Safety is not just a value, it’s our entire mindset. Building a safe ecosystem for the entire community is paramount to compounded growth and success. Maintaining a ‘Zero Harm’ policy and ensuring safety, health, and well-being of everyone associated is embedded deep in Summit Digitel’s DNA.
Leadership Speaks Dear Colleagues,
‘‘
Tom Ford once said that the most important things in life are the connections you make with others. Three months into 2022, the power of technology to connect and collaborate with people nationally and globally continues to be a foundational pillar for the growth of any country. Which is precisely why as one of India’s leading telecom infrastructure operators, Summit Digitel, has a huge responsibility to maintain the momentum of bringing people together. While working tirelessly towards creating a digitally empowered society, we were delighted to add another feather in our cap. As you all know, we successfully signed an MSA with Airtel and welcomed them to the rapidly growing list of partners we have today. We are cognizant of the fact that the tremendous responsibility of connecting people can only be undertaken when we ensure the complete well-being of the people within our organization. This is why we continue to accentuate our business values of HSSE (Health, Safety, Security, and Environment) to build a safe haven for each of you, so that you can flourish and thrive. I am overwhelmed with a deep-rooted sense of pride at our extraordinary growth and progress in the last quarter. The ceaseless dedication and perseverance from each of you is the driving force behind Summits Digitel’s success, and I am confident that we will continue to scale new heights of triumphant victory in the coming years. As always, the latest edition of Summit Bulletin will give you a deeper insight and understanding of the various teams, their functioning and working along with reiterating the significance of our own role and responsibilities. Onwards and upwards!
Warm Regards,
Dhananjay Joshi MD & CEO, Summit Digitel
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Leadership Speaks Dear Readers,
‘‘
India is at the cusp of major paradigm shift in the digital age, and with over 151K+ lakh operational sites and growing, we are committed to expedite the vision of a truly connected and digital nation by ensuring seamless connectivity. Summit DigiTel came into existence during Covid times at the start of Q3 of 2020 post an acquisition. Till date, more than 100 employees have been recruited and onboarded virtually. What is more, is that they are working virtually without having met each other or without having worked in an office environment in this new company. But it gives me immense pride and joy to say that our team-work, commitment, bonding and enthusiasm has not been affected by this adverse situation. This is because, we at Summit firmly believe each day should be started with a fresh perspective without the baggage of the past on our mind. We should gear up to face the new challenges which each day brings. We have just started our journey that promises to be both exciting and challenging. As a team, we know and envision that there are many new frontiers waiting to be conquered, many success stories awaiting us. In our journey, we aim to build a diverse organization with a unique culture and values. We are in the process of creating an environment that enables an unwavering focus and unflinching commitment towards making Summit DigiTel a Great Place to Work in both letter and spirit. As Summitians, each one of us wants to leave behind a legacy which will be remembered by all. After all, our success is not measured by what we achieve but by what we leave behind.
Warm Regards,
Dewang M. Goohya Chief Human Resources Officer
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HSSE Summit Digitel continues its commitment to create workplace with target of Zero safety incidents. Following the Brookfield Approach to Safety, there is a constant attempt to reach higher levels of Health, Safety, Security and Environmental Performance (HSSE), especially high-risk activities. There are several ongoing initiatives in place to maintain a high level of HSSE, these include assessments, advisories and training sessions to help improve standards. The key highlights of last quarter are as follows: Safety workshop on “Brookfield Approach to Safety’’ by M/s. URM Canada (involving key O&M, for functional leaders from RPPMSL). This was long awaited as the first phase of the training was completed last year. However, the 4 sessions over 4 weeks (80 Hours), were well received by RPPMSL Circle Maintenance Managers (key stakeholders for Ops / HSSE to implement safety practices at RPPMSL. Summit Safety Program (SSP) - A program to train all Summit employees to perform their job roles safely was launched is progressing well as 4 courses have already been delivered to 100% of employees and the remaining are in-progress. The program witnessed great engagement and learning across all functions and roles. Summit Safety Scorecard continues to build the culture of proactive safety and driving HSSE performances across Circles. The National average improved from 71% for Dec ’21 to 77% in Feb ’22. Emergency Response Teams of Gujarat and the corporate office were trained on Summit Emergency Response & Preparedness (ERP). A mock drill was conducted at the corporate office to ensure preparedness during an emergency. All employees evacuated the office premises as per the ERP and reached safe assembly point in around 6 minutes. A culture of incident reporting within Summit Digitel has been initiated, with 18 circles having started reporting incidents.
The National Scorecard Average
71% 77%
December ‘21
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February ‘21
Safe work solutioning for working around DG mounted on RTT/RTP sites without roof edge protection was shared with partners. Safe work solutioning for working at sites near HT/LT lines were shared with partners. The Summit HSSE team has also implemented the height worker registration and deployment process of HOTO. Every rigger is numbered by us with a Unique -ID. We have full control on onboarding & Rigger deputation. 5
HSSE HSSE Trainings Over 2980 Man Hours of HSSE training have been conducted by Summit for its employees between the end of December of 2021 and the beginning of February of 2022. HSSE training events at both the National and Circle levels are also being successfully conducted. Our partner RPPMSL delivered 100,000 man-hours of training on topics such as Working @ Height, Electrical Safety, road safety, and working in proximity to HT/LT lines.
HSSE Audits We are committed to recognizing and analysing potential workplace hazards and adhering to the highest standards of safety for our employees. As a part of our constant efforts towards the same, we are happy to announce that a total of 1053 physical site inspections were completed in the quarter gone by (244– December; 507– January; 302- February). In addition, 572 remote site virtual audits were also completed for sharer/HOTO activities. As part of our ongoing initiatives, YTD 16,817 Unsafe act and conditions have been identified and reported to RPPMSL. Out of these, 12,927 were closed and validated by Summit.
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Sales The Sales team has had a magnificent few months, both in their staggering success numbers, as well as in the activities they have undertaken. Summit Digitel takes pride in having signed a MSA with one of the most important mobile network operators - Airtel thus securing their continued business for many years to come. By leveraging Airtel’s status as a key partner, Summit has risen to the forefront of the industry. Summit also became the preferred IP to Airtel in AP & TLG, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, UPE, Assam, North-East and MPCG circles. The Sales Stars of the Month for Feb 2022 were awarded to RSM – Sathish Sivaramakrishnan and CAM – Ramesh Ekambaram, for their tireless efforts towards success. Collaborations and building robust relationships with our partners are instrumental for our symbiotic growth and progress. The sales team held successful and productive meetings with our partners Airtel, BSNL, and VI along with having meetings with the Zonal Business heads of Airtel. To propagate the spirit of bonhomie and kinship, we also initiated distribution of souvenirs on New Year’s to our customers. These customer engagement meetings have contributed towards strengthening our working relationship with partners and establishing a strong foundation of trust.
Highlights
Signed an MSA with Airtel
STARS OF THE MONTH FEBRUARY 2022
Summit Digitel became the preferred IP Sathish Sivaramakrishnan Regional Sales Manger South 1 Newsletter Issue 04
Ramesh Ekambaram Circle Account Manager South 1 7
Branding and Communications
The incredible work being done by the various teams at Summit Digitel all find wonderful expression through the efforts of our MarComm team. Through several noteworthy initiatives, the MarComm team has tried to share the achievements and learnings both internally within Summit employees and partners, and externally to a larger audience. As Summit Digitel continues to advance on its journey to growth and success, our management team has been gaining visibility through various events and interviews. The 22nd-anniversary edition of Tele. net published an interview with Dhananjay and a print ad. We discussed Summit Digitel’s journey and progress in the Indian telecom industry, our key areas of focus, and the role of towercos in the launch of 5G services in our article. In addition, Dhananjay participated in an online discussion hosted by Forbes in which he discussed how organizations can utilize data-driven decision-making to overcome challenges during the digital transformation process. Furthermore, Devesh’s opinion piece was featured in a renowned digital magazine called Voice and Data. The article encapsulated the much-anticipated launch of 5G technology in India and how it has the potential to unlock an epoch of educational, healthcare and agricultural transformations, along with revolutionising the telecom industry. As part of a learning and development session hosted by Brookfield, an introduction to 5G and its possible impacts to all portfolio companies was conducted by Summit Leaders including Dhananjay Joshi, MD & CEO, Devesh Garg, CSMO, and Sachin Naik, COO. We celebrated our remarkable female employees on International Women’s Day through The Summit Women campaign, which shared their quirky side in accordance with the theme of #BreakTheBias, proving once again that the way forward is by defying gender stereotypes. Marcom is a key member of the Brookfield Women’s Network. On women’s day, a session featuring Ms. Greeshma, a renowned image consultant, was organized for all the women across the portfolio companies. Female workforce attended a workshop on personal branding, which provided them with key insights into the topic. Further, Nykaa vouchers were shared with female employees to show the appreciation and give them a sense of specialness.
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We also launched two key campaigns as part of our employer branding strategy. On Employee Appreciation Day, we expressed our gratitude to our team members who have helped Summit become an industry leader in a short period of time. As a part of our commitment towards the preservation of the environment, we raised a significant message of water conservation through our employees on World Water Day on 22nd March. This year, we also took a unique approach to the employee diary by creating a sleeker version, thereby sharing the crucial message of reducing paper consumption. In the age of digital technology, where we save documents online, the polished diary captures the brand’s essence while also giving it a more contemporary feel.
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Branding and Communications
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Employee Diary
Employee Appreciation Day
Women’s Day Celebration
Dhananjay’s Forbes Article
World Water Day
Print Ad
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Human Resources Culture Building Workshop In September and October 2021, we held a culture building and action planning workshop facilitated by Kincentric to co-create Summit’s Vision, Mission, Values, and Culture. The VMVC is the very foundation on which Summit Digitel will build its brand equity, both internally and externally. Following both the workshops, we conducted couple of interventions, viz as a VMVC refresher session and Train the Trainer (TTT) workshop. In the TTT workshop, some selected participants were trained on how to conduct a similar daylong workshop for Summit employees. Participants were taken through various nuances of how to train, engage the audience, answer queries, body language, voice modulation etc. There were 2 video recording sessions for each participant. The TTT session was an engaging and a learning experience which received a very strong positive feedback from all the participants.
Rewards & Recognition It has been our constant endeavour to thank, recognize, reward and motivate our people for their contributions, unwavering commitment and selfless efforts in our journey of “Sharing Happiness by Enabling Connections”. As an effort in this direction, we have launched Summit’s Reward & Recognition Policy. The objective is to create a culture of appreciation across Summit that transcends hierarchies, grades, levels and designations. Awareness sessions for all employees was held on RnR policy.
Employee Engagement On March 8th, we celebrated International Women’s Day with the Brookfield Women Network group through a virtual event preceded by an external speaker, Ms. Greeshma Thampi - Image Consultant and Leadership specialist, on personal branding and corporate grooming. Summit’s women employees were given a personalized IWD card with a message and a gift voucher to thank and appreciate the spirit of womanhood. Holi was virtually celebrated on March 17th with a fun-filled, colourful, and refreshing session. 10
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Human Resources We are delighted to have been given the title of “Dream Companies to Work For in the Telecommunications Sector” by the World HRD Congress. Our honor is a tribute to our commitment and alignment with the values, culture, and mission of the company, as well as our efforts to build a work-life balance program and training opportunities that are both inclusive and equitable. This award can be viewed as evidence that we are headed in the right direction.
Birthday Celebrations As a company, we strive to ensure that employees’ birthdays are celebrated in a joyful manner. We have a monthly celebration in which all employees whose birthdays fall during that month get together to cut cake and a have a small celebration. There is a lot of camaraderie and joy at work for employees who celebrate their birthdays during the month. Such events serve to strengthen team relationships and allow for people to establish a rapport within and across teams.
New Joinees We are proud to have several new additions to our teams in the last quarter. Each individual adds a unique dimension to Summit and we are looking forward to working together for many years to come. They include: At Regional office:
At Corporate office:
Minal Parab
AM - Accounts Payable
Awais Ahmad
Manager - Billing
Nachiketa Satapathy Sr. Manager - Data Insight & Integration
Bhavani Nayak Regional HSSE (North)
Summit Diversity Ratio
7.91% 14 out of 177
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92.09%
163 out of 177
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Finance The finance team is responsible for adhering to all financial laws and regulations, thereby helping Summit achieve accreditation in line with our achievements. Despite unforeseen and sometimes challenging circumstances, our Finance Team has conducted their operations seamlessly and efficiently. We are immensely proud to announce that the
Summit achieved an important milestone steered by Finance 1st Year SOX compliance (Sarbanes-Oxley Act, USA) as of 31st Dec 2021 signed off by Deloitte (statutory auditors). Brookfield is registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) USA and, therefore, is required to annually attest to the effectiveness of internal controls over financial reporting. Being a Brookfield-operated entity, Summit Digitel is required to comply with SOX. Brookfield Management is thrilled with Summit’s SOX outcome! Doing things for the first time is always exciting and challenging. The first year SOX program was an over 7 month long rigorous exercise which started in July 2021 and covered control design documentation, implementation of identified controls and testing of operating effectiveness of 84 controls across 8 major accounting processes. We collaborated with multiple stakeholders i.e. Deloitte (Toronto / India), KPMG, Reliance, and Brookfield to achieve the desired outcome.
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Additionally, a few other highlights during the quarter were as follows:
01 Data Infrastructure Trust (InvIT) has completed the acquisition of Space TeleInfra Private Limited. Space TeleInfra is the fastest growing IP-1 service provider in India that provides End to End Digital Infrastructure Solutions. We played a pivotal role and successfully obtained regulatory approvals to complete the 1st Rights and Preferential Issue by a privately placed InvIT in India.
02 The Finance team rolled out a new Procurement Policy for Summit Digitel. The policy will enable procurement based on the approved business plan. It aims to provide a framework to procure reliable products/ services at the right time, place and price to cater to our business requirements. Please reach out to Head SCM for your procurement requirements.
03 We progressed well on the ongoing SAP S4/ HANA Implementation project and successfully completed documentation of all finance processes and other critical master data requirements. We are engaging with the IBM Team and collaborating with other stakeholders to ensure timely implementation of this strategic project. IBM shall be soon starting with the system development and we shall be testing the system integration.
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Information Technology As usual, our IT champions have been acing it with their efficiency and future-forward outlook. The Book Order on Summit (BOOST) portal has undergone improvisations to ensure the customer user experience is absolutely hassle free. These include developing and making SR Bulk Utility live for customers, RFAI Dump & Milestone Report, SO Fields editable at RFS Declaration Page, RFS Rejection during RFS, and ‘Tower Shareability’ attribute addition to Tower Master. We have also received significant appreciation from Airtel regarding these enhancements. These enhancements have helped the SMC team to have better control and execute faster orders coming from customers, resulting in an overall improved experience for everybody involved.
SAP Cloud InfrastructureERP implementation Configuration of SAP cloud Infrastructure for data intelligence, middleware layer (CPI) and data-warehouse was also completed successfully. An Azure VPN gateway establishment was completed to enable users to connect and have smooth access to SAP cloud. This has enabled development and quality instance readiness for ERP project implementation, acheived significant and critical milestone.
Introduction of IT Processes The Demand Management process helps in catering to business requirements by providing the most appropriate feasible IT solution. The process will also be helpful in assisting business case preparations and cost/budget approval, enabling business functions to meet their business objectives.
The Application Onboarding process helps identify the best fit solution from the right partners, and partner getting onboarded for solution implementation as per business requirements. This includes project implementation with appropriate SDLC/agile strategy to help implementation of business application within defined time and cost.
Application Go-Live IT Security process ensure enough robustness in application considering required security control effectiveness are there and complied as per Summit Digitel’s Information Security policy and process. Mandatory to make applications go live by identifying security gaps and fixing/mitigating the same which will help in ensuring business resiliency by preventing any unfortunate cyber-attacks.
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Operations The Operations Team has the daunting task of ensuring smooth functioning day and night, and has played an integral role in ensuring that daily operations continued without significant roadblocks. It performed exceptionally well on the Network Performance front, where we delivered highest ever overall network uptime. All circles have met service level performances as per agreements. Energy billing is being done on the basis of the recently concluded on a Fixed Energy Model (FEM) tariff card has been signed-off with the shared. HOTO count is increasing gradually, and this quarter the portfolio has crossed 150k sites. Flow of service requests in increasing rapidly across circles and the RFI good number of deliveries are happening within SLAs including the site feasibility timelines. RFI deliveries have been time after time exceeding expectations in this quarter. The sharer business has increased by four-fold compared to FY21-22 H2 and organization has crossed 3K+ count of RFI deliveries by this year end.
HOTO count increased this quarter to 150k+ sites. RFI number exceeded expectations in the quarter Achieved optimum people productivity by delegating national/special projects to Circle Deployment Heads Capex reduction by reducing ODC (Outdoor Cabinet) size RTT site tower loading increased from 4 GSM to 6 GSM antennae Better safety promotion through development of an online platform for Permit to Work and site audits via mobile applications
In terms of improving efficiency, we have made significant headway. HOTO site audit findings are being addressed through HOTO Governance with partners. We are achieving optimum people productivity by delegating national/special projects to Circle Deployment Heads, while tower load capacity validation is underway by a third party. We are also achieving a capex reduction by reducing ODC (Outdoor Cabinet) size. RTT site tower loading has been increased from 4 GSM to 6 GSM antennae, and 4th leg tower feasibility has been established, thus enhancing the probability of conversion ratio. Governance mechanism has been set up with all customers for reviewing the performance and taking up improvement plans to continue our journey towards operational excellence. ‘Local – Vocal’ initiative of automation of preventive maintenance activities in regional languages – Tamil / Telugu / Hindi / Malayalam. Focusing on health and safety activities, actions have been started to develop an online platform for Permit to Work and site audits through mobile application for which cross functional team is working for third party engagement. DEMO of mobile applications has been completed and we are in the verge of finalizing partner for development of mobile application. 14
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Regulatory It is the constant endeavour of our Regulatory function to ensure that Summit Digitel, as an independent infrastructure provider, maintains neutrality and follows highest standards of regulatory compliance while contributing ideas for pragmatic and simple regulatory regime. As part of the compliances, DoT is to be kept informed regarding any change in the information about the permission holder available with them. The Regulatory function at our Corporate Office under the Operations unit, promptly informed the DoT HQ and its field units about the change in the Registered Office address of the Company. Additionally, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu came out with new policies for “Right of Way” (RoW) permissions for setting up and operating the
telecom infrastructure, the Summit team was closely involved in the consultation process of policy formulation. Subsequently too, the Tamil Nadu government requested for inputs to further refine the Policy. The Regulatory function submitted the inputs on this through Digital Infrastructure Providers Association (DIPA), after consultations with the Circle team of Summit Digitel. The Regulatory team also actively participated in the consultation processes for upcoming areas like 5G small cells, Data Centers etc. Mr. Usmanulla K interacted with Karnataka LSA on 24th February 2022 to suggest ways for the smooth roll out of 5G small cells using government and public infrastructure like street furniture.
Highlights Summit Digitel’s inputs were also submitted through DIPA on the TRAI consultation papers on ‘Ease of Doing Business in Telecom and Broadcasting Sectors’ and ‘Regulatory Framework for promoting Data Economy through establishment of Data Centres, Content Delivery Network and, Interconnect Exchanges in India’.
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Telecom Facts The government plans to add over 8 lakh new mobile towers in the next two years. Cell towers can be found atop water towers, churches, windmills, silos, industry smoke stacks, schools, other buildings and even artificial trees. The upcoming 5G roll-out may prompt cell towers to be posted on street lamps and utility posts rather than conventional spots. 5G will enable higher automation across industries and the telecom sector will have to proactively work towards smoother 5G availability. Industries that are still at the nascent stage of a digital transformation, such as manufacturing, healthcare, supply chain, etc. will experience a massive rate of digitization in the next few years. Connections to 5G networks worldwide are expected to reach 1.34 billion by the end of 2022. WiFi 6 and 5G will work in tandem to enable a more connected ecosystem.
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Committed to Connecting India
www.summitdigitel.com