Vodafone

Ranked 1 in 2008 global Accountability Rating

Vodafone ranks top in the Accountability Rating of the world’s 100 largest companies because it has the most consistent performance across the four domains of the Rating.

Its particularly good performance in the Stakeholder Engagement domain is due to four main factors:

1. A very thorough explanation of its approach to stakeholder engagement. Vodafone carefully selects stakeholder representatives, identifies what their expressed interests are, and utilizes different engagement mechanisms that cover the whole range of stakeholders.
2. Progressive rollout of engagement across all its operating companies, on the local and global level, particularly in relation to the building of its network infrastructure.
3. The best independent assurance of a CSR report among the G100.
4. A best-practice, third-party monitored ‘grievance mechanism’ for internal as well as external stakeholders.

Besides engagement, Vodafone is also demonstrating best-practice in a range of other areas. Particularly noteworthy activities include:

• Addressing e-waste issues in major emerging markets, especially in developing countries where Vodafone is rolling out comprehensive phone take-back systems.
• Low-cost mobile phones, mobile banking services, as well as franchise-based community phone services that make telecommunication services available in rural and remote areas of developed countries (e.g. Kenya and Afghanistan).
• Text-to-speech software for blind people, and other solutions for deaf people, enabling disabled people to make use of telecommunication services.

Vodafone’s strategic reasons behind developing such innovative products and services can be explained by the increasing saturation of markets in the OECD economies. Developing countries offer the main growth opportunity for mobile telecommunication providers. Engagement is also key to tapping these markets, as the development of new distribution models and design of new products can greatly benefit from stakeholder involvement and knowledge.