As Sri Lanka’s Most Valuable Brand for the 4^th consecutive year, how has Dialog enhanced its Brand Value and stayed true to its vision?

Guided by our purpose of Empowering and Enriching Sri Lankan Lives and Enterprises, we are striving towards creating sustainable digital ecosystems across our footprint to benefit all our stakeholders while transforming our country into a digital nation. As a result of these efforts, we are humbled and privileged to serve over 17 Million Sri Lankans today.

In recognition of the Company's aspirations of being a responsible, ethical, and sustainable brand, Sri Lankans across the country voted Dialog as the ‘Telecommunication Brand of the Year’ for a record 11th year and ‘Service Brand of the Year’ for the 3rd consecutive year at the SLIM-KANTAR People’s Awards 2022. This brand trajectory has also culminated in Dialog being named ‘Sri Lanka’s Most Valuable Brand’ by Brand Finance for the 4th consecutive year, with a brand value of Rs. 54.0Bn and a brand rating of AAA for the 3rd consecutive year.

As a responsible corporate citizen, how has Dialog responded at times of need to assist communities?

The greatest driving force of transformation continues to be the pandemic, which has also been challenging for all Sri Lankans. As the #1 Brand in the Country, we consider it our responsibility to help our fellow Sri Lankans through multiple initiatives focusing on access to connectivity, health care services and education.

In supporting the healthcare sector, we initiated a programme to enhance urgently required critical care infrastructure in 18 hospitals selected by MOH, extended ‘SuwaDiri’, a special, free of charge communication facility for critical care health workers across the country working tirelessly on the front-line, deployed a National Patient Bed Management Solution to the Ministry of Health to efficiently distribute patients to treatment centres, helped establish the National 1390 COVID-19 Integrated Home-based Care Solution which supported over 150,000 COVID patients.

Furthering our efforts to ensure that no child is left behind in continuing their education, we also supported the Ministry of Education to expand the free Nenasa TV educational creating the largest free digital education platform with 8 digital satellite TV channels, facilitated over 100,000 schoolchildren from 470 schools across the country with Data Scholarships and extended free connectivity and facilities to all 379 Child Development Centres in Sri Lanka. In addition to the above, we continued to carry out relief programmes to provide essential items to communities adversely affected by the pandemic and natural disasters. These are some of the initiatives we’ve conducted during the past year, which follow a multitude of projects by Dialog to empower the national health care efforts during the pandemic, with investments totalling Rs. 446 Million to date.

Furthermore, in a mission to fight food insecurity caused by the economic crisis among the vulnerable communities across Sri Lanka, the ‘ManudamMehewara’ multi-corporation humanitarian alliance was initiated by Dialog Axiata PLC in April 2022. This programme is carried out with several likeminded partners namely MAS Holdings, Hemas Holdings PLC, CBL Group, Citi, Sunshine Holdings PLC, Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, and PwC Sri Lanka which aims to assist over 200,000 families in-need.

We will continue to develop solutions with a social purpose and accelerate our digital drive to support Sri Lankans and our nation adapt to the new normal.

How does Dialog ensure service excellence while focusing on enabling a sustainable future for all?

We are committed to delivering the very latest in technology and connectivity underpinned by inclusive and equitable access to technology while creating unparalleled experiences by being both salient and meaningfully different, as espoused in our Brand signature ‘The Future. Today.’. Dialog brand is central to the Company’s purpose of Enriching and Empowering Lives and Enterprises and service strategy of customer centricity as manifested in our guiding principle of ‘Service from the Heart’.

As a responsible corporate citizen, we exert a particular focus on strengthening our environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) commitments. In driving our environmental agenda, we undertook many initiatives to support climate action goals. Accordingly, Dialog’s Environmental Management System was certified for the globally recognized ISO 14001:2015 standard for its full scope of operations, becoming the first Quad-play Telco in South Asia to do so. In furthering the social impact in our ESG ambition, we strived to facilitate differentiated, innovative and compelling solutions integral to modern times while extending inclusive technology that will empower Sri Lankans from all walks of life. We also focused on community development, emergency and disaster response, COVID-19 support, as well as employee welfare and talent development. Finally, under the governance pillar, we continued to be a trusted digital companion and partner to our customers, enterprises, communities and public authorities, by strengthening our Anti-Bribery, Anti-Corruption and Data Privacy efforts.

In our journey of propelling the country’s digital ambitions, we remain committed to helping people build better lives and leading the way to a bright, sustainable future.

Supun Weerasinghe Group Chief Executive

Photographed left to right - Ruchi Gunewardene, Chairman of Brand Finance Lanka, Supun Weerasinghe, Group Chief Executive of Dialog Axiata PLC, Amali Nanayakkara, Group Chief Marketing Officer, Dialog Axiata PLC