CelcomDigi Berhad takes home two wins at Retail Asia Awards 2025

The company won the Telecommunications Retailer of the Year - Malaysia and the Innovation Team of the Year - Malaysia awards.

Telecommunications company CelcomDigi Berhad received two major awards at the 2025 edition of the Retail Asia Awards for successfully maximising opportunities and navigating complex challenges brought by the successful merger of Celcom and Digi in late 2022.

The merger resulted in CelcomDigi instantly becoming Malaysia’s largest telecommunications provider with a combined base of over 20 million customers and the most extensive network of branded retail stores nationwide. However, it also resulted in two distinct retail networks, systems, key performance indicators (KPI), and service cultures that needed to be harmonised.

Frontliners had to navigate overlapping processes and multiple different systems across stores. The company saw an opportunity to create a unified brand experience for customers by  reimagining its retail experience through a people and customer-first strategy, supported by a new modern store design showcasing the latest in technology and connectivity.

What followed suit was an effort to unite the retail team under a single identity: the CD Champions. The company harmonised KPIs and standardised ways of working to ensure fairness and clarity, whilst targeted training empowered retail teams with product confidence, system fluency, and a consistent service mindset. This included standardising ways of work, uniforms, job related benefits, KPIs and working hours.

The company also introduced a unified commission structure: monthly payouts for frontliners and strategic quarterly incentives for leadership. This ensured that every role contributes meaningfully to business growth.

In a bold move to enhance both customer access and sales productivity, it also extended its store operating hours to seven days a week, including public holidays. This increased convenience for customers and customer confidence in the CelcomDigi brand and significantly lifted frontliner productivity. These sentiments and data are tracked through unified KPI dashboards and YoY business growth, sales performance metrics, incentive and commission data, as well as training participation and engagement feedback.

Simultanously, CelcomDigi’s customer journey was also reimagined under a unified framework known as the CD Signature Service, built on the tenets of Engage, Enrich, and Empower. This introduced a consistent and heartfelt customer interaction model across stores, from its signature greeting to frontliners actively demoing products and resolving customer issues on the spot.

Another major component of its transformation was in its retail store design, which the company kicked-off with an open invitation for customers to participate in shaping the interior design of its stores. From layout ideas, furniture selection to ambience preferences, customers played an active role in influencing the ideal store experience for the new line of CelcomDigi branded stores.

To bring this vision to life, the company partnered with world-renowned design house Pininfarina a world-renowned Italian design house well-known for its sleek and functional aesthetics. The collaboration was a first-of-its-kind in the Malaysian telco space, blending Italian design precision with local insights to deliver a superior customer retail experience to its customers.

The new stores now feature a modern, intuitive layout, vibrant brand expression, digital interfaces, and streamlined customer flows. The design enhances exploration and ease, making every visit seamless and immersive, whether customers are browsing, troubleshooting, or transacting.

Over the last 24 months as of writing, post transformation, the company has seen a 30% incremental in store productivity with Retail CSAT achieving 96%. These efforts demonstrate how an effective people integration exercise, paired with a clear strategy and purposeful culture-building, can create a measurable, lasting impact post-merger.

“We are a united front, purpose-driven and performance-focused. We have embraced change, broken down barriers, and built a winning formula that we believe will fuel CelcomDigi’s success in the years to come,” the company said.

CelcomDigi was recognised as the Telecommunications Retailer of the Year - Malaysia, whilst the CD Champions were honoured as the Innovation Team of the Year - Malaysia for their outstanding integration and operational performance post-merger. This is truly a reflection of CelcomDigi’s purpose in Advancing and Inspiring Society and its employer value proposition to Grow with Purpose and Build with Trust.

Retail Asia Awards recognises outstanding achievements, innovations, and excellence within the retail industry across the Asia-Pacific region.

The Retail Asia Awards is presented by Retail Asia Magazine. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2026 awards programme and be acclaimed for your company's exceptional products or initiatives in the Retail industry, please contact Jane Patiag at [email protected].