What we truly celebrate at Airtel

Last week, we announced our Q4 and annual financial results to the market, and followed through with the earnings call for investors. The press and social media carried the details of the financial performance, and the stock market reacted by giving a thumbs up. Internally, our employees gathered for an 'Open House' at Airtel Centre in our Gurgaon campus, and thousands of them viewed the event remotely on their screens. Our CFO, Badal Bagri made a brief presentation on the results. Followed by an interactive session with our MD & CEO, Gopal Vittal. And, then the most eagerly awaited session - the quarterly recognitions.

What do we truly recognize and celebrate at Airtel every quarter ? Financials ? Stock market reactions ? No. On the contrary, we have a very unique 'Airtel' set of rituals. We call out those employees or teams of employees, who demonstrated highest levels of commitment to certain behaviors that we hold very dear in our hearts. Let me share a few real examples of recognitions that we proudly celebrated last week.

Customer Centricity

Animesh Mishra and Lalatendu Das from West Bengal demonstrated true Airtel values by handing over a bag of cash to a customer who had left it in one of our Retail Stores. The customer was visibly moved by the act of honesty.

Ankit Gupta, Uday Singh Rathore and Atul in our Bihar Circle were recognized for their extraordinary effort in providing last-mile RF connectivity to enable Wi-Fi services in 307 colleges within a record time. The Bihar CM inaugurated the facilities on the stipulated date, and students and teachers are benefitting the most.

Johnson Thomas and Minaxi Soni from Gujarat Circle went beyond the call of duty and activated international roaming at 1 a.m. for a customer's daughter who was travelling on a Sunday.

Sindhesh Verma, Pankaj Rattan, Vivek Maurya and Vivek Tomar in J&K were recognized for their unparalleled effort in providing mobile services in Tangdhar border, near Kupwara LOC despite harshest conditions. More than 10,000 soldiers and 15,000 villagers are now connected.

Abhishek Dubey of MPCG for ensuring commencement of mobile services for the Mahar Regiment in Sagar overcoming several hurdles.

Brilliant Network Experience

Avdesh Chauhan, Anjul Agarwal and Balwant Singh in NESA for providing superb, high-quality network experience to enable live nation-wide broadcasting of people gatherings and other events conducted during the visit of HH Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh.

Munish Kohli in J&K for outstanding co-ordination and providing mobile coverage inside the 9 km-long Nashri - Chenani tunnel on the Jammu - Srinagar highway, recently inaugurated by Prime Minister Modi. Airtel is the first provider of mobile services inside this tunnel, which is Asia's longest.

Darpan Grover of Delhi Circle for unlocking hundreds of sealed sites painstakingly, to ensure connectivity for customers in congested areas.

Suhas Sathe and team in Hyderabad for significantly improving quality of services in the Uppal Stadium for IPL-10 season.

War on Waste

Sameer Batra, CEO of Mumbai Circle, and his team for the highest reduction in opex during Q4. George Mathen, CEO of Kerala - TN Circles, and his team for consistent opex reduction for 3 successive quarters.

Let us live the dreams of our customers .....

Customer expectations are rising everyday, and in turn we in Airtel need to significantly raise the bar everyday. But then, how do we make this happen ? We came up with our own unique solution. We said : let us simply live the dreams of our customers. So, let us celebrate every time our employees demonstrate customer centricity deep inside their hearts. Let us recognize those who are extremely passionate about brilliant network experience. And, call out teams who value company money as their own, those who conserve the most. This is Airtel at its best. Living the dreams of our customers !