As head of Aircel?s strategic business unit in the ?fortress? circles of Chennai and the Rest of Tamil Nadu (ROTN), Sankara Narayanan K. faces the formidable task of maintaining the company?s market position, in the face of strong competition, in its traditional bastion. Aircel has been present in these circles since 1999 and was the first telecom player to set up operations here.
To achieve this task, he relies on Aircel?s proven strategy of leveraging its brand equity to attract customers. ?The company has kept its brand focused on where the buck is,? he comments. ?We have collaborated with the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the ATP Chennai Open, actor Surya, etc., all entities to reckon with. The responsibility of leveraging these investments to the optimum level lies with me.?
A cricket enthusiast himself, he led the company?s sales and marketing initiatives during the latest season of the Indian Premier League. ?During this time, the company launched prepaid recharge products that linked talk time to CSK?s performance. This offering received a good response from our customers and helped consolidate our position in the market,? he says.
Data connectivity is another important focus area for the company. To this end, it has introduced the Pocket Internet recharge vouchers, which are aimed at attracting non-data users. Narayanan, on his part, has been stressing on the need to educate customers about 3G and 4G.
Apart from branding and marketing, Narayanan relies on a hands-on style of management and his vast experience to steer the company through challenging times. He has over 24 years of experience in the financial, operations, change management and business transformation space. Prior to joining Aircel in September last year, he worked with Ranbaxy Labs in India, Africa and China as well as with Vodafone India. His stints in Africa and China enabled him to bring various cross-cultural and multi-market strategies to the table. He counts his five-year stint with Ranbaxy in China as his most memorable assignment and even used the opportunity to learn Mandarin.
Time away from work is spent learning Thirukkural (classic Tamil couplets), playing cricket or watching Formula 1 races. In fact, he is an ardent Formula 1 fan, and attended the Malaysian Grand Prix in Kuala Lumpur in March this year. ?The strategy and the teamwork it takes to win an F1 race is the most exciting part of the event,? he says.
