Preparing Digitel for Tomorrow

*This case has been designed for iCreate 2015 and is for illustrative purposes only.

45-year old Chandrika Banerjee looked back at her one week at Digitel. She had taken over as Senior
Vice-President of Human Resources on 20th August, succeeding Saurabh Goyal, a 21-year veteran of the
company. Chandrika arranged a few personal mementos on her desk along with a big box of barfi and
invited everyone to stop by and say hello. In her first week, she spent a considerable amount of time
with the HR Leadership Team, and she could feel the sense of pride they had about the contribution of
HR in the last 3 years. Digitel had achieved a commendable employee engagement score of 90th
percentile in 2014, an attrition that was 2 percentage points lower than the industry average, and had
won several accolades including the Great Places to Work Award in 2013.
Yet, while the mood of the HR team had been upbeat, she wondered whether they could sustain with
the pace of change in the Telecom industry and with newer business priorities. Just yesterday, she had
had a disturbing conversation with the CEO where he indicated that employee performance needed to
improve by 25% to hit revenue and profitability targets of the company. Her meeting with the Digitel
Management Board (DMB) reinforced this feeling. The mandate for HR had indeed shifted.
Chandrika quickly put together a confidential memo for her HR Leadership Team:

To: HR Leadership Team

From: Chandrika E. Chakravorty
Date: 27th August 2015
Team,
At the DMB meeting yesterday, we recognized the dynamics of the Telecom industry and the need for
each of our functions to evolve accordingly. The HR team too must re-calibrate its efforts. I am sharing
with you some excerpts from our meeting yesterday.

Pranav Rao, CEO:

As we look at growing through new products and services, the implications from a talent perspective are
many. Pursuing growth strategies like ours often requires scaling up our existing talent, and developing
and retaining a workforce on short notice in a highly demanding and competitive market.
S Ganesh, Market Operations Head:
With the explosive growth in data consumption across 2G, 3G, 4G and fixed broadband, we need a laserlike focus on rolling out data and digital industry-first initiatives. We need to build capabilities in these
areas (data and digital) to fuel this growth to over 100% y-o-y. Which means we need to step up on
newer skills, we need a technology savvy front-end sales force, and to keep up with the pace of growth,
we need to remove bottlenecks in the talent pipeline.
Paul Avari, Customer Service Head:
I agree with Ganesh. Our workforce is ill-prepared to make Digitel a company of the future. I walked into
a retail store yesterday and the Customer Relationship Officer could not explain to me why 3G was not
working on a particular handset. HR must help accelerate our business strategy. We cannot have a
Hunger to win customers for life with a service team that cannot talk technology with our customers.
Shankar Lal, Marketing Head:
In the last 6 months or so, it feels like Digitel employees have been the most headhunted group in the
Telecom space. While we create brilliant opportunities and experiences for our employees, Im not sure
we do enough to ring-fence our best guys.
Rachna Mehta, Consumer Business Head:
The capabilities of our people are key drivers to our success. We need to be a strong supporter of
employee development. In a sector like telecom which is intensely dynamic, the HR job has changed
enormously. HR needs to teach employees how to continually learn and not just what to learn.
Employees must develop learning behaviors, and not just consume content.

Hari Singh, CFO:

HR programs can no longer be based on soft reasoning. We need it to be as analytical and data driven as
any other function.

Team, some of the above thoughts are widely agreed to be extremely important to the future of Digitel.
Weve come a long way, but there is more we can accomplish. Selling improvements and upgrades is no
longer sufficient, we need to focus on strategic outcomes. In fact, we must prioritize business impact.
I urge each of you to reflect on our role as a strategic partner and in building a future organization. To
start with, Id like each of you to put together a one page note on the current practices and efforts in
each of the verticals headed by you.
I will be presenting to the Board our Human Capital Strategy 2 months from now. I see this as a
wonderful opportunity for the HR team to define itself. Lets work on this together.
Best,
Chandrika

Questions:

What kind of talent does the organization need to realize its strategy? How can the organization
best attract this talent?

What should be Chandrikas early priorities? Draw up an HR Strategy for the company with specific
focus on talent management issues including capability building, rewards, knowledge management
and retention.

*Please be as specific to the case as possible.

Exhibit 1:
Critical Data roles in Digitel
A majority of the critical mobile data roles lie in the below 3 functions:
Marketing

Develop product portfolio

roadmap for mobile data growth

Develop methodology to
continuously generate, prioritize &
implement ideas for new data
products

Manage product launch life cycle,

monitor and evaluate
performance of existing product
base
Demonstrate knowledge of mobile
internet space, latest market,
competition, customer and
technology trends

Customer Service

Deliver best-in-class customer

usage experience on data
pertaining to GPRS, BlackBerry, 3G,
Data Cards and Broadband and
new technologies like LTE
Ensure end to end Data Service
Customer Support including new
technologies like 4G, Prepaid
Broadband and Wi-Fi
Managing Partner Engagement on
Data, New Technology Roll Outs,
and Control Data related Churn
and enhance adoption

Sales

Managing sales distribution

infrastructure and targets for data
products

MIS and performance

management including incentive
plans

Demonstrate detail product

knowledge, also knowledge of
data space, latest market
competition, customer and
technology trends

Exhibit 2:
Digitel Business Priorities: 2015-16

Exhibit 3:
Key Metrics in Inflow & Outflow of Talent

Telecom
IT
Other Industries
Freshers
DTH
MFG
BFSI
Consultancy

Industry-wise
sourcing analysis
34%
15%
12%
10%
7%
6%
5%
3%

Others

Not available

8%

FY14-15

Industry-wide
attrition analysis
39%
8%
14%
NA
2%
4%
3%
_
eCommerce - 8%
FMCG - 3%
Higher studies /
sabbatical - 3%
7%

Age on
Network
0-6 Months
7-12 Months
13-24
Months
25 - 36
Months
37-48
Months
> 48 Months

FY 14-15
Annualized
Attrition
14.4%
14.9%
20.6%
19.6%
23.0%
13.3%

Exhibit 4:
Managing Talent at Digitel
Philosophy: One View of Talent which focuses on four critical aspects: holistic performance dialogues,
structured development and performance differentiation.

Greater ownership by
leaders

Structured Development
process

One view of talent Through Talent Councils

(involvement of
stakeholders in
performance discussion
of an individual)

Career Acceleration
program For High
potential employees

Ring fencing talent

Differential rewards
program for High
Potential employees

Learning Academies
(Structured programs)
For all leadership roles
Functional ownership of
talent through
invovement of leaders in
Functional L&D Strategy

Career progression
(Defining critical
experiences an invidual
must gain to grow in an
organization)

One time salary

correction for people
with a very low 'Range
Placement'

Holistic Feedback

Comprehensive
performance & career
dialogues with all
employees
Feedback sessions to
happen post talent
councils to ensure the
same

Institutionalizing the Career Path Framework:

Career paths in Digitel were last reviewed in 2012. Special focus was given to cross functional/business
movements. The framework was designed in a way that enabled learning movements for critical roles in
the organization especially in functions like Sales, Marketing & Customer Service.

Workshops
Special Projects woven
into learning agenda

Digitel Wall to share

Success Stories
Communication

Articulate
Career Path
Framework

Linked to
Learning Needs
for Future Roles

Career&
Development
Conversations

Review Career Path Principles

Focus on critical roles across
functions

Map employees aspirations

on online Performance
Management System

Exhibit 5:
Digitels Learning Practices
The Learning strategy encompasses two broad themes:
a) Building functional capabilities (skills for current role)
b) Building leadership capabilities (skills for future roles)

Category

Functional

Frontline and Junior

Management

Middle Management
Senior Management

Basic Skills

Advanced functional skills

Best in Class Practices

Capability Building

Anchored on the competencies defined by band/ level

Behavioral /

Competencies for success

Develop competencies

Inspiring organization/ functions

Leadership
Capability Building

Building skills for

in others

Success in my
Current Role
(functional)

Success in
Future Roles

Category

Frontline and Junior

Middle Management

Senior Management

Sales University

ZBM* Academy:

Leadership in Action

(Structured programs

To prepare Zonal Sales Managers for the

(Short courses on Functional

on relevant sales

next level role (Zonal Business Manager)

Leadership typically held at Ivy

competencies: Channel

though a structured 6 month

League schools)

partner management,

intervention involving on-the-job

Ways of working, Retail

projects, leadership workshops and

excellence etc. Mix of

mentoring by senior leaders

Management
Functional

elearning and
workshops)
Similar universities on
Marketing, Network
and Finance
Behavioral

*Zonal Business Manager

People Manager Programs

Key Programs around:

- Leadership for Organization
Impact
- Global Leadership Programs (for
senior leaders)

10

Exhibit 6:
Rewards at Digitel
Context & Voice of Business

Rewards

I am energized &

Priorities

connected

Losing talent to

Key Talent

competition

Retention

Retention plans & ring-fencing

correction linked to

measures (e.g. Deferred Cash

Market Benchmarks

plans) for key talent

(Particularly in high

Compensation Analytics -

attrition functions)

Salary Course correction

for Top Performers in

One time Salary

I have a future here

Variable Pay

Compa-Ratio (Quartile 1)

Variable Pay Framework: Each Business Unit is allocated a

bonus pool from which the Business head can distribute endof-year bonus payouts. The objective is to empower business

by allowing a discretion of +/- 10% on an Individual bonus

Need for greater

amounts

empowerment w.r.t. pay,

promotions and hiring

Sales Incentive Plan: target setting, pay mix & SIP boosters
(Differentiated SIP payouts for top performers)

decisions
Specialist Career
Track

Compensation for specialist jobs (career/ retention

proposition)

11