Job Experience at Telecommunication Industry in Bangladesh

Job Experience at Telecommunication Industry in Bangladesh

No other communication device except mobile has kept so much impact in Bangladesh. In every aspect of our life mobile plays a very important role in our country. I should say, mobile company has brought socio cultural change in our country. On the other hand, it plays an important role in economical sector.

There are five-telecommunication companies in our country. The main reason for such a small numbers is the regularization of the industry by the government. There is also a new company from Middle East (Warid) is ready to launch their product in Bangladesh very soon. For years, the Bangladesh Telegraph & telephone board (BTTB) had been the sole player in the market. Bangladesh telecom limited(BTL) was the first entrant in this market backed in 1989 when it was awarded a license to operate cellular, paging and other wireless communication networks been renamed to pacific Bangladesh telecom limited and given a brand name Citycell Digital to it’s cellular services. After that, Grameen Phone, Aktel and Banglalink has entered the industry with various changes in between BTRC has formed Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd. on behalf of the mass public.

Meanwhile, the industry is also set with licenses to operate PSTN or fixed phone lines in the upcoming months.

While the market for mobile phones, specifically, has been growing steadily since its introduction back in 1993, in the past 18 months the market has more than doubled, growing from 1.5 million subscribers in early 2004 to 4.2 million at the end of 2005.

At this stage, with market penetration being less than 2% in a population of 140 million people, there is great potential for expanding subscriber base in the country. However, in Bangladesh, as well as in many other emerging markets, operators concentrate on raising the ARPU (Average Return per Unit), which is an appropriate strategy for developed markets where the mobile market has been saturated. In emerging markets, operators should concentrate more on acquiring new subscribers and on obtaining a greater pie of the market share.

Over the last two to three years, the number o f mobile subscribers in Bangladesh has been doubled on an annual basis. If the government is able to continue the deregulation process and more mobile operators are licensed, it is predicted that there will be around 25 million mobile subscribers in the country by 2007.

Following tremendous growth in the country’s mobile phone industry over the last few couple of years, Bangladesh, despite of being a developing country, is not far away from reaching remarkable phone users by the end of year 2015.

In Bangladesh there are some impressive mobile operators here, the country also has a pool of brilliant software developers, apart from having a positive rate o f economic growth as well as a progressive government. As Bangladesh is ‘one of the key markets,’ no doubt, growing high and it is heading towards the right direction.

The government can support growth through making legislative framework, developing infrastructure and preparing tax-free mechanism.

Introduction to the company

Name: Banglalink™

Location: Headquarter in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Historical background: Banglalink™ is the latest addition to the GSM family of OTH.

Naguib Sawiris, Chairman and CEO of OTH, announced the acquisition o f Sheba Telecom (Pvt.) Limited with a cost of US$60m in September of 2004.

Parent company

Orascom Telecom Holding S.A.E (OTH), one of the most dynamic telecommunications company in the world, was established in 1998. Originally an Egyptian company, headquartered in Giza, Egypt, now operates in more than 10 countries and has grown to become the largest and most diversified GSM (Global Systems for Mobile Communications) network operator in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. With nine licenses covering the region, Orascom Telecom has positioned itself as a leading telecommunications conglomerate in emerging markets of this region. In fact, most of its companies are leading the industry in the countries they operate, notably Mobilink in Pakistan. It is also the largest capitalized company on the Cairo & Alexandria Stock Exchange.

Orascom is a conglomerate o f three different companies:

Orascom Construction Industries,
Orascom Technologies, and
Orascom for Hotels and Tourism.

However, Orascom Telecom is a holding company that owns and runs several mobile GSM networks across Egypt, the Middle East, Africa, and the Indian subcontinent. A Part of Orascom Telecom is publicly traded on the London and Cairo Stock Exchanges and the Sawiris family in Egypt owns the remainder of shares in the company.

Within five years from the date o f its inception, OT established strong presence in the GSM Association (the world’s leading wireless industry representative body), represented by Chairman and CEO Mr. Naguib Sawiris, who was selected to join the GSM Association’s CEO Board since 2003. OT will have a strong impact on the multi-billion dollar global wireless network business, and will help guide the strategic planning for the future of the industry in the world.

The Sawiris family, o f Egypt, owns the majority stake in the company (56.9%). Orascom Telecom Holding is a leading player in the Cairo and Alexandria Stock Exchange where it is traded under the symbol (ORTE.CA). On the London Stock Exchange, its GDR is traded under the symbol (ORTEq.L). OTH’s IPO raised US$320 million during the year 2000, and was the largest offering on the Egyptian Stock Market at the time.

Information about Founder

Name of the founder(s): Orascom Telecom Holdings (OTH) group.

Characteristics of founder(s): Orascom Telecom Holding S.A.E. (“Orascom Telecom”) is a leading mobile telecommunications company operating in nine emerging markets in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.

Established in 1998, the company has acquired nine operating licenses in this region. With nearly 520 million people and an average mobile telephony penetration of only 5% falling under these licenses, Orascom Telecom has positioned itself as a leading telecommunications conglomerate in the emerging markets of this region. The organization has managed to build an amazing subscriber base of around 15 million in just a short span of six years by the end of 2004.

The capital of Orascom Telecom is estimated at 1.1 billion Egyptian Pound represented in 110 million shares.

Mission and Vision

Mission statement: “to reduce the total cost of ownership of buying and using a mobile phone. Moreover, to achieve this vision, the company has established some values that it tries to instill in its employees. They want their employees, and the company as a result, to be straight forward, reliable, innovative and, above all, passionate.”

Vision: “understand people’s needs best and will create and deliver appropriate communication services to improve people’s life and make it easier”.

Assigned Job during Internship Period

I had the opportunity to complete my internship from one of the fastest growing telecommunication sectors, Banglalink. The duration of my internship was from 21^st January to 20th April’ 2007. I was assigned to work in corporate Sales Department, a division of Sales department. In this department, 1 have performed as a regional and booth coordinator. I also had look after the administrative part of these two sectors.

Besides working these two sectors, I performed other duties as and when was required by the company. The responsibilities that I had during this period and my overall findings in my observations are briefly given below.

Description of the Job

As I worked in two sectors, my responsibilities were as follows.

Performed duty as a regional coordinator where I need to maintain communication with Rajshahi, Khulna, Chittogong and Sylhet region for their SME selling.
Performed as booth coordinator where I was continuously looking after their sales and other requirements.
As a coordinator, I need to prepare two daily reports one is for five direct sales booths and other one is daily regional BDO sales report. I also maintained a regional financial report.
Maintaining internal and external (Customers/ Employees) communication with BL direct sales booth
Synchronizing sound communication among BL booths and SSU, CCD, CMU, IT
Handling crisis communication/ pressure situations
Worked as a member of strategic sales Wing (Back Office, Sales)
Keeping Inventory track record of DS Booth and strategic Sales unit.
Monitoring & justifying product requisition from DS Booth
Deliver product for the booth requirements and DSA product requirements

Specific Responsibilities of the Job

Being an intern, I performed different activities. Beside these, I had some specific responsibilities authorized by the respective department. These are given below.

The position I have been worked is a permanent position for intern so from the very first day I had my specific responsibility and duty.
I have worked under the supervision of Mr. Miah Md Rashedul Hasan, assistant manager, corporate sales. During my working period the most important thing 1 have learned from him is that how to manage people and how to make to work done through others.
Daily combined sales reporting, F top up Balance transfer for sales booth and some administrative work was included in my job responsibility.

Differente Aspects of Job Performance

Internship period is very important as well as sensitive for a student throughout his/her career life. Coping with a very different environment, adjusting with the organizational culture and custom is an all through challenging task. As this is the beginning of a professional life, one must complete this period with full devotion and attention. The success of an intern reflects his/her attitudes towards the responsibilities he/she will have in future. Keeping all the views in mind, I have tried best to perform my assigned duties wholeheartedly. I would like to highlight some of the important aspects of the jobs I performed.

As a regional coordinator, I need to deal with four regions except Dhaka. At the end of every day I got the SME sales report from each four region then I need to accumulate it and preparer the final report that is need to send to my manager.
As a booth coordinator, I got daily sales report at the end of each day, prepared the combined sales report, and then send it to my manager. As for booth requirements I was sends them I* top up balance and maintain a repot for I’ top up issue and distribution.
I also was the responsible for the administrative part for both region and booth. They also informed me about their needs and requirements and it was my responsibility to take necessary steps for these.
As a member of strategic sales, I also work in back office to support our team. Stock maintenance for strategic sales and send the ARF to the activation team was also included is my job at the last month of my internship period. However, it was not my responsibility but I have attended two sales calls. I intentionally attended their for the purpose of learning. It was a great experience for me to attend those two sales calls. I have learned how to deal with people and how to focus our product towards our customer.

Working in BanglaLink is a great experience for me. I have had some good experience as well as some bad experience. Nevertheless, my overall learning has enriched my knowledge and working capability in telecommunication sectors. I believe this experience will add some unique value for my further career. Some odd job was also included in my job. I believe that every intern needs to do this for the purpose of learning.

At the end, I am happy to make some changes in the working process and this thing gets me relaxed form some odd jobs.

Critical Observations

The observations that I have regarding my job is as follows,

Bureaucratic problem: bureaucratic problem is the main concern for make work being delayed. Most of the cases every department has some bureaucracy. Only for this reason, some process takes long time to be done. There are also some people those inefficiency and irresponsibly causes other people suffer.
Problematic process flow: there is lots of work process in BL, which could have been done better in a very simplified way. One example I can give here is that the product lifting for DSA product. Here I was assign for lifting the product from warehouse and than deliver the product to booth. In this regards, the dealer could directly lift the product from warehouse but the process was not like that. In that case, I told the total problem to my manager and other manager to sales support department and then they took necessary steps to solve this problem.
Lack of Training for BDO’s: Business development officers (BDO) are working in the root level for the SME selling. Total number of BDO is 207, working in the different region in the country. Their educational level is not so high and experience of selling is very low. Most of the month SME target has not been fulfilled. In that case, training program for BDO might enhance the total SME selling.

Recommendations

Based on my overall observation throughout the internship period, I would like to forward some suggestion as follows.

There is big difference between my internship expectation and reality. Students should given some idea before they go for internship. The people who already have completed their internship can attend seminar arrange by the university. This will help the students to cop up with new professional environment.
In Banglalink, interdepartmental communication should be improved. Strong interdepartmental communication will help banglalink to enhance its performance and help to run swiftly.
There is some procedure in banglalink those are critical, unnecessary and time consuming. These procedures should be change and need to find some simplified way to make the job done.
I found some dissatisfied employees. Most of the cases employee satisfaction is the key for the success of any organization top management should more concern about employee satisfaction.
Intern student should keep in mind that they are representing their university in the organization. In that case, they may need to cool and soft minded, they also need to deal the fact very smartly.

Chapter Summary: The job I have performed there is some good or odd job on this part. I have taken all o f this as my learning experience. The students those who are yet to do their internship need to talk other students who already have completed their internship. Everywhere their will be enormous work pressure for the interns but they need to manage everything.