When Vijay Sethi, CIO of Hero Moto Corp took up additional responsibility of a the Head- CSR, he knew technology would come in handy to ramp up the CSR efforts. Here’s how Sethi delivered on his promise.
Bisma was like any other 8-year-old girl who loved going to school and enjoying the simple pleasures of childhood. But destiny dealt a cruel blow to the Kashmiri girl when her father passed away, leaving behind a family battling poverty.
Her mother decided to migrate to Srinagar, in search of livelihood. Bisma’s dreams were shattered in one instant. Poverty robbed her of her childhood and the desire to explore the world around her.
Before being thrown into the cauldron, Bisma was like any other schoolgirl of her age, happy to read books, learn new things and play with her friends. Now, a school dropout, Bisma, switched from one odd job to another, to support her family.
But destiny took another turn and her dream took wings when Hero MotoCorp chose to fund her education under its CSR initiative. Today, Bisma is one of the thousands of girls whose education and empowerment is being supported by the company.
Titled Hamari Pari, the initiative is aimed primarily at girls below the age of 15 who cannot afford a formal education. The program not only rekindles their dream of education but also helps them with vocational skills. With this CSR initiative, Hero Moto Corp hopes to empower thousands of girls like Bisma.
Curiously enough, the man behind the roaring success of this initiative is the CIO of Hero MotoCorp.
IT lens on CSR initiatives
When Vijay Sethi took up the additional portfolio of the Head of CSR at Hero Moto Corp, he resolved to leverage the power of technology to step up the CSR activities of the company.He knew well that there was only one way to ensure that awareness for the cause reached its maximum possible extent and it was with the use of technology.
He used the digital mediums of web to create destinations which were used not only to spread awareness about the issue of girl child empowerment but also encouraged people across the country to support the cause so that a ripple effect could be created. With the use of technology, what changed was the scale at which the CSR initiatives at Hero MotoCorp were being implemented and amplified. What were once silo efforts towards CSR were now being turned into holistic endevors that were visible and had an impact on the ecosystem.
Sethi also tapped into the social media platforms to create awareness campaigns for these initiatives. “The way he wanted to use social media was to make sure that the right message is delivered to the right people using the most relevant medium. Targeted communication was done on a large scale helping in scaling up the awareness attempts,” says Vijay Sethi, CIO&Head CSR, Hero Moto Corp.
He optimally used the skills from different departments of the organization like Marketing, CSR, IT, Safety and HR Teams to ensure that the social campaigns were executed in the most optimal manner in terms of content, technology, targeting and implementation. Utilizing the synergy among the different business functions, he made sure that the CSR activities were taken up with the same zeal and enthusiasm with which Hero does other organizational activities.
When he launched a social campaign for Hamari Pari with a short video film, it received a tremendous response on the social platforms. The video got 28 lakh views on the first day. It trended on Twitter for 8 hours. “The social media campaign created such a buzz on girl empowerment with many celebrities and also Facebook lauding the social cause,” he says.
Reaching out through digital
Enthused by the success, Hero Moto Corp leveraged YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to launch a campaign on road safety. Titled, Ride Safe India, it is a 360 degree initiative on making Indian roads safer to drastically reduce fatalities. The company has set up Road Safety Riding schools across India and does campaigns on ground, on air, on social media, and in schools to educate the masses.
Sethi led a cross-functional team from the IT, CSR, safety, HR and marketing department to create engaging video films for the social media platforms. The videos on road safety got 2.8 crore views on social media and helped them launch a crusade against road rage and fatal accidents.
“We at Hero MotoCorp have been utilizing the power of social media a lot over the years in our marketing efforts. So, when we were planning to find ways and means to supplement our CSR efforts and to create mass awareness on areas like Girl Child Empowerment, Child Education and Road Safety, leveraging the power and reach of Social media – be it Facebook, You Tube, Twitter or others became a natural choice. We created some nice films and videos on these themes and the response has been fantastic with many of them getting one million plus views. We also used twitter to create awareness among youth on Safe Riding. We did an hour long tweet chat with youngsters to educate them on road safety”, Sethi says.
“As part of our Ride Safe India initiative, we have also partnered with UP Police in their Responsible Citizen program, with Gurgaon Police as part of the Student Police Cadet Program (SPC) and with Delhi and Telangana Police to create awareness on various aspects of Road Safety.” he adds.
On the occasion of Children’s Day, Hero launched “E2 – Educate to Empower’ for students along with society at large with a social media campaign christened “Jag Mag Ek Tara”.
A couple of days back, Hero Moto Corp launched the second video of Hamari Pari and announced that for every 10 shares the company will support a girl child. “We have got more than 74 lakh views and more than 50,000 shares so we will now bring 5000 odd more girls in our fold under the Hamari Pari program over next few weeks. Such is the buzz and interest it has created. Facebook has also put up Hamari Pari as a custom cause under status activities of What’s on your mind,” Sethi says.
Hero supports 22,000 children for health and hygiene, 15,000 students for career counselling and more than 30,000 students on science education. A majority of these are girls.
Going forward the company plans to tap into blogs for starting a discussion on social issues. “There are a lot of people around who want to contribute towards social causes but lack of structured programs to encourage contribution leads to a void where ideas are not utilized. With the blogs, Hero intends to cover all aspects of the CSR efforts and invite people to contribute to the discussions and also suggest how Hero Moto Corp can serve the society in a better way,” he says.
Sethi plans to ramp up his efforts of leveraging technology in the area of CSR by using solutions which are more deeply integrated with the causes his company is working towards. Sethi believes CSR is an integrated part of every organization so its should get all the support and synergy from other functions “For me, since IT and CSR both were my direct responsibilities, supporting one with the other was easy and the most logical thing to do,” he concludes.
This article was taken from here.