Our brand and reputation

Our brand and reputation


Our goal is to ensure that Vodacom is the customer brand of choice, with a brand that reflects our core purpose of helping everybody live a better today and build a better tomorrow. Our brand promise is ‘power to you’, which we will achieve by democratising Internet access and bridging the digital divide in the communities we serve. We strive to build trust with our stakeholders by ensuring customer excellence and developing a deserved reputation for being a sustainability pioneer and a leader in transformation and Black Economic Empowerment.

Brand and reputation leadership

Having a strong brand that clearly and consistently communicates our core purpose, and that reflects our leadership in social transformation and sustainability, is a critical foundation of our Vision 2020 strategy.

This year, we have continued to drive a unified and consistent brand across all our operations, with a key development being the successful rebranding of our DRC operations to Vodacom’s iconic red. The strength of the Vodacom brand, and our reputational leadership, is demonstrated through the various external accolades and awards that we received this year across different markets and consumer segments:

  • Vodacom won the Grand Prix prize for overall favourite brand in the Sunday Times Top Brands Awards, and was rated best telecommunications provider in both the consumer and business categories;
  • South African youth once again voted Vodacom as the ‘coolest’ telecoms provider in the Sunday Times Generation Next leading annual youth brand preference and consumer behaviour survey;
  • We were rated as the second most valuable brand in South Africa by Brand SA;
  • Vodacom was ranked the most reputable company in the South African telecommunications sector, and ranked fourth overall in the annual Mail & Guardian Top Companies Reputation Index (TCRI); and
  • We were also ranked as South Africa’s most reputable company in the telecoms sector by the 2016 RepTrak Pulse reputation survey results released by Reputation House.

Notwithstanding this existing brand and reputation leadership, we recognise that we cannot rest easy. It is essential that we retain a strong focus on understanding and addressing the material interests of our stakeholders, especially on ‘hot topics’ such as the cost of data, rural coverage and socioeconomic transformation. As reviewed earlier in the report (click here), we engage regularly with stakeholders to ascertain their interests, and are implementing various initiatives aimed at building trust with our stakeholders, driving down the cost of data, increasing access to digital services, and promoting social transformation.

We track Vodacom’s reputation, and levels of stakeholder trust, through various means. In addition to monitoring NPS, we commission an independent research company to conduct an annual corporate Reputation survey with internal and external stakeholders to benchmark our reputation against our competitors in the mobile telecommunications market and another leading brand. This year, Vodacom retained its number one position as a reputational leader in the telecommunications sector, with stakeholders rating us higher than our peers and other non-telecommunications brands across all our markets.

Our Reputation Index performance

Reputation Index 2017   2016   Relative
position		  
South Africa 7.9^   7.5   #1  
Tanzania 8.4   7.9   #1  
DRC 7.5   7.6   #1  
Mozambique 8.3   8.3   #1  
Lesotho 8.1   8.4   #1  

^ These items were the subject of the limited assurance engagement performed by KPMG.

For more information on the methodology undertaken for this survey, please refer to the KPI assurance definition report at www.vodacom.com

Driving social progress through transformational solutions

The most effective way in which we can make a positive societal contribution is through our business activities – enhancing connectivity by providing increased access to reliable and affordable data and voice services. By extending the coverage and quality of our network, facilitating access to smart devices, developing and providing segmented customer propositions, and maintaining a strong focus on pricing transformation, we can make an enormous contribution to national developmental objectives and the global UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Through our Vision 2020 strategy we are committed to removing barriers to accessing digital services, and to harnessing recent developments in digital technology, to play a transformative role in financial inclusion, education, agriculture, and healthcare. We are working in partnership with various stakeholders – including government, technology providers, civil society organisations and communities – to identify innovative ways in which mobile and data technologies can make a significant social contribution in each of these areas.

  • Financial inclusion: In Tanzania, the DRC, Mozambique and Lesotho we provide affordable access to mobile banking services to more than 12.9 million customers, many of them in remote rural areas, through our ground-breaking M-Pesa product. While the core benefit of M-Pesa remains the transfer of money between customers, this has also evolved to enabling people to save and borrow, and to receive salaries and benefits. In Tanzania, our M-Pawa savings and loans product, delivered in partnership with the Commercial Bank of Africa, has gained further traction with 1.2 million customers now using the service. Our International Money Transfer services, which enable customers to send money between Tanzania and Kenya, are also increasingly being used. We are further expanding M-Pesa products to merchants across the county to offer ease of payment at point of sale.
  • Education: Our free learning platform, Vodacom e-school, provides 220 910 registered learners with content aligned with their school’s curriculum direct to their mobile phone, tablet or laptops. The portal is endorsed by the Department of Basic Education and provides daily lessons, videos and assignments in the form of quizzes, as well as personalised progress reports. We are also working in partnership with various publishers to digitise school and university textbooks and make these available on a zero-rated portal. In January this year, we launched our Siyakha platform in South Africa. Focused on the emerging prepaid segment, the platform offers very low-cost voice and data bundles, entry-level smartphones, and targeted content offerings, including free content on specific education, health and employment websites. In our International operations, through our Instant Network School initiative we have provided millions of young people with free access to online learning material from primary through to advanced high school level.
  • Agriculture: This year, we partnered with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) to launch an IoT-based solution to support smallholder farmers in South Africa to access the commercial agriculture arena. With an estimated combined investment amount of around R21 million over three years, the ‘Connected Farmer’ platform, a cloud-based web and mobile software solution, will link thousands of smallholder farmers to the agriculture value chain enabling access to information, services and markets. This initiative leverages off similar projects that we have been implementing successfully in Tanzania and Mozambique. By connecting enterprises, small and commercial agribusinesses, NGOs and farmer associations, the initiative will contribute to improving agriculture productivity, addressing food security, creating jobs and increasing incomes in the agriculture sector.
  • Health: In partnership with Mezzanine we have developed a mobile platform that allows healthcare professionals in South Africa to utilise secure mobile devices to send treatment plans to patients, manage patients’ medical records and monitor the availability of medicine at the dispensaries, all in real time. Our mobile application that we launched in partnership with the Department of Health in 2013, has been rolled out to 3 167 health clinics across eight provinces. We have also continued with our nationwide awareness campaign using Vodacom technology in the ‘text-to-treatment’ approach to get the message on HIV/Aids treatment to as many affected people as possible. In Tanzania, we provide free text messages with maternal health advice for pregnant women and mothers with newborns. In partnership with USAID, we have launched a network of 100 taxi drivers to respond to toll-free emergency calls from pregnant women needing to get to hospital, with the drivers paid using M-Pesa. In Lesotho, we are using a text-totreatment model to get more HIV-positive pregnant women and children onto effective treatment programmes, with M-Pesa facilitating patients’ transport.

Delivering value through social investment

In addition to delivering societal value through our core business activities, we also support various initiatives and partnerships in education, health, entrepreneurship and other areas through our corporate social investment activities administered through the Vodacom Foundation. This year, we invested R114 million in community projects across our markets aimed at promoting broader societal transformation.

The following is a selection of recent social investment projects across our focus areas and operating regions (further information is provided in our Sustainability report):

  • Through our flagship mobile education programme (mEducation), developed in partnership with the Department of Basic Education, we have provided ICT equipment and Internet connectivity to 3 000 schools throughout South Africa. We have also equipped and connected 92 teacher centres that offer teacher development courses, youth training on ICT, and community programmes. We have trained over 100 000 teachers on the use of ICT in the classroom.
  • In June 2016, Vodacom partnered with South Africa’s leading career websites to launch the NXT LVL zero-rated career website. This enables job seekers to browse job sites, upload their CVs and apply for available positions free of charge.
  • In partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) Innovation and Education units, we have deployed our ‘Instant Classroom’ to schools in various refugee settlements. Designed by Vodafone, the ‘digital school in a box’ comes equipped with a laptop, 25 tablets pre-loaded with educational software, a projector, a speaker and a hotspot modem with 3G connectivity.
  • Through the Vodacom Foundation we have been a long-standing supporter of various non-profit organisations (NPOs) in the health arena, including Ndlovu Care Group, Smile Foundation, South African National Council for the Blind, and the Netcare Foundation.
  • In 2014, in partnership with the South African Department of Social Development, we established a 24-hour call centre providing counselling to victims of gender-based violence; this year, we extended its services to people with a hearing impairment. We continue to fund various NPOs that render critical intervention in combating gender-based violence.
  • In Lesotho, we have invested in a multi-year project (iSchool) that delivers educational tablets to five primary schools in four districts; the tablets contain approved curriculum and relevant teaching material, from lesson plans, classroom exercises to homework sections and homework help sections.
  • This year, we invested R3 million to support 12 entrepreneurs through a 12-week incubator programme at Vodacom Lesotho’s Innovation Park, a technology-based business incubator that leverages the power of technology and mobile communications to help small businesses become more competitive.
  • In Mozambique, we contributed R3.7 million worth of supplies towards relief efforts following Cyclone Dineo, which devastated Inhambane province in February 2017; we also contributed R1.6 million to enable our customers to communicate for free with family and friends, and distributed 10 000 treated mosquito nets across the country.

Vodacom Change the World programme

For the past six years, Vodacom South Africa has annually selected around 20 volunteers to work for an NPO of their choice for a year, retaining their salary and at no cost to the volunteer or host organisation. The volunteers have the opportunity to do something close to their hearts while imparting their skills and expertise to an NPO. Since its inception, Vodacom has invested more than R35 million on project funds, salaries and grants to the NPOs, with 100 volunteers delivering more than 100 projects.

Innovator Trust

We established the Innovator Trust in 2014 with a loan facility of R750 million over five years at a lower than prime interest rate. The funding is used to equip black entrepreneurs in the ICT sectors with the necessary business skills to work with the corporate sector. As at 31 March 2017, the Innovator Trust has successfully incubated 53 SMEs as part of a two-year business training programme.

Vodacom succeeds under new amended ICT sector BBBEE codes

This year saw the release of the amended ICT sector BEE codes, which was gazetted in November 2016, with the effective date being 1 April 2016. One of the most noticeable changes is that the scorecard BBBEE level recognition has changed materially and, if applied without remedy, would have resulted in the Vodacom BBBEE status dropping from Level 2 to Level 8. We have introduced new initiatives, resulting in the Group achieving an overall Level 4 BBBEE status for the 2017 financial year of assessment.

Despite the various challenges, we achieved good scores across all rated elements:

Scoring element Target points   Achieved points   Cost of investment  
Ownership 25   16.17      
Management control 23   14.79      
Board representation 8   5.33      
Other top management 5   4.33      
Employment equity 10   5.13      
Skills development 20   17.27   R161 million training spend on Black people  
Enterprise and supplier development 50   41.68   R7 billion to >51% black-owned suppliers  
Procurement 25   18.00   R5.7 billion to >30% black women-owned  
Supplier development 10   8.68   R149 million on supplier development  
Enterprise development 15   15.00   R399 million on SMME development  
Socioeconomic development 12   12.00   R225 million on uplifting communities  
Total 130   101.91   Level 4  

 

Vodacom and the UN SDGs

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) set a sustainable agenda to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all by 2030. Vodacom is committed to playing its role, as a private sector company, in the attainment of the goals, supporting governments to build better societies. Through our partnerships with government and communities, we continue to identify innovative ways through which mobile communication technologies can support financial inclusion, food security, health and access to education. In each of these areas we have been able to make significant strides in improving the lives of our customers and the communities we operate in. We further commit to minimising our environmental impact. We believe that managing our operations responsibly and ethically will stimulate growth and generate value for our company, society and economy.

Vodacom and Kaduna State launch ‘ICT for development’ initiative

In February 2017, Vodacom partnered with Kaduna State in Nigeria to launch an ‘ICT for development’ initiative that will support governance and service delivery in healthcare, education and agriculture through the deployment of tailored ICT solutions:

  • ‘SMS for Life 2.0’ is a mobile-based initiative that improves healthcare delivery and increasing the availability of medication by monitoring drug stock levels; Vodacom is the technology partner for the public-private partnership with Novartis and Kaduna State Ministry of Health.
  • We have also introduced a mobile school management solution that provides real-time visibility of all management activities at schools; a school feeding programme module allows the State to monitor feeding programmes at schools, and access is also provided to real-time reports on teacher and learner data.
  • The next phase of our partnership with Kaduna State will focus on supporting sustainable agriculture, through our Connected Farmer cloud-based web and mobile solution that increases productivity by linking farmers, financial institutions, agribusinesses and markets.

"Vodacom is taking the lead in leveraging mobile technology to address healthcare, education and agricultural challenges in Africa. We see technology playing an increasing role as an enabler of economic development as governments on the continent are able to leapfrog developmental stages."

Vuyani Jarana, Chief Officer of Vodacom Business

Our Sustainability report 2017

A more detailed review of our societal impacts and contribution is provided in Vodacom’s Sustainability report 2017. The report, which constitutes the annual report of Vodacom’s Social and Ethics Committee, provides information on our performance and management approach relating to the following areas:

  • Sustainability governance and management: outlines our sustainability strategy and governance framework, describes our activities in support of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and reviews our approach to promoting ethical conduct and ensuring business integrity.
  • Engaging our stakeholders: identifies the material interests of our key stakeholders, and our response to these interests.
  • Product and service responsibility: reviews our activities to protect customer privacy and security, and address consumer concerns.
  • Investing in our people: assesses our performance in developing our people, driving employee engagement, encouraging diversity, and promoting workplace health and safety.
  • Delivering social value: reviews the societal contribution of our products and services, our BEE performance and our corporate social investment initiatives.
  • Responsible environmental management: outlines our performance in managing our most material environmental impacts relating to energy and climate change, water and waste.

A summary of our sustainability performance is presented in the following table:

  Indicator 2017    2016   
Investing in our people        
  Number of full-time permanent employees 7 587   7 538  
  Salaries and benefits (Rm) 5 428   5 599  
  Women representation in Executive Committee (%) 17.0   18.0  
  Black representation in Executive Committee (%) 58.0   55.0  
  Ratio of average basic salary of men to women (times) 1:3   1:3  
  Total training spend (Rm) 2771   103  
  Workplace-related fatalities 1   4  
  Lost-time injury frequency rate (LTIFR) 0.05   0.11  
Product and service responsibility        
  Customer NPS (SA) (ranking relative to competitors) 1st   1st  
Delivering social value        
  Customers (thousand) 66 785   61 305  
  M-Pesa customers (thousand) 12 922   9 224  
  Investment in infrastructure (Rm) 11 292   12 875  
  Total cash tax contribution (Rm) 16 082   14 710  
  Investment in communities (Rm) 114   106  
Responsible environmental management        
  Direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Scope 1) (metric tonnes) 44 203   44 917  
  Indirect GHG emissions (Scope 2) (metric tonnes) 555 010   494 354  
  Indirect GHG emissions (Scope 3) (metric tonnes) 84 226   36 602  
  Total GHG emissions CO2 (including non-Kyoto Protocol emissions) (metric tonnes) 683 439   576 872  
  Access network electricity# (GWh) 333   282  
  Core network electricity# (GWh) 84   81  
  Building electricity# (GWh) 54   50  
  Vehicle fuel (diesel and petrol)# (million litres) 0.7   1.3  
  Network equipment and handsets reused/recycled# (tonnes) 69   1 006  

  1. The increase on reported training spend is attributed to the application of new audit rules, i.e. contractor spend is now included.
  # South Africa only.

More detail can be found in the Sustainability report. www.vodacom.com