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| Sustainability review |
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| Telkom's sustainability initiatives place great
value on enhancing the Group's triple bottom-line
reporting requirements and also focuses on
ensuring sound corporate governance and
disciplined financial reporting. For the Company,
sustainability in these areas is informed by: |
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good corporate citizenship through social responsibility; |
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conducting the business in an environmental responsible
manner; |
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delivering value to shareholders; |
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servicing customers through offering good value
propositions; |
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recognising Telkom's valued employees; and |
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complying with regulatory requirements. |
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These elements are embedded in the Company's vision and
strategy.
Telkom continuously strives to attain better economic,
environmental and social performance. Sustainable
development that impacts positively on the country's growth
continues to be an integral part of Telkom's day-to-day
operations. Telkom's endeavours include commitment to
transformation through Black Economic Empowerment and
enterprise development by assisting small businesses,
particularly in the ICT sector.
Telkom extends this by being involved in communities
through skills development, computer literacy training and
infrastructure provision. Career training and development
countrywide receives high priority through Telkom's bursary
schemes and the Centres of Excellence (in partnership with
industry players). Telkom's Centre for Learning which,
concentrate on employee training and development, has
received international recognition as one of only two South
African firms recognised for exceptional learning practices.
The Telkom Foundation is the vehicle for the Company's social responsibility programmes.
Telkom recognises the need for adherence to best reporting
practice principles and communication of corporate
performance in a manner that is transparent and reflective
of the Company's values. The Company's Annual Report
also largely complies with the Global Reporting Initiative
(GRI) guidelines. The GRI content index recommended for
companies operating in the communications industry are set
out together with the indication of Telkom's compliance.
As Telkom operates in a dynamic, competitive, global
environment the Company assesses its business risks and
opportunities throughout the year. Any possible risks are
identified and plans are implemented to mitigate those risks,
thus appropriately managing exposure to risks.
In conducting its business, Telkom strives to ensure
accountability to and recognition of all stakeholders. The
Company continuously tries to engage all its stakeholders,
taking into account what they are likely to require and how to
attend to their requirements. This the Company does
by continuously assessing the stakeholder management
processes and reviewing, where necessary, the list of all
stakeholders. The process necessitates identifying the
stakeholders; ascertaining their requirements, and attend to
these. It is a process of managing the relationships through
proper, open communication channels and consultation. In this
context, Telkom realises that stakeholders help the Company
proactively anticipate and respond to business concerns
before they arise or get to a crisis point.
Telkom's identified stakeholders are: |
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Customers (which include the public); |
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Employees; |
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Regulator & Government; |
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Investors & media; and |
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Suppliers. |
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| Customer engagement |
In 2006, Telkom embarked on a customer centricity journey
that followed an exhaustive process in endeavouring to
improve customer service and learn from acquired customer
information to ensure that Telkom's customers experience
improved treatment and Telkom can anticipate their future
needs. In essence, it is about placing customers at the centre
of all decision-making in the Company.
During the 2007 year, Telkom engaged with its customers
on a number of levels including the following ad
hoc surveys: |
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To determine customers' needs, preferences, behaviour,
usage, and perceptions regarding planned, newly
launched, existing or enhanced Telkom products
and services. |
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The evaluation of all forms of communication with
Telkom's customers, i.e. awareness generated,
visibility in the market and the general perceptions
and acceptance. |
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Quantitative studies among a representative sample of
the target market in order to obtain a comprehensive
overview of their current and future telecommunication
needs, preferences, perceptions, communication behaviour
and usage patterns. |
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Measuring the effectiveness and impact of Telkom's
consumer and business shows and exhibitions. |
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| There is also continuous customer interaction that takes
place in the form of: |
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Panel research to continuously track consumer behaviour,
needs, and usage patterns over a period of time. |
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Sponsorship and media tracking is conducted with
Sponsor Track to provide Telkom with strategic
information on the impact of its sponsorships in the South
African market and Media Track to provide Telkom
with an overview of media exposure generated per
sponsorship. |
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Advertising tracking to continuously track Telkom's
advertising performance within the mass and enterprise
markets. |
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In order to continuously monitor and gain feedback from
customers, Telkom has embarked on an engagement
process - the "Voice of the paying customer". This is
focused on perceived levels of satisfaction and the quality
of service. Telkom conducts approximately 130,000
telephone interviews during the year, every week of the
year except between Christmas and New Year, across all
points of contact i.e. call centres, Telkom Direct Shops and
technicians. Annually 10,000 interviews are conducted
among residential customers, small businesses, medium
and large business customers, Government customers, and
corporate and global customers to measure their loyalty as
well as quality of service, quality of account management teams and the perception of Telkom's products &
services and communication of Customer Satisfaction
Measurements are also done for Fastnet, Telkom Internet
and the Wholesale segment.
Telkom also has a dedicated workforce to monitor and
respond to feedback received from customers via public
web forums.
In addition, Telkom has threefold customer engagement
activities specifically pertaining to the Government
segment. These are: |
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The annual ICT in Government Summit of which Telkom is
the premier knowledge partner host. The first Pan African
Summit was hosted in Swaziland during May 2007 and
focused on Pan African collaboration given the hosting of
the FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa. The
second ICT summit will focus on provincial and local
Government and will take place during September 2007. |
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The GovTech 2007 conference, hosted by SITA in Cape
Town during August 2007, in which Telkom participated
as one of three platinum sponsors. The primary objective
is to continue forging a strategic relationship with SITA
given their legislative mandate and prominence in the
public sector space. |
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The effective e-Government 2007 publication which
published five leading case studies from the Government
segment. The publication included leadership articles
by two of Telkom's top management, and highlighted
Telkom's latest product solutions. The publication is
targeted at key decision makers within Government, and
includes Ministers, Director-Generals and Government
Information Technology Officers (GITO). The publication
will be released during October 2007. |
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The customer engagement activities pertaining to the
specific segments are governed by the strategic account
management methodology and process. The processes per
segments are set out below:
For Global market customers the engagement process
involves: |
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customer business strategy discovery process; |
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opportunity identification and qualification process; |
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value proposition positioning process; and |
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contract management process. |
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| For Corporate customers, the engagement activities involve
the following: |
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facilitating strategic workshops with Key Corporate
customers thus developing strategies and complementary
solutions. |
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facilitating Technology and Product Innovation workshops with customers to drive value creation. |
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compiling and distributing an Electronic Newsletter on a
quarterly basis. |
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compiling and distributing a Product Showcase
encompassing all current and future product sets. |
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distributing relevant key information to all stakeholders. |
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facilitating CIO forums to understand global trends and
vertical segment challenges. |
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| For Business customers, the engagement activities involve
the following: |
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product and services information sessions with selected
Business customers; and |
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participation on the various regional Business Chamber
Committees including attendance at networking and
business training sessions. |
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