2.6 About British American Tobacco Bangladesh:
British American Tobacco Bangladesh began its operations in the subcontinent in 1910 as Imperial Tobacco Company Ltd with its head office in Calcutta; where cigarettes were made in Carreras Ltd Calcutta. Imperial and Can-eras merged into a single company in 1943. After the partition Pakistan Tobacco Company (PTC) came into existence with it’s and office in Karachi in 1949. The then PLC’s East Pakistan office was situated in Armanitola and ultimately moved to ALICOBuilding, Motijheel Dhaka. In 1954 PTC established its first cigarette factory in Chittagong although high-grade cigarettes still came from West Pakistan.
The Dhaka factory of PTC went into production in 1905. Currently, our only Cigarette Manufacturing Factory (Dhaka Factory) along with the 1-Icacl Office premises is situated in Mohakhali, Dhaka while we run the Green Leaf Threshing Plant (GLT) in Kustia. After independence, Bangladesh Tobacco Company Pvt. Limited (BTC) was formed ill 1972 with British American Tobacco holding majol–i1y shares in Bangladesh Tobacco Company. In March 1998 Bangladesh Tobacco Company changed its name and Identity to British American Tobacco, Bangladesh pronouncing its common Identity with all other operating companies of the group.
History of BATB
British American Tobacco Bangladesh Company Limited is a subsidiary of British American Tobacco Group and is one of the oldest and largest multinational companies operating in Bangladesh The UK-based BAT group holds G5.91’% share in the company.28.7% is owned by Government of Bangladesh agencies while 5.39% share Is owned by other shareholders.
This leading business organization in the industrial sector is employing more than 1,300 people directly and a further 40,000-+- indirectly as farmers, distributors and suppliers. They have business contracts directly with 18,000 registered farmers who produce high quality tobacco leaf.
In 2002 BATB developed a new corporate slogan “Success and Responsibility go together”.
2.7 Guiding principles and People Management at BATB:
British American Tobacco Bangladesh is 11uidcd by a set or principles and follows n vision of’ “Extending leadership through world class performance”. The four guiding principles describe key characteristics of the organization and guide its employees in their working lives. They attempt to capture the way BAT employees work together, deal with or (Tanzanians, communities, partners and other Companies and are tile key to its success. The company pronounces and interprets its guiding principles in the following manner
♦Strength from Diversity: We actively utilize diversity – of people, cultures, viewpoints, brands, markets and ideas- to create opportunities and strengthen performance.
♦Open minded: We strive to be an active listener, genuinely considering other’s viewpoints without pre-judging.
♦Freedom through responsibility: The freedom to take decisions and act on them obliges us to accept personal responsibility for the way they affect our stakeholders.
♦Enterprising spirit: The confidence to seek out opportunities for success, to strive for innovation, and to accept the considered risk taking that comes with it.
BATB has consistently developed high quality people. At this moment, more than 25 Bangladeshi managers are working in BAT companies around the world. Many of the today’s business leaders in Bangladesh are the ex-employees of BATB. This strong tradition remains even today and BATB still is the employer of choice for the talent pool of Bangladesh.
2.8 BAT Bangladesh’s business:
BATB is the leader in the local cigarette industry currently holding nearly 51°/o volumeshare and 70% value share of the Bangladesh cigarette market. The total volume (18.9 b in 2004) has grown by nearly 90% since the 1999 levels of 10 b. They have also been able to grow annual contribution to the Government revenue to nearly Taka 17 b in 2003 and Taka 18.5 b in 2004.
■ Product Profile:
The market presence is summarized as below:
♦Super Premium: Dunhill cigars have been launched through an exclusive Cigar Lounge in the Hotel Sheraton.
♦Premium: Launched in 1997, B & H maintains BATB’s dominance in premium segment and drives the growth of premium segment in Bangladesh market. Within a short time Bangladesh became a leading B& H market across the BAT world. After a price increase ill Q1 2004, B&I-1 still remains a Successful and happening muscle in our portfolio. British American Tobacco Bangladesh was the first market to launch the new pack of E&1-1 at the beginning of September 2005.
♦Medium: Launched in 1980, John Player Gold Leaf is one of the highest selling brands of BATB the medium segment. In 2005 they launched three flavored Limited Edition Product and Packs under the Taste the World campaign, which were extremely well received by consumer-
♦Low: Star, launched 40 years ago is till a dominating brand in this segment. Recently a new pack of Star was launched and currently it is the highest volume generating brand for the company (more than 900m per month). On August l3, 2005 the new Anchor Pack of Star was launched in the market while the cigarette stick also wore a new look with brighter paper and bi-color dye.
■ Pall Mall
Pall Mall has been launched in March 2006 with three variants full flavor, lights and menthol; it is one of the leading brands in the global BAT portfolio. It offers choice to the adult informed smokers with a full range, great taste and innovative packaging. Pall Mall, with all its innovation, is seen to be offering more value” for the consumers money.
The market situation of the products of BATB can be described with the help of BCG matrix. BCG matrix has two determinants-market share and growth. Based on these two, products are defined as star, question mark, cash cow and dog.
For BATB the BCG Matrix will be like the following:
Market Share
2.9 About cigarette:
Not all cigarettes are the same. Smokers around the world prefer many different tastes and strengths and our companies aim for excellence in every step of manufacturing.
Cigarette design is more complicated than it may seem. Our companies work to understand the preferences of adult consumers and to design cigarettes to meet them. It’s
the preferences Of adult consumers that guide our tobacco blends- the mix of tobaccos that we use- and we work to ensure that these grades are available long-term to keep the tastes of our products consistent.
▪The tobacco in the rod includes tobacco lamina (the flat part of the tobacco leaf), tobacco stern (midribs of the leaf), and expanded lamina.
▪The cigarette paper includes paper and adhesive. The filter is made mainly from Cellulose acetate fibers, known as tow. Cellulose acetate is derived from wood pulp. The fibers are bonded together with a hardening agent, triacetin plasticizcr, which helps the – filter to keep its shape. The filter is wrapped in paper and scaled with a line of adhesive Sometimes charcoal is added to filters. The filter paper includes paper and adhesive.
▪Nicotine is not added in making cigarettes. It occurs naturally in all varieties of tobacco plants. Design adjustments achieve different strengths and tastes, and can reduce smoke yields of various smoke components, as measured by a standardized machine method.
♦ Effect of burn cigarette:
To understand cigarette design, it helps to know how a cigarette burns. Itis the combustion process – the burning of the cigarette – that produces tar. If hay were burned instead of tobacco, it would also produce a type of tar. When an item burns, it produces tiny particles mixed with gases – this is smoke. A cigarette filter traps some of these Particles. When a smoker puffs on a cigarette, whole smoke, including both fine particles and access is sucked through the tobacco rod and the filter. Gases pass through the filter, and some particles are trapped in it. It is this particulate matter, minus nicotine and water that is called tar.
Smoke has over 4,000 constituents, many of them also found in the air we breathe and our food. These constituents include the emissions listed on packs, such we branch and our food. These constituents include the emissions listed on packs, such as tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide. Water vapor is also produced by the combustion, because the burning of any organic material breaks down the chemical components and produces water.
♦Tobacco blends:
Cigarettes often contain a selection or different types of tobacco Leaf from different countries, blended for aroma, taste and character to meet smokers’ taste preferences. Three main types of tobacco are used in cigarettes: Virginia or Flue-cured, Burley and Oriental.
•Virginia, or flue-cured a selection of tobacco, is named after the US state where it was First Cultivated. It is also called `bright tobacco’ because of tile yellow to orange colour it achieves during curing. It grows particularly well in subtropical regions with light rainfall, such as Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas in the USA, Southern Brazil and Zimbabwe. Cigarette brands like Dunhill use effusively Virginia tobacco. Virginia blends contain only flue-cured Virginia tobaccos.
•Burley is a slightly lighter green than Virginia. It requires behavior soils and more fertilizer than Virginia. Some of the best Burley IS “Irown in US statcs such as Maryland and Kentucky, in Central America, Malawi, Ubatllla and Indonesia. After being air-cured, it turns brown with virtually no sugar,it an almost cigar-like taste. Along with Virginia and Oriental tobacco, it makes Lip all American Blend for cigarettes, as used iii brands like Lucky Strike or Pall Mall. Typically, air-cured tobacco is treated with sugars such as molasses or liquorices, and the blend may also contain added flavors.
•Oriental is the smallest and hardiest of all tobacco types, grown in the hot summer of the Balkans, Turkey and the Middle East. These conditions and a high plat} ting density create an aromatic flavors, chanced 1)y sun-curing, as in a traditional Turkish cigarette. An Oriental blend can contain up to 100’% sun cured tobaccos.
Several factors can influence the smoking characteristics, including the variety of plant, how it is harvested and influences such as soil, climate and weather. All these can affect the tobacco’s taste and aroma.
2.10 Ownership Status of the Company:
BATB is a public limited company listed in the Dhaka Stock Exchange with an authorized share capital of “1’k 600,000,000 comprised of 60,000,000 ordinary shares of Tk 10 each. British American Tobacco, London has 66% of the shares. The government initially held 32% of its shares but it gradually sold most ‘of the holdings to different organizations of the country. The companion of shareholders (as of 2004 end) is as follows:
2.11 Structure of the organization:
The structure is much decentralized with the parent company retaining aLlth0l–ity for overall strategic direction of the Firm and financial control. BATB operates in the operates in the following functional areas:
- Operations (Production and Supply Chain) a
- Leaf
- Finance
- Human resource
- Marketing (Brand and Trade Marketing- Demand Chain)
- Legal & Company Secretarial
- Information Technology
- Corporate & Regulatory Affairs (CORA)
Overall activities of tile company arc governed by the “Board of Directors” and Executive. The “Board of Directors” is composed of 10 members headed by a chairman. Chief Executive of British American Tobacco Bangladesh is called the “Managing Director” who is normally appointed by “BAT Holdings”. Managing Director of the company is the chairman of the executive Committee. This committee includes the head of all the functional departments.
The decision making, infrastructure is participatory to a very high extent. All the plans and decisions that are made are communicated from the top level of the organization and the decisions are made after discussing the issue with the related authority and the grass root level. Every possible input from every relevant level of workforce is taken before getting into any decision.
2.12 Core business activities:
BATB’s core business is to manufacture and market cigarettes. In addition to this, the company also exports tobacco and vegetables. The main activities taking place in the business are:
- Tobacco Leaf Growing: There are registered farmers who grow the tobacco in the regions of Kushtia, Chittagong and Rangpur.
- Leaf Processing: The leaf is processed in two factories; the green leaf threshing factory where the stern is separated fromthe leaf and the Dhaka Factory (Primary Department) where the leaf cut to make it ready for production.
- Cigarette Manufacturing: The cut tobacco is sent to secondary manufacturing department or the Dhaka Factory where it is combined with wrapping materials to make the final product. The factory runs in three shifts for 24 hours to give a daily production of around 60 million sticks.
- Distribution: The product is sent out to various distribution houses across the country. The distributors work with the BATB trade marketing team I ensuring distribution to all retail outlets in the country.
- With ever increasing number of outlets (currently, this is one of the major challenges the company faces.
- Brand Activities: With the ban on promotion activities, the company has to look towards innovative ways of communicating their brands to the cigarette consumers.
■ Responsible Product Stewardship:
BATB follows a globally accepted set of standards for marketing [lie products. British American Tobacco, Phillip Morris International and Japan Tobacco International – the world’s three largest companies in this sector have committed their compliance with International Tobacco Products Marketing Standard (ITPMS). Besides, they have also initiated tailoring their operations to comply with the newly enacted regulation oil tobacco products in Bangladesh.
The company’s Responsible product stewardship principle suggest that: “Responsible Product Stewardship is about our belief that we should develop, manufacturer and market our products and brands in a responsible manner. Our role is to meet adult consumer demand in a way which recognizes the health risks associated with our products and seeks to address legitimate concerns about them. We need to do this in a way that conforms with our legal and social obligations as well as recognizing our need to innovate and respond to the changing environment.”
2.13 BAT Bangladesh’s Corporate Social Responsibility:
British American Tobacco Bangladesh is unique in the country with respect to the depth of their commitment to be a development partner for Bangladesh while doing business ill the most responsible manner.
2.13.1 International Standard in EHS Practices:
They arc committed to the principles of Environment, Health and Safety (EHS) best practices which include: The country’s only Factory Bio-filter, Zero Lost Workday case (LWC) for three consecutive years which has won us the Group’s Zero Accident Award, high EHS awareness levels among employees, regular, l–:HS reinforcement activities (i.e. EI-1S Week 2004 observed with a lot of Success).
2.13.2 Leaf Tobacco Export:
The company achieved the National Export Trophy (Gold)) for three consecutive years under, the `Agricultural Product’ category for 1999-2000, 2000-2001 and 2001-2002 fiscal. British American Tobacco Bangladesh exported 7.5 mn KGs (worth 12.23 mn USD) of leaf tobacco in 2005. Quality assurance to foreign buyers was the key factor to the increasing trend in tobacco export volume. Increase ill export is a reflection of our dedication to represent Bangladesh as an exporting country in the agricultural sector. This initiative in aligned with the Government focus in the agricultural sector supporting the , country to (Cigarette foreign currency.
2.13.3 Corporate Social Investment:
“Success and responsibility go together” is the philosophy that has driven British American Tobacco Bangladesh over the years. They are the number one taxpayer in the tobacco industry of Bangladesh. One of their core business philosophies is doing business in the most ethical and socially acceptable manner. ‘They are taking forward their commitment for contributing in the development of the country through their endeavors in the various social, economic and environmental sectors of the country.
♦Dishari:
Dishari- basic IT education centre has been initiated by BATB to contribute to the promising I”1′ sector of the country which is a thrust sector of the Government. The education centre is aimed at providing basic computer education to those who can less afford it.
♦Afforestation:
British American Tobacco Bangladesh initiated this well recognized program to create mass awareness of the need for afforestation with the free sapling distribution program in 19S0. Today, after more than two decades, they have contributed more than 50 million saplings to the country’s affrorestation initiative.
♦Community Services Initiative in leaf growing areas:
Thousands of Bangladeshi farmers are benefiting from British American Tobacco Bangladesh’s Community Services Project which has recently kicked off. It reaches out to support nearly 25000 farmers (and their families) who are closely linked with their
Way of life. The initiatives taken under this project are: Education Assistance, Primary Health Care Support, Malarial Prevention, Sanitation Support, Commercial Afforestation, Compost Pits, Green Manuring, Neem Decoction, and Vegetables Growing.
♦Biodiversity:
British American Tobacco Bangladesh Is one of the first t companies in the country to embrace biodiversity in its way of work. The objective is t0 raise awareness among company’s internal and external stakeholders promote biodiversity and sustainable use principles in the operations of British American Tobacco Bangladesh, showcase ‘best practice’ examples and influence others to participate in biodiversity conservation.
2.14 About Corporate and Regulatory Affairs (CORA):
“Our Strategy for building sustainable shareholder value is based on growth, productivity, responsibility and being a winning organization. CORA’s particular focus is on responsibility.”
————Michael Prideaux, Director, Corporate and Regulatory Affairs
British American Tobacco is .1 responsible companies in a controversial industry. A major part of helping it to be seen that way is the responsibility of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs (CORA). Our job is to reassure those stakeholders who directly or indirectly influence our business that British AmCr1Ca11 Tobacco is achieving its commercial objectives in a manner consistent with reasonable social expectations of a responsible tobacco company in the 21st century.
As society’s expectations of corporate responsibility change, they are changing some of the ways to address stakeholder concerns. They are engaging in constructive dialogue with a wide ran-c of stakeholders – including governments and their agencies, the media, business partners, employees, investors, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local communities – about all aspects of our product. Our social reporting process lends transparency and accountability to this process.
■ CORA Strategy:
CORA wants to achieve
To drive recognition as a responsible tobacco company, thus improving long term business suitability.
This can be achieved by developing constructive engagement With those stakeholders who directly or indirectly influence the license to operate to reassure them that the company is meeting the commercial objectives ill a transparent manner, consistent with reasonable public expectations for a responsible tobacco company.. CORA thereby delivers tangible business benefits in the two key -area-,
- Proactive reputation management
- Proactive regulation management
CORA strategy in a nutshell
♦ Proactive reputation management
Managing reputation effectively means understanding the stakeholders’ expectations. To do that CORA needs to internalize these expectations and initiate organizational change as appropriate in order to respond to them.
Finally, they need to develop effective two-way communication with the stakeholders and show how the company is responding.
A continuous process of understanding, responding and communicating is the Key CORA reputation management capability.
♦ Proactive regulation management
In order to effectively manage regulation, e the regulatory environment needs to be anticipated and proactively advocate company views.
Where necessary (as a last resort), they may also need to litigate to ensure that tobacco regulation balances the preferences of consumers with the interests of society, establishes
an open-minded approach to harm reduction as a
policy and ensures that the business can compete and prosper.
In BAT Bangladesh CORA roles are clustered within these three sections: • Regulatory
- Regulatory Affairs
- Corporate Social Responsibility
- Corporate Communication
Regulatory Affairs section is responsible, among others, to promote sensible tobacco regulatory environment, to advise marketing on compliance with applicable external and internal standards, and to support Top Team’s engagements on excise and other industry regulation issues. Today, perhaps more than ever, stakeholders expect BAT Bangladesh to use the company’s economic strength for broader social goals and to demonstrate environmental responsibility, to support the communities, and to behave with transparency and accountability.
The Corporate Social Responsibility section oversees BAT Bangladesh’s corporate social investment initiatives such as afforestation, various programs in leaf’ growing areas, corporate donations and IT education. In addition, the section also manages the Company’s social reporting process.
Meanwhile, the Corporate Communication section works closely with Regulatory Affairs and Corporate Social Responsibility to manage the communication of key messages to the external and internal stakeholders of the Company. This team is also responsible for managing the company’s corporate brand.
3.0 Project plan:
3.1 Internal Communication (IC) at BAT Bangladesh:
“The more elaborate our means of communication,
The less we communicate” Joseph Priestley
In today’s rapidly changing business environment the need for clear, engaging, aligned employee communication is greater than ever. While all employees are responsible for communicating effectively, the role OF internal communication teat ions is to facilitate good communication between leaders and teams. BAT does this by providing strategic communications support, operational and change management support and channel management.
Internal Communications is a part 0i ‘the corporate communications team of CORA. It is the function which engages with the internal stakeholders of the company. The recipients of the internal communications are all the 1300+ employees, belonging to both management and nonmanagement.
The responsibilities of Internal Communications include planning and developing appropriate communications tools, methods and messages as well as advising other Functions in developing cross functional communications tools or activities.
3.1.1 Objectives of Internal Communications:
•Communicate corporate projects, events, achievements etc.
•Provide counseling service for cross Functional teams for communicating projects, events, achievements etc.
• Generate positive shift in employee comprehension of company objectives and directions.
3.1.2 Importance of communication process:
British American Tobacco believes that empowered and motivated employees are the prerequisite for creating a winning organization. To this end, it is necessary that employees have the right information and it is Internal Communications that facilitates the information flow. It provides the employees with sufficient information to perform their roles and it aligns them with the company vision and directions. This enables informed decision making and promotes cohesiveness among the business units. Thus Internal Communications helps ensure that the employees at all levels have all, understanding of tile business and are able to engage and inspire individuals around them to deliver winning performance.
Internal Communications also plays a catalytic role in upholding the guiding principle “Open Minded”. This guiding principle requires that one listen actively, communicate openly, value feedback, foster a climate of support, encourage creativity, and constantly challenge the status quo.
3.1.3 Types of Internal Communication:
Internal Communication at BAT is conducted in 3 ways:
¨ Branded two-way: These tools are designed to get feedback of the things communicated. Like
- Road show
- Skip level meeting
- Open Forum
- Alaap
¨ Banded one-way: The name suggests that these tools do not get feedback. These tools include:
- Magazine/Newsletter
- BATB news
- SMS (Instanews)
¨ Contingency communication: These tools are designed when some need arise. Like, recently, when the company decided to increase the price of their products, a video was made to educate the brand promoters and the people in the filed.
Each of these tools will be discussed later.
3.1.4 Internal Communication Tools and processes:
The company has to decide what to communicate and how to communicate it and British American Tobacco has a portfolio of tools for the purpose of communication to words its employees. Depending on he number of people infected and the importance of the communication a particular tool or a combination of tools is selected. All these tools are designed to meet specific needs and together they provide a comprehensive communication with no gaps.
For each tool the following are detailed-
- Target audience for that tool
- Core contents to be communicated
- Frequency of communication
- Language and tone
- Tool name – each tool usually has branded name
- Production budge
3.1.5 Focus (Quarterly Magazine):
Focus is a magazine published for the exclusive consumption of the employees.
The magazine’s sore contents are-
- Success Stories – achievements by a person, department or business
- People News- Sharing of experiences by an employee
- Values/Principles- demonstration of values in the work place
- Lifestyle- light articles for entertainment
- Fun/Humorous articles
The contents of the communication are less formal and are people oriented. If an employee were to have shown excellent performance by driving a project, his success would ideally be thought the Focus Magazine. The events are communicated in detail and thus, Focus can act as archive of information as well.
♦Communication process
The communication is in the form of articles published in the form of a magazine, each issue contains around 6 to 7articles. Two versions of the magazine are printed-one for the management in English and the other for the non management in Bengali these publications are hand delivered to all the employees in Dhaka and mailed via courier to employees placed outstation.
♦Production process
The frequency of publication is usually once every three months. The magazine content is compiled by Internal Communications with the help of an editorial Board referred to as the IC editors. There are eight members who represent different groups –Finance, Marketing, CORA, HR, and Legal, Leaf, Operations, IT and the Trade Union. Their responsibility is to identify which news/ event from their area should be published in the magazine and also to motivate employees from their area to contribute articles for Focus.
Accompanying the articles pictures have to be selected. Photos of events are usually taken during the event and Internal Communications keeps conies of these photographs. According to need, photos for other articles are obtained from stored photo archives or photo shoots are arranged as and when required.
The design and publication of Focus are done by means of an agency and Internal Communications has to work within a given budget for Focus publication. Often BATB works with two agencies for this purpose- one for the design and artwork and the other for the printing. The design of the magazine is done by an advertising agency and after approval of the design the dummy is sent to a printing agency. The advertising agency usually supervises production and is paid 15% of the production cost as commission.
3.1.6 BATB News (Video news):
The publication of BATB News or may not coincide with that of Focus; however, these two tools serve distinct purposes in the overall IC portfolio. While Focus contains more people news and in-depth features, BATB News covers project news and events.
The core contents of BATB News are-
¨ Business performance
¨ Corporate Events
¨ Strategic Initiatives
¨ Projects
¨ Other success stories
The objective of BATB News is to align the employees to company vision and direction. This is done through.
- Tracking monthly company performance against target and highlight activities on ten strategic directions of the company and the four guiding principles month by month.
- Bringing strategic direction to life by using creative, visual format, featuring interviews with individuals and team on their activities and achievements and offering a glimpse of operations.
- Highlighting examples of behavior aligned with guiding principles and achievement of tangible results.
● Communication process
The news is communicated through a fifteen to twenty minute video production. BATB News is produced only in Bengali and is made for all the employees (expatriates get an English transcript).
This video newsletter is shown to the employees via several media-
- From video archives on an Intrusive
- From a projected screen in the Canteen
- From CDs sent out from CORA
Most managers watch BATB News from the Intrusive where they can access the video at any time. The non management employees watch BATB News in the canteen. The News with their team members (T.O.s in Marketing, and employees in Leaf and Operations) during monthly meetings. The distribution process of BATB news is detailed out below-
Dhaka based Managers- The video file is uploaded on the intranet and an email is sent out to all users notifying the publication of BATB News. The email also gives a gist of the main news items covered. The managers can log onto the intranet and view
The news whenever they want to and as many times as they wish. Each BATB News remains on the intranet fir 12 months.
● Dhaka based non management- The factory workers are shown BATB news during meal times in the canteen. It is shown for five consecutive days in a large projected screen placed at a visible location in the canteen, Sine the factory operates 24 hours a day, non management have in total seven meals…. break fast, lunch, tea , dinner, evening tea, night tea night tea and early breakfast. During each of these meals, which last from half an hour to and an hour to an hour, BATB News is repeatedly played. Taking into account the number of shifts the worker has during those five days he may be exposed from a minimum of 6 to a maximum of 15 projections.
●Outstation- A day after BATB News is uploaded; CDs are mailed to the managers in various locations who share the video with their team members during the monthly meeting. Other than the manager who has the CD, the other employees thus get to watch BATB News once and on a laptop screen. The CD takes around three days to reach the managers in the various regions and before receiving the CD they get an email notifying them about the new BATB News. Managers in kushitia have connectivity to the head office and thus can view BATB News multiple times.
● Production process
BATB News is a bi-monthly production. An agency is hired for the video and audio recording. The script is prepared by Internal Communications and the voiceover is given by a BATB employee. Ideally mangers from different functions should be selected by rotation for the voiceover to crate involvement across the company.
3.1.7 Alaap (Monthly meting for non-mgt employees):
This tool communicates news on Business performance, Strategic Initiatives and projects. It is a focused, interactive tool targeted towards the non management employees to create greater understanding and retention at that level, It recounts detailed news such as Sales, Brands, Market Share, production, Wastage levels, Quality (RQI) and important corporate news such as Annual General Meeting, Corporate social Responsibility activities etc. The need for this tool arose as exposure to other tools is limited at the factory floor.
● Communication process
Alaap sessions take place on the factory floor where the line manager makes a power point presentation to the factory workers for duration of 45 minutes. Alaap is carried out every month and each session has. The audience consists of 25 to 30 employees who report to that manager. Alaap sessions are highly interactive and generate a lot of feedback. The content has two parts- Corporate part that contains companywide information and Team part that contains performance feedback of that particular team (e.g. Cell or shift or warehouse).
At the end of each session the line manager fills out a feedback form which is emailed to Manufacturing HR and Internal Communications. This form indicates the turnout in each session and the important queries that where left unanswered. Queries, obtains answers from the right source and emails the answers back to the line managers. These questions are then addressed in the immediate next Alaap meeting.
● Production process
Internal Communications collects relevant information from across the company, edits the material and prepares PowerPoint slides which are emailed via Lotus Notes to line managers, at the factory, who conduct the session.
3.1.8 Baithak (Internet site):
All the workstations of BAT across the globe are connected to networks based on the internet but accessible to only members of BAT. This internet is referred to as he Interact site and is used by all BAT companies. In addition to Interact, BAT Bangladesh has its own Local intranet accessible only by manager in Bangladesh. This has been given the brand name Baithak and has the same architecture as the Global Interact page.
Baithak provides users with the following features.
- News from the Global Interact page- news and feature items on the Global page are linked to Baithak.
- Local news-Every week one news item is published on Baithak by internal Communications. This news remains in the archives for three month before it
Is Deleted. This tool also provides Internal Communications a platform to make communication s a platform to make communications to managers on an ad hoc basis.
- Bangladesh Bulletin Board- This feature can be used by all managers who have access to Baithak. The bulletin board is like an electronic notice board. Three type of notice are uploading- company, personal, Leisure. Internal Communications uses this tool to upload relevant information and also edits/ deletes notices uploaded by others according to need.
- A Media Desk system which provides an archive of newspapers are scanned and uploaded in this section. This responsibility of maintaining this archive is outsourced.
- Room Reservation facilities- This is tool that can be used to reserve rooms for meetings.
- Chat room-this facility allows employees to share views across the company.
- Functional pages – There are three functional pages IT, CORA and Marketing these pages provide information relevant to the departments.
In addition to all these features, the page has a search option facilitating managers to find information they need in an easy and quick manner. Thus, Baithak compliments the existing set of branded IC tools developed to provide a consistent platform for effective, regular, relevant and 2 way communication.
●Communication process
Baithak provides a simple solution to company wide information on demand. It provides common access and a single entry point to various business critical tools and information. The tool is targeted towards the managers of the company. The limitation of this tool is that it is available only to the managers based in the Dhaka Head office and the Green Leaf Trashing (GLT) plant in kushtia. Managers in remote locations do not have connectivity and hence they cannot be using Baithak.
● Production process
The content on Baithak is managed by the Internal Communications manager.
Free flowing discussion and give them opportunity to voice their ideas, grievances etc.
Internal Communications prepares meeting minutes which are then shared with managers via electronic bulletin board.
3.1.9 Email or Lotus Notes:
Lotus Notes is an email tool which is used to communicate with managers (from one to-one personalized to mass level communication). This tool is used on an ad hoc basis,
3.1.10 Notice board:
Notices that placed on the electronic bulletin board are communicated to the non management employees in Dhaka through a print version of the notice place on a notice board at the Dhaka Factory premises,
3.1.11 Short message service (SMS) called Inasta News:
The SMS tool is used for crisis communication. Internal Communication maintains a database of mobile number of all managers. Messages are sent out x to multiple people to make a communication on an emergency basis.
3.1.12 Open Forum:
This tool has been introduced recently this tools is supposed to be more informal and give the employees, both management and non management, a better opportunity to place their demands and give suggestions or talk about problems. Employees will feel more comfortable in sharing their problems with this tool as this would maintain confidentiality better as in this process they communicate with the Managing Director on a one-to-one basis.
