (Latin America). However, shortly after, COVID hit so we had to pare the numbers back to 45 across three cohorts of 15. Even though we had to reduce the numbers, that wasn’t going to stop us getting the most out of the programme as possible.”
One of the reasons for instigating the programme was the drive for BT to grow from within and champion its team members, or as Paul puts it, its ‘future leaders’.
“We aspire to have qualified people within our business, from all walks of life, and we do this to help create our future leaders. We believe that if you give people the tools, then they have the foundations they need for their future careers. We can teach them the management aspects, but a strong knowledge of their specialism is a real enabler.” After the programme started, the benefits were almost immediately realised. Abul and Paul noticed very quickly how happy and how dedicated to their studies the team were: “We were seeing some really high marks, around 90 percent or thereabouts, and those students still wanted to achieve higher. The passion was incredible to see,” Abul continues.
But something Paul and Abul didn’t bank on was how impactful the course would be on BT’s teams across the world. From the outset, the pair pushed for the course to be global and to incorporate teams in multiple different territories. “Paul really pushed for global cohorts,” said Abul. “We have people from UK, Brazil, Budapest, Spain, Italy and India, this is something that doesn’t happen that often and we could see that clearly by how excited the students were. It’s something that makes me really happy to see and be a part of.
“I have to give Paul credit as well,” he adds. “It’s refreshing to see a Senior Manager as involved with the learning as he is. I think it’s one of the reasons the students are so passionate.”
Over the course of the programme both Paul and Abul have seen motivation levels increase, and Abul credits this to the culture of personal investment that the course has created: “Our learners are feeling valued. They’re seeing a giant global corporation putting real money into their career and their future, and it’s driving them forward.”
As for Paul, he has seen the benefits from a business performance perspective, in the way that the wider teams interact. With a global pandemic grounding all flights, the CICM course enabled team members to connect outside of day-today operations and discuss a shared experience, of learning something new
“Looking at it from a business model perspective, you have a mixture of people in a class, most of whom had never met before or even realised the team existed. They’re now having joint classes every two weeks which has engendered this ‘oh I know that person’ attitude and that’s opened people’s eyes to team opportunities.
“Equally, as a business that strives to be sustainable and culturally diverse, the course has enabled people to build digital connections, made Online/Video learning the norm, and introduced people from around the world to their colleagues.” So not only did the course allow the team members to learn something new and progress, the CICM course has brought Paul and the wider Bill to Cash teams closer together and improved business functionality. As well as forming an unstoppable dream team in Paul and Abul!
