F IRST YEAR

CASE STUDY
A B O U T _VO IS
_VOIS (Vodafone Intelligent Solutions) is a strategic arm of Vodafone Group Plc, for which it creates value by
enhancing the quality and efficiency of several processes in the IT/ ITeS domain. Established in 2006,
_VOIS has evolved into a global, multi-functional organization that currently has centres across India, Albania,
Egypt, Romania, Hungary, Spain and UK with over 26,000 professionals.

We were formerly known as Vodafone Shared Services (VSS). Over the past 16 years, we have played a key role in
enabling the Vodafone strategy globally. But now we have outgrown our traditional shared services origins. Our talent
and innovative technologies are at the heart of our transformation, moving us forward into an exciting future –
and powering even greater value to Vodafone. Along with an exciting business strategy, we have a new name
and brand identity that better reflects the impact that we make for our people, our partners and our planet. United
by shared values and a common purpose, we are committed to driving the innovation and intelligent solutions that
move the world.

_VOIS has matured over the past 16 years, delivering value to our partners. In recent years, it has transformed
its approach from being a reliable service provider to becoming a strategic partner with a focus on Technology
and Transformation. Therefore, _VOIS now a key lever for Vodafone Group and Vodafone Operating Companies
(OpCos) to drive Transformation and Optimisation initiatives across the organisation. It plays its part by
effectively enabling the Vodafone strategy and delivering cost optimisation, innovation and higher levels of
profitability.

Our Vision: We aspire to be Vodafone Group’s partner of choice for Talent, Technology and
Transformation.
Our Strategy: People Led, Digitally Enabled, Partner Powered.
Our Mission: Provide scale @ speed to fuel efficient growth.

A B O U T _VO IS INDIA
In 2009, _VOIS started operating in India and now has established global delivery centres in Pune, Bangalore
and Ahmedabad. With more than 13,000 employees, _VOIS India supports global markets and group functions of
Vodafone and delivers best-in-class customer experience through multi-functional services in the areas of
Information Technology, Networks, Business Intelligence and Analytics, Digital Business Solutions (Robotics &
AI), Customer Operations (Consumer & Enterprise), Intelligent Operations, Finance Operations, Supply Chain
Operations and HR Operations and more.

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UNDERSTANDING
THE SERVICE LINES
• Business Operations: In order to achieve business efficiencies in the 26 OpCos, this team offers high- level
capability by providing marketing, digital sales, product, service transition, bid management, pre- sales &
commercial operations solutions.

• Customer Operations: This team provides customised support and outreach capability to Vodafone OpCos by
offering web chat, voice support, e-mail support, credit & collection, fraud & research and back-office
solutions. This team has been integral in providing multi-lingual services, managing transactions that run
into millions each year.

• Technology & Networks: Information Technology & Networks forms the backbone of telecom
operations. This team provides expertise in application development & operations, UI/UX, ERP, data
security, software testing, infrastructure management, laying of fiber cables and transitioning to newer
technologies. Ensuring network operations continuity is another responsibility that this service line delivers.

• Corporate Functions:

• Business Intelligence Services: In the era where data is the new oil, the Analytics and Insights team
recommends customised solutions to make the business more efficient. This team helps in turning insights
into opportunities, predict business outcome and prescribe actions. It further helps businesses to measure
and improve KPIs. The team specialises in using sentiment analysis as a tool as well.
• HR Operations: There has been a significant shift in the world of human resources and how
employees interact with an organisation, and this team helps in keeping up with the changes. It provides
a digital HR experience to employees across Vodafone OpCos. It further aids in implementing the next-generation
HR systems and enhancing employee experience overall.
• Finance Operations: This team helps in achieving the synergies for OpCos by offering consolidated
financial solutions in terms of working capital, accounting, tax and advanced finance services for Vodafone
operating companies across the globe.
• Security Operations: Security Operations provides critical support to Vodafone OpCos in combating fraud,
money-laundering and data loss that can impact the organization and its customers financially &
reputationally, besides providing travel security to its employees, Managing Business Continuity and audit support
to the Sales processes. Security Operations is also developing itself as centre of Excellence (CoE) for Privacy
and Compliance by onboarding multiple workstreams such as Second line of defense, Supplier & Policy Security,
and Governance Risk & Compliance.
• Supply Chain Management: The SCM capability centre provides support globally with centralised
processes and focusses on efficiency through dedication and innovation. The service line leverages its expertise &
global outlook in managing end-to-end sourcing, contract management, purchasing operations & supplier
evaluation, among others.

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THE BRIEF
_VOIS has been growing rapidly in the past few years, reaching towering growth rates in the last few years. We
expect this growth to continue in the coming years. To support and fuel this growth further, we have been experiencing
a need to expand the pool of our resources.

The entire world saw several momentous changes happening in the past few years. These years have taught us
how anticipating and being prepared for disruptions is an imperative part of growth for any organization.
Considering our growing need for human capital, one major disruption with the potential to hamper our
growth is the Talent War.

The Talent War has been a decades-long concern for companies. Steven Hankin from McKinsey coined the term
“war for talent” in 1997. McKinsey employees also authored a book in 2001 called “The War for Talent”, where
the authors predicted that the make-or-break for firms in the next two decades would be the ability to attract,
develop, and retain talent.

This war for talent is a continuous struggle which intensifies every few years. Currently, the war for talent has
aggravated further due to another phenomenon which is being called “The Great Resignation”. The Great
Resignation refers to the higher-than-usual number of employees voluntarily leaving their jobs since late 2020. A
Gartner report suggests globally, only 29.1% of IT workers have high intent to stay with their current employer, but
the number is much lower in Asia (19.6%), Australia and Latin America (26.9%). Even in Europe, the best
performing region, only four in 10 IT workers (38.8%) have a high intent to stay. As the aftermath of the pandemic,
the employee needs and demands from employers seem to have changed. Some are now looking for unconventional
jobs, some wish to be able to spend more time with their families while some want opportunities that allow
them to work on and take care of themselves.

With technology serving as an upcoming and driving factor in industries increasingly, IT Service Providers globally
are going all out to battle the Talent War and curb the high rates of attrition. With _VOIS aspiring to expand
rapidly and emerge as a partner of choice, it expects to attract the most suitable talent within this red ocean of
Talent Hunt and find ways for sustainable retention, especially amidst the ongoing shift in narratives – in the ways
employees look for and choose new organizations to work with.

Given the aggressive talent attraction and retention strategies IT and IT-BPO organisations are engaging in,
_VOIS needs to put its best foot forward to attract the best talent. _VOIS is a people-centric organisation,
and we understand that no One-For-All policy/offering can be rolled out to employees who have a myriad of
needs and preferences. Below is a glimpse of our guiding principles for Employee related policies.

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C U LT U R E @ _VO IS
_VOIS currently offers an inclusive and diverse portfolio of employees, all embedded with the culture to deliver to our full
potential on our Purpose & Strategy. How we do it is reflected by the SPIRIT of Vodafone. The SPIRIT of Vodafone was launched in
December 2019, encapsulated by our beliefs of Trust, Drive, Curiosity, and Belonging and by the following Spirit Behaviors
which influence how we do things and how we make decisions:

_VOIS currently has a varied employee feedback tool landscape: We measure our employee sentiment and engagement via various
listening tools which give us a real-time view of the employees’ needs and engagement and enable our leadership to take
actions based on insights.

• We run Pulse Surveys to find out how to best support our employees and their well-being.

• The SPIRIT Beat Survey helps us evaluate where we are on our cultural transformation journey. It includes questions on how we
live up to our beliefs and how we display SPIRIT behaviours at work; it also covers areas such as engagement, purpose and
diversity, where employees can give their feedback on what is going well, and what needs to change.

• We also organized the Future Ready Survey in our endeavour to optimize how we use our office space, develop our talent and
skills to improve our collaboration tools and help us get Future Ready as we move into the new normal. The new Future
Ready strategy is designed based on quantitative insights gathered from employees’ feedback during the pandemic, our customers’
changing needs and our vision of the future. Being Future Ready at _VOIS will allow us to work in a way which captures the
best of both – flexibility and empowerment of working virtually at home, whilst being able to come together in the
office space when required.

With the advent of the new normal, _VOIS has been continuously proactive in ensuring a smooth transition. We seek to ensure that
employees’ safety and wellbeing are adhered to (via several initiatives and programmes like Employee Assistance Programme
(EAP), Flexi-work options, COVID Leave etc.) while successfully delivering our responsibilities to the needs of stakeholders,
partners, and customers.

Under our Future Ready strategy, we started identifying different work patterns which we anticipated to have in the future and
assessed how these will shape everyone’s experience. We then mapped all the roles in the organisation to three work patterns or
‘personas’: The Home Worker, The Office Worker, and The Hybrid Worker.

• Under The Home Worker persona, we mapped roles that can be done remotely, with the same efficiency,
productivity and security as in the office.

• Under The Office Worker persona, we mapped roles that will predominantly be delivered from the office, with flexible
working allowed when absolutely required.

• Under The Hybrid Worker persona, we mapped roles that can be delivered remotely, but require regular access to the
office. This could be for meetings or to manage office-based teams.

With our culture and SPIRIT of Vodafone at _VOIS, we strive to fulfil the needs of our employees as well as our
stakeholders to the best of our ability. With the dynamic environment of the industry and the transformation in the talent pool
that the IT organizations are going through, _VOIS hopes to attract talent and maintain retention sustainably.

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YO U R C H A L L E N G E
While there is an acceptable and healthy rate of attrition within any organization. According to your research
and analysis, what should be the threshold level of attrition and why?
You need to prepare a segmented workforce model that will help us identify the varying demands of
today’s workforce and accordingly suggest suitable recommendations for talent attraction and retention.
For the same,
Segment workforce based on different parameters (You can think in terms of parameters like
Demographics, behavioural attributes etc.). You may use multiple parameters to create a customer segment.
• Outline the parameters used to create the segments clearly. What is the rationale behind the hyper-
segmentation in this way?
• What are the underlying characteristics of an employee belonging to each of the segments?
• What are the basic factors that employees in each of these segments seek while looking for an
employer? What are the factors that drive them negatively/positively?
For each of the segments, outline a
• Short-term plan: Identify initiatives that _VOIS can take as an organization to combat the ongoing
Talent War (make suitable assumptions regarding the duration of the same), attract talent and retain its
existing workforce amidst high industry-wide attrition. You can look at the prevalent market practices
that are being adopted by IT organizations that _VOIS can leverage.
Make sure that these practices align with the culture at _VOIS and the SPIRIT of Vodafone.
• Long-Term Plan: While the short-term plan will help us attract talent amidst the current high global
attrition rates, we need sustainable solutions that will help manage talent at _VOIS against any future cycles
of Talent War as well. Devise a long-term plan for each of the employee segments that will help in the attraction
and retention of talent in the long run.
Lastly, analyze your initiatives in terms of the efforts required and the impact created. Rank
them based on what should be prioritized for maximum benefit. (You can utilize a suitable matrix or
graph to depict the same).
Ensure that all recommendations suggested by you have coherence and are aligned to
an overall talent strategy.

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APPENDIX
EXHIBIT 1
HEADCOUNTDISTRIBUTION BY AGE
Age Groups % of Head Count
18-24 Years Old 6%
25-34 Years Old 63%
35-44 Years Old 27%
45-54 Years Old 3%
55 and Above 1%

EXHIBIT 2
HEADCOUNTDISTRIBUTION BY TENURE

Tenure Groups % of Head Count

Less than 2 Years 29%
2-5 Years 49%
6-10 Years 18%
11-15 Years 3%
16-20 Years 0.5%
Over 20 Years 0.5%

Note: Above data is a close representation of the actual data

EXHIBIT 3
I N D U S T R Y L E V E L AT T R I T I O N T R E N D S ( T E C H )

Company FY 21-22 Attrition

Company A 29.0%
Company B 27.7%
Company C 24.2%
Company D 24.0%
Company E 23.8%
Company F 21.8%
Company G 17.4%

Note: Company “X” represents major global players in the IT industry. Assume that _VOIS Attrition rates fall
within this range.

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EXHIBIT 4

KEY LINKS
• Vodafone Site

• _VOIS Site

• Vodafone Investor Relations Page

• Vodafone’s Local and Partner Markets

• Vantage 2022 Case Launch Event Recording

• Social Media Channels:

• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Facebook