UK businesses faced with telecomes headaches

Thousands of UK businesses were today engaged in a hunt for a new telecoms supplier after Cable & Wireless ditched them with 90 days notice.

Around 27,000 firms were left in the lurch when C&W revealed recently that it wanted to concentrate its operations on 3,000 more profitable corporate accounts, including clients such as the BBC, Tesco and National Grid.

C&W, which detailed the moves in a restructuring last week, said the rejected customers generated just 4% of its revenue in the UK – thought to be about £93m (€135.4m) of C&W’s £2.32bn (€3.4bn) UK turnover.

It gave them 90 days to switch to a different telecoms provider, sparking outrage among some businesses and a scramble among providers to win the work.

The British Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said it could cause problems with some companies struggling to change provider in time.

Today BT looked to capitalise on C&W’s decision, with BT Business managing director Bill Murphy declaring: “I can assure all businesses that BT still wants their custom.”

C&W today said its smaller customers would be better served by a different telecoms provider and added: “We are communicating with our customers about that.”

The decision to ditch most of its customers came with the warning that it could halve its workforce in the UK over the next five yeas.