From ET "Business of Brands" dated 9th march 09.....
WHEN Amit Singh joined Bharti Airtel a year ago, he didn’t even dream he would make it to the corner room of the billiondollar telco in such a short span.
Well, the 28-year-old is not yet the CEO, but he mostly spends his time in the president’s cabin. These days, the avid Formula One fan mentors Bharti Airtel president Sanjay Kapoor on all things trendy such as gizmos, fashion, sports, even eating out.
Singh is one among the new stars in an ambitious mentoring campaign that the company is putting together for its top executives, taking a leaf out of legendary CEO Jack Welch’s “reverse mentoring” strategy.
At India’s largest mobile telephony operator, the thinking goes like this: If Bharti has to tap into India’s 560 million youth by graduating from plain-vanilla voice and SMS to lifestyle services, firsthand insights are invaluable. “We understand that revenues will come from music, entertainment and banking on the mobile. Most of our leadership team is in their 40s and early 50s and have all been assigned young mentors to help them understand what future customers want,” says Kapoor.
And learning together is a fun way to do business, says Saurabh Sharma, another youngster, and mentor to Airtel’s executive director (ED) for Eastern & Western Operations K Srinivas. “I am learning to play the guitar and now Srinivas too is looking at joining a music school at Gurgaon,” he says. More than the guitar, Sharma has taught his mentor to try out social networking, blogging, online file sharing and downloading music from the internet.
‘Reverse mentoring’ as a concept came into the limelight when Jack Welch, then-chairman of GE, got about 500 of his top managers to work with youngsters and become internet savvy. Bharti’s ED Srinivas is of the view that mentors have a role to play even when the management is internet savvy. “Since the younger generation knows so much more of the internet, the reverse mentoring process has given me the drive and the motivation to keep up with the latest developments in the virtual world,” he explains.
Experts say that while the concept can be introduced across all industries, it works best for sectors where technology plays a vital role, but is not the main focus of the company.
Anjana Nair, a management executive with Bharti, mentors executive director (north) Sayed Safawi and feels the concept can bring different generations closer. “He wanted to know aspirations and feeling of youngsters in Bharti, including me. I also explained why the youth are on Facebook, Orkut and LinkedIn,” says she.
Well, the impact is there on the ground to see. Mr Kapoor, well updated on F1 these days, checks his employees’ perceptions and reactions to various new initiatives of the company on blogs and online forums. “I did not know that there are several blogs and online forums run by Bharti employees. The management as well as Bharti’s marketing team seconds their research with opinions on the blogs and the web,” he says.
Going further, Bharti plans to make this strategy an integral part of its corporate culture where all circle CEOs and functional heads across different states will be assigned local mentors from within the same centres. Slowly, this will be extended to other segments where the company operates, such as retail and financial services.
YOUNG MASTERS
‘Reverse mentoring’ is a strategy invented by legendary GE chairman Jack Welch, who got 500 of his top managers to work with youngsters and become internet savvy
Bharti Airtel has assigned young mentors to most of its leadership team members—in their 40s and 50s—to help them understand what future customers want
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