Econet Shows Its Appreciation by Rewarding Top Performing Brand Ambassadors

Zimbabwe’s largest mobile telecommunications company, Econet Wireless, graciously showed its appreciation to its brand ambassadors by rewarding its top-performing Harare-based brand ambassadors at an event held in Harare yesterday. A brand ambassador is a person who is hired by an organization or company to represent a brand in a positive light and by doing so help to increase brand awareness and sales. Whether the economy is growing or shrinking, finding ways to motivate employees should always be a management’s concern and by doing that, it enhances employee performance, which results in high productivity (output) – Garbage in, Garbage out. 

According to Econet’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) Fayaz King he commented on the event that its purpose is to “motivate and honour” the top performing brand ambassadors in its Harare Northern region and to “spread the inspiration, and that is indeed commendable.

Speaking to the over 400-strong sales and distribution force, popularly known as ‘brand ambassadors’ or simply as BAs, who were gathered at the Golden Conifer in the northern suburb of Mabelreign, Mr King commended the brand ambassadors for their outstanding work and vowed to support them in every way on their entrepreneurial journey.

“Today we are here to take a moment to celebrate the outstanding work you do and to witness your transition from being mere sales people to being our businessmen and businesswomen of the future,” said Mr King, who handed out the winners’ prizes to the best performers and certificates of appreciation to long-serving and consistent brand ambassadors.

“But our goal is to equip you to go to the next level, for you to use this opportunity to launch your own start-up, to empower you to become serious entrepreneurs,” said Mr King, adding that Econet viewed them as business partners, and not just as distribution channel members.

He handed awards in various categories to more than 30 brand ambassadors, categories that included the best-selling brand ambassador, the most innovative, the longest-serving and most loyal, and the newest and best-selling brand ambassador.

The Econet COO, who was accompanied by a number of senior Econet executives – among them Chief Marketing Officer Navdeep Karpur, Marketing General Manager Mrs Mellany Mariri, Chief Sales Officer Mr Givemore Jojo and Harare North General Manager Mr Mike Munawa – also gave awards for outstanding performers by-product category, such as airtime sales, SIM sales, Kwese sales and many others.

The toast of the afternoon was Tendekai Munetsi, who clinched the overall best prize, followed by Learnmore Jonga in second place, and Milton Madakuenda in third.

The top three performers walked away with brand new Green Kiosks and ‘seed stock’, which included 200 SIM cards each, to get the kiosks up and running.

Mr King promised that at the next event, he would give away up to 10 Green Kiosks, as his company pushes to make as many of the brand ambassadors “grow into self-sustained business partners”.

Munetsi, winner of the overall best brand ambassador award, thanked Econet for rewarding their efforts, saying this would only motivate him to do even better in the coming year.

“I am so appreciative and humbled by this gesture by Econet, and I promise – now that I even have a Green Kiosk – to perform better in the coming year than I did in the past year and to develop as an entrepreneur,” said the proud winner, promising to make the top prize my own.

Green Kiosks are branded compact and robust units that Econet pioneered to help its sales and distribution channel members to stock and distribute its products throughout the country.

The kiosks are kitted with solar panels that help both owners and customers to recharge their phones and power other accessories on the go.

Econet has rolled out over 1.200 Green Kiosks around the country, according to the company’s Chief Sales Officer Mr Givemore Jojo, who attended the brand ambassadors’ awards event.

Congratulating the winners, Mr Jojo said Econet now employed more than 6.000 active brand ambassadors and 40.000 vendors country-wide.

The event in Harare was also attended a team of visiting Kwese technical and commercial experts from around Africa, who are currently in the country sharing market insights and experiences with their local counterparts in Zimbabwe.