BT and Deloitte to provide RFID infrastructure implementation solutions



-/June 25, 2004 - Wi-Fi Technology News/-Deloitte and BT announced a new collaboration to ease the path to successful adoption of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology for global customers in the food, beverage and wider consumer products sector. BT and Deloitte believe this collaboration will reduce project risks, reduce the costs of adoption and help clients drive substantial business benefits in handling efficiencies and enhanced traceability throughout the supply chain.

Before today, large corporates looking to implement RFID have needed to engage both a consultancy and a niche integrator. This has lead to confusion and a proliferation of proprietary technology. With highly complementary skills, we believe that Deloitte and BT will provide consumer goods companies with more affordable, scalable and reliable RFID solutions than any other implementation partner. These solutions will be based on open EPC global standards.

Deloitte and BT will be offering an RFID discovery programme, typically a short fixed price project to determine Return on Investment (ROI) for implementing RFID, evaluate alternative technology solutions, develop a technology roadmap and build an implementation plan. The collaboration will also focus on helping manufacturers comply with the RFID mandates from leading grocery retailers such as Wal-Mart, Tesco and Metro in a way that offers a positive business case and delivers value to stakeholders in the supply chain.

Lawrence Hutter, European head of consumer business at Deloitte commented: "This collaboration sends a strong signal to our customer base and the marketplace. BT has over 100 years of RF engineering experience, a track record in deploying large scale infrastructure for corporates, and has invested in building the Auto-ID platform – a shared infrastructure specifically designed to manage RFID data incorporating middleware and Savant technology. BT's deep RFID knowledge also allows them to recommend the right tagging, reader and middleware solutions for each customer. The combination of BT's international deployment capability through telecommunication partners, and Deloitte's strategic experience in business case development, process design, systems integration, and project and change management capabilities, creates a powerful new combination of skills which will help customers achieve a new level of competitive performance."

Ross Hall, CEO, BT Auto-ID Services commented: "The joint BT / Deloitte initiative will be especially attractive from an ROI perspective as the offer includes financing solutions that fund the implementation project – all the user pays is a monthly rental. This will be especially interesting to companies that are struggling to find the real business case based on more traditional project approaches or that are facing conflicts on investment priorities. Deloitte's standing in the consumer goods industry as advisers to many major European and global players, as well as their ability to provide a broad range of consulting solutions and ensure investments are handled in the most tax effective way, makes them the ideal partner for BT."

This new collaboration involves no equity or other form of investment.

About Deloitte
In this press release references to Deloitte are references to Deloitte & Touche LLP and its subsidiary Deloitte MCS Limited.

Deloitte & Touche LLP is the UK's fastest growing major professional services firm based in 21 UK locations, with over 10,000 staff nationwide and fee income of ?1,228 million in 2002/2003. It is a member of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, an organisation of member firms with access to the deep intellectual capital of 120,000 people in nearly 150 countries, delivering services in four professional areas: audit, tax, consulting and corporate finance.

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu is a Swiss Verein (association), and, as such, neither Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu nor any of its member firms has any liability for each other's acts or omissions. Each member firm is a separate and independent legal entity operating under the names "Deloitte", "Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu", or other, related names. The services described herein are provided by the member firms and not by the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Verein.

Deloitte & Touche LLP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
The information contained in this press release is correct at the time of going to press.

For further information, visit our website at http://www.deloitte.co.uk

About BT Auto-ID services
BT Auto-ID services is a specially formed business group within BT dedicated to new RFID services. BT offers customers live business control through unprecedented visibility of inventory and assets, by automating manual processes and facilitating collaboration between users and their suppliers. Customers can benefit from a fully managed service – BT creates applications for businesses which are easy to use and offer direct benefit by using its event management platform alongside RFID hardware.

For further information, visit our website at http://www.auto-id.bt.com

About BT
BT Group plc is the listed holding company for an integrated group of businesses providing voice and data services in the UK and overseas, particularly in Europe, but also in the Americas and the Asia Pacific region. British Telecommunications plc, a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc, holds virtually all businesses and assets of the BT group.

BT is one of Europe's leading providers of telecommunications services. Its principal activities include local, national and international telecommunications services, higher-value broadband and internet products and services, and IT solutions. In the UK, BT serves over 20 million business and residential customers with more than 29 million exchange lines, as well as providing network services to other licensed operators.

BT consists principally of three lines of business:

BT Retail, serving businesses and residential customers and including BT Openworld, one of the UK's leading ISPs.

BT Wholesale, providing network services and solutions within the UK, including ADSL, conveyance, transit, bulk delivery of private circuits, frame relay and ISDN connections.

BT Global Services, BT's managed services and solutions provider, serving multi-site organisations worldwide. Its core target market is the top 10,000 global multi-site organisations with European operations.

There are a number of other businesses within the BT group, including BT Exact, an internationally renowned centre of excellence in IT and networking technologies. It is also BT's technology and research and development business.

In the year ended 31 March 2004, BT's turnover was ?18,519million with profit before goodwill amortisation, exceptional items and taxation of ?2,016million.

Source: BT