DEEPAK JOLLY Director - Corporate Communications, Bharti

Deepak Jolly, Director - Corporate Communications, Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd. joined Bharti on 1 January 2003. He brings with him twenty years of experience in the FMCG and Service Industry and has worked in various senior management positions in Corporate Affairs, Corporate Communications, Sales and Operations. Prior to joining Bharti, Deepak has worked as Director - Corporate Affairs with Godfrey Phillips India Ltd., with Pepsi as Executive Vice President - Corporate Communications and with Hindustan Lever Limited Corporate Affairs and Corporate Communications for over seven years.

In conversation with Jasmeen Dugal, Deepak Jolly, Director - Corporate Communications, Bharti talks about his PR philosophy, the power of PR to change mass mindset and the role of PR in strengthening Bharti's image in the face of competition from WLL operators.

My mantra in relation to PR is the 3 C's - Creativity, Credibility and Commitment.

A PR personnel has to be creative. What this job faces all the time is doing the same thing over and over again. You have to be extremely creative, and keep on putting your ideas across in different styles.

Credibility is the next commandment. There are good times; there are trying times. PR is never hunky-dory; it has its seasonings. You meet different kinds of people you meet. However, what is essential is that you have to be forceful on your thoughts and build your credibility; then, the company recognizes that you're a winner.

Commitment is the most important factor. Success in PR doesn't come only when you show your product or manage your finances well; you have to give your point of view to the environment also. The management may or may not accept it. So the challenge becomes extremely tough. I'm talking from individual experience. What I've always felt is that if you're completely committed and you have the job knowledge i.e. you know about the company, the profile, the category; if you know all this pretty well and how it impacts the environment, your job is not only to respond to the environment but your job is equally to make sure that the company is taking the right steps. Both ends are there. One end is the environment, and on the other end, you are making sure that your company is doing the right thing at the right time. Commitment is basically passion; passion is just one step ahead of commitment. Passion is something you have to have; it gives me a great pleasure. In 1993, as part of the communications team, I was asked to produce an in-house magazine in forty-eight hours, which was to be given to the winners of the National Sales Conference we were hosting. Those days when the technology wasn't so good to produce it so fast easily, I had 1000 copies published and ready for distribution at the conference. So basically it was something you had to do.

I think PR in India has come a long way, and down a difficult way. PR was looked at very differently when I joined the profession. Today, it has gone beyond media relations. A good corporate PR person is an integrated personnel of the company, who is involved in understanding the decisions of the company and the repercussions it could have. And in many companies, they are also party to the decision-making. In companies like Pepsi, which promote a lifestyle, perception becomes extremely important. Similarly, in the mobile industry, perception makes a profound difference to the industry. The industry today can grow to 100 million in the next couple of years, but it is a perception. The industry has so many issues but we have to overcome those perceptions.

It's a very challenging job; whether you link it an event or a normal communications process, there has to be a meaningful way of communicating and understanding. And a PR person has to have the craving for more. If you don't have this craving, in this particular profession you may not be able to value-add. In terms of process, a PR person is someone who has good communication skills - written and oral, good relationship management, who is able to take key decisions at certain times. What really happens is in a cluttered mindset, if I want a certain person to hear what I'm saying, I have to do so in a way, which is forceful. So the job becomes very easily linked to marketing. At the same time, this is a job with a human touch so the HR expertise comes in. The PR person then becomes an HR specialist, a marketing expert and because of his knowledge of the technical areas, the person becomes a complete management individual.

Sixteen-eighteen years back, it was just managing environment; today, with all these things put together, the PR person has to make sure he articulates a lot of information about what the company is facing in the environment to the outside world.

Yes, PR definitely has the power to change mass mindset. PR is no more wall painting; if the structure of the house is not strong and not in the correct shape, the paint will crumble after a while. It's extremely important that a PR person participates in the growth of his corporation.

A lot of work went on the technology front by cellular operators. The industry has done pretty well. Bharti has added 2.5 lac customers just last month.

PR works on the level of the industry and the level of occupying people's minds in terms of what the company is doing, how the company is growing bigger, what are the various things they are doing for the customer, how the customers' problems are being resolved. So a PR personnel becomes a kind of facilitator, to make sure that the right things about the cellular industry and the company are being talked about.

This industry has been occupying a lot of space in the minds of people because everyone wants to communicate, so it's a large perception-driven industry. The role of PR becomes very important when there are a lot of things, which are not understood properly in terms of regulation. At the same time, with almost seven players in the industry, you have to beat the clutter. If you want to communicate the 012 plan, which is the simplest tariff plan you have to do it first; how do you it? Or if you want to announce a new service to the customer, how do you do it? How do you communicate this effectively? How will it impact the life of the customer using it? There are seven players in the industry, so there is a lot of clutter. By and large if you look at the mindset of the different audiences, you have to make sure that the right messages are going to the audiences at the right time.