Restoring Supplier Relationships in the Pakistani Telecom Industry: A Case Study on Retention Strategies Post-Disruption

Abstract

 It’s a rainy day at Islamabad in July-221 & today weather went pleasant followed by many humid days but tension and temperature was rising in K-01 (Meeting room at 2nd floor of HQ- Zee-Link-4G, a Telecom Operator Company), Mr. Jaffer Khan, Manager ATL Promotion at Zee-Link was reviewing Half Year performance of Mills , a Media Buying Company hired by Zee-Link in Jan-2021 by fleeting through cumbersome and hefty sourcing process, which took strenuous efforts of 2 months by both Marketing & Procurement Teams at Zee-Link. Half of the year is being passed Mills was still unable to achieve KPI of Premium Position (first and last spots in every ad break) i.e. must be greater than 50% but it remained at 39% in Q-1 and 42% in Q-2- 2021. In addition to that KPI of Media Droppages (spots dropped due to special program airing or unforeseen events) is not coming below 13% whereas it was supposed to be less than 7.5%. In the meeting Jaffar khan was raising his concerns to Anwar Lodhi & his team, Account Director appointed by Mills for Zee-Link project that despite under delivery on KPI’s by Mills, were resisting to include Top Channels and premium time bands in media plan due to rate issues. Anwar Lodhi & his team was also refusing Zee-Link for the spots required during top tier TV Programs like (ARY Digital Jeeto Pakistan, Geo News Aaj Shahzaib Khanzada Kay Saath, Duniya News Mazaaq Raat) as per rates locked in the contract, in-fact they were asking for specialized rates for all Premium TV Programs, which were already quoted by Mills themselves 6 months ago to win competitive bidding conduct by Zee-Link. Anwar Lodhi & his team was rather more interested to get their due payments as early as possible without any performance related deductions and claiming for relaxation in KPI’s. Jaffar Khan & his team were interested to elevate Zee-Link’s media performance by not giving further leverage to Mills. Meeting ended up nowhere and both teams decided to take their contractual options & refereed the matter to Zee-Link’s Procurement and Executive Management at Mills.