Radio One elevates Shyju Varkey as Chief Skills Officer

The company has been looking to create a flat organisation structure where senior people in the system take on enhanced functional responsibilities

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | July 26, 2012

Radio One, the joint venture with Next Mediaworks and BBC Worldwide, has elevated Shyju Varkey as Chief Skills Officer. He will however continue to look into his existing roles of Station Director - Bangalore and National Marketing Head.

The company has been looking to create a flat organisation structure where senior people in the system take on enhanced functional responsibilities thereby giving them holistic management experience.

In his enhanced role, Varkey will look after 'skill upgradation for people' across markets and functions. He will use both internal and external mentors to create a platform for 'applied learning'. The company will fund this skill upgradation programme to ensure people are well equipped in times of high competition and slow paced economic growth.

Radio One has trimmed its manpower from 166 people last year to 118 people across seven markets. Vineet Singh Hukmani, Managing Director, Radio One Ltd, said, “We have identified our stars within the system and are ensuring we retain, upgrade and reward quality people. Quantity has created many problems for the radio industry and that tends to encourage mediocrity and, of course, it adds to cost. Our hunger for innovation and differentiation has helped us identify people across levels who are ready for the next level of growth.”

The company is well on its way in creating a 'value growth' led strategy. This allows better targeting of more educated higher net worth audiences. This is made possible by ensuring enhanced product quality and enhanced people skills which justify higher premium in the market.

The other key members of the 'differentiation team' are Anil Machado who is the National Programming Head, Saurabh Sehgal who was recently promoted to National Corporate Sales Head, and Debojit Saha who is the National Client Solutions head.

“Product and people skill upgradation are essential to survival in a commoditised market where no differentiation exists. We want clients and business partners to continue to say two things to us: 'you are the most differentiated radio network' and 'you have the best people'. All our station directors have ensured we function this way in every city we operate in,” added Hukmani.

Radio One operates differentiated stations targeting educated Indians across its seven markets: international stations in Mumbai and Delhi; a Bollywood station in Bangalore; Maximum Music stations in Ahmedabad and Pune; a 100 per cent Retro station in Kolkata; and in Chennai, the only 100 per cent Request station.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

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