Exciting two months in DiGi
13 December, 2007
By Yogamala Nagalingam
I have been working in DiGi for more than 2 months now and I can tell you that it has been a very exciting and challenging time for me working with some of the best people in the industry!
Improving sales, branding and operation
DiGizens work and play hard, myself included! My division is called Dealer Sales and my task is to improve a group of DiGi’s top dealers. My task involves improving sales, branding and operation. It’s exciting and refreshing because I get to work on different areas at one time.
Road shows to provide customer experience – not as easy as it sounds!
Occasionally I am also roped in to participate in road shows. These road shows are held at the night market to make DiGi’s presence felt at the ground level. It’s quite interesting to see how our staff and distributors get together to make the event a success as everyone has a vested interest in it. At these road shows we aim to provide customer experience and get sales. It sounds easy but I assure you it’s not! Participating in a road show is a tiring job as I need to yell at the top of my voice to get passerby’s attention! Sometimes I will be hoping that no one I know of comes my way! In fact I just came back from Sabah formerly known as the Island of Borneo where DiGi organized a carnival.
At the moment I ‘m busy with the upcoming Platinum Dealers meeting preparing the slides and such. So this is all from me for the first installment of Telenor Trainee blog!
Me and the Yellow Coverage Fellow
By the way that’s the picture of tired looking me taken at the DiGi Carnival in Sabah with DiGi’s very own brand icon the Yellow Coverage Fellow or for short YCF!
This entry was posted on Thursday, 13 December, 2007 at 11:14 am and is filed under Asia, Malaysia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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December 13th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
hi Yogamalas, congratulations to be a part of this prestegious programe.
the thing i want to ask you is that “what thing do you think contributed most in becomming a part of this prestegious program?”
December 14th, 2007 at 10:29 am
Hi Rashid thanks and that’s a good question you got there. Let me start off by telling you the process that had taken place prior to the selection. Prior to being selected as a management trainee for Telenor I underwent several online tests and finally was invited for an interview by DiGi HR. After getting through this interview, I went to Telenor for the final assessment. I was assessed on various aspects and topics, and throughout this assessment and the interview conducted by DiGi was just myself. I did not pretend to be someone else in order to impress the “judges”. I exhibited the same behavior and character that I would have exhibited under different circumstances.
I firmly believe that this was the reason for my inclusion in the Trainee group. I hope I had satisfied your query.
Regards
Mala
December 14th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Hi Yogamala,
Congratulations for your achievement.I have read about your experience of road show in night market.
Highly challenging and tuff to make new consumer group. Want to know more about your tasks and training and also about you. Thanks . Saima
December 15th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Hi Yogamala,
How did u see the global challanges in tellecommunication industry from Telenor view in the South East Asia region?
Do u have any intention to come bangladesh?
December 16th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Hi Yogamala,
Congrates for your achievement.
How you feel the challanges on the way to global expertise.
Please share it in you free time.
Wish you all the best.
December 18th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Dear Hamid,
Hi I hope that your well and fine. The question that you posed is definitely an interesting as well as a challenging question. It took me some time to put thoughts into words. So here it goes:
First and foremost I believe these challenges actually presents Telenor with an opportunity to venture out to more South East Asia countries looking for new and untapped markets to diversify the risk posed by operating in a global environment.
Over the years South East Asia has grown into the largest and fastest growing mobile market in the world and on top of that the region has a huge population to support the viable development of new technologies.
Another point I would like to point out is that the telecommunication industry in the Asian markets are to a much larger extend influenced by market specific forces such as government rules and regulation as compared to global forces given its very nature as a relatively young and growing sector.
Not only are these global challenges an opportunity for Telenor but also to the specific countries concerned within the region as this would enable them to attract much needed foreign capital to boost their economy.
Well Hamid if you do have a different opinion on this topic perhaps you could share it with all of us!
Bye the way I would love to visit GrameenPhone in the future, however it is not for me to decide on this matter at this stage. So I shall keep my fingers crossed over this!
Regards
Mala
December 20th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
Hi Mala,
I appreciate the way you answered Hamid and Rashid in proper and brief ways, might they were not expecting this much good and brief answer from your side, well its one of the good aspect of your good nature.
I have read all about you, congratulation on your achievements.
You must be proud for being a part of Telenor.
Good Luck
December 21st, 2007 at 3:49 am
Dear Shakir,
I would like to thank you for the good wishes and I am relieved that you find my responses good, cause sometimes it is hard to figure out on what is a good and proper answer based on the questions posted.
I am thankful for the opportunity given to be part of Telenor Management Trainee and I will make the best out of it!
Best Wishes
Mala
December 21st, 2007 at 9:49 am
Dear Md Alomqir,
To answer your question I feel that the constant advancement of technology such as the internet and video- conferencing as well as the creation of other new technologies has somewhat eliminated the challenges to global expertise.
I can share, contribute and interact with my fellow trainees on my job scope through email and with Telenor’s pilot project WoW which enables real time conversation. For those who are not familiar with WoW it works exactly like your MSN except it is only for Telenor employees. Even without WoW, I could use DiGi mail to share information albeit slower but with the same intended results.
So in this age and time there is neither barriers nor challenges to hinder a person’s advancement in terms of heading towards global expertise as long as that person is somewhat technology savvy.
Don’t get any wrong impressions here you don’t have to be a techno wizard to achieve this cause the basic knowledge of internet would suffice.
Hmmm….well that’s all from me and thanks for the very different question.
Happy new year!
Regards,
Mala
December 21st, 2007 at 11:00 am
Hi, Saima
First of all I apologize for the delay in replying, I try to reply to one question at a time. But was a bit tied up lately. So here are the replies to your questions:
One thing about sales is that you never know what to expect! Every loophole has to be covered or else your competitors will get ahead of you. Prior to joining DiGi
I have known that the telecommunication industry is competitive,however I did not anticipate the intensity of the competition till I joined DiGi. Road shows would show you the level of competition among the major telco’s in Malaysia. Next thing you know the competitors will appear from thin air !
Well Saima I look at different areas to improve like what I wrote on my blog. Basically we are expected to understand the market where we are placed and also gain general expertise of our job.
You can find out a bit about my background in the Trainee blog. However if you want to know more I suggest you constantly check out my blog articles as well as my replies cause my writings reflect me to a large extend!
Happy New Year!
Regards
Mala
January 7th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Hi Mala
Hope you are all well.
As I know, At DIGI ,your division is dealer sales so how do you manage while you correspond with a dealer or which technique some one should follow to convince a dealer or can you express some technique to increase company product according to your little experience.
This text conversition with you is beneficial to extend our experience.
Thanks for your nice cooperation.
Rajib .
January 11th, 2008 at 2:59 am
Hi Rajib,
We have dedicated sales staff managing our dealers. These sales staff would visit the dealers (those at the top of the pyramid) to check on dealers policy adherence as well as to solve whatever queries the dealer may have. Our distributors are also involved in managing some of our dealers.
On top of that we also have a dedicated dealer hotline to solve dealer queries and a dealer portal which is used to track dealer incentive as well as to inform dealers on ongoing promotions.
What is different here at DiGi in terms of dealer management and development is that, this task is not the sole responsibility of DiGi but also of our distributors. They too need to contribute in terms of money and manpower. Thus, our distributors are not just a “middleperson” but are our mutual partners.
To answer your question I believe in order to efficiently manage our distribution channel we need to create a sense belonging as well as rapport with all our stakeholders in the distribution chain as well as a common identity which is in conformity with DiGi core values and vision. However in some market distribution channel alone does not drive sales as it could be highly dependent on other issues.
For instance, GrameenPhone owes its success in the market to not just its sales division but also to the people in corporate social responsibility who I believe have done a good job in creating the demand for its product and services by ensuring customers are able to conform to GrameenPhone’s core values and vision through their CSR activities.
Well Rajib , hopefully my “little” experience has been beneficial to you.
Best wishes and regards,
Mala