Output of three months hard working is here! I have faced some difficulties during that time. This report is for those p...
American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB) INTERNSHIP AFFILIATION REPORT ON “Grameenphone’s Vehicle Tracking Solution (VTS) and its integration with the corporate and consumer market” An Internship Report Presented to the Faculty of Business Administration In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA)
Supervised By: Zobair Shibli Assistant Professor and Department Head (Marketing and Op & Quant) Faculty of Business Administration
Submitted By: Naziur Rahman Id No 10-16676-2 Major: Marketing American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB)
Date of Submission: May 5, 2014 i
Letter of Transmittal Date: 05/05/2014 Mr. R Tareque Moudud Director, Office of Placement & Alumni (OPA) Subject: Submission of Internship Affiliation Report on Grameenphone’s Vehicle Tracking Solution (VTS) and its integration with the corporate and consumer market.
Dear Sir, It is my great pleasure to submit the internship affiliation report on Grameenphone’s Vehicle Tracking Solution (VTS) and its integration with the corporate and consumer market. This is a requirement for the fulfillment of the BBA degree. Despite of several limitations, I hope that the paper has attained its purpose to a considerable extent. I am thankful to you for giving me the opportunity to do the report on this topic. I have done my level best to complete this paper in time and with the quality of my expectation. I hope you would be kind enough to accept my report. I will be happy to provide further clarification regarding this report.
I hope that my report will aid to make concrete decision and live up to your expectation. Sincerely Yours,
Naziur Rahman Id: 10-16676-2 American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB) ii
Letter of Endorsements
The internship report entitled “Grameenphone’s Vehicle Tracking Solution (VTS) and its integration with the corporate and consumer market” has been submitted to the Office of Placement & Alumni, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Business Administration, Major in Marketing, Department of Business Administration on 05th May 2014 by Naziur Rahman, Id No 10-16676-2, The report has been accepted and may be presented to the internship defense committee for evaluation. (Any opinions, suggestions made in this report are entirely that of the author of the report. The university does not condone nor reject any of these opinions or suggestions).
Zobair Shibli Internship Supervisor
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Acknowledgement
First of all, I would like to thank almighty Allah for his grace in accomplishing my internship report on time. I would like to express my gratitude to my academic supervisor Mr. Zobair Shibli from the core of my heart for his kind support, guidance, constructive, supervision, instructions and advice and for motivating me to do this report. I am also thankful to my Internship Supervisor Mohammad Muid Hasnat Product Manager, Business Solution, Product Commercial Division, Grameenphone for supervising me and providing various key information and giving me the path to write a fruitful report. I would also like to give special thanks to Shahed Al Jilani, Specialist, Grameenphone who was there from the Interview board till the end of my internship. He supported me and taught me so many things. The team members of Business Solution as well as the other teams were so helpful to me I am really grateful to them. Finally, an honorable mention goes to my families and friends and the fellow interns for their understandings and supporting me in completing this report. Without helps of the particular that mentioned above, I would face many difficulties while doing this report.
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Executive Summary As part of fulfilling my BBA degree I choose this topic because it covers two major type of customer of a business. Consumer Market and Corporate or Business Market. As a student of Marketing my assigned task helped me a lot to understand current market planning and strategies conducted by the top marketers of this country. Product Development is one of the most challenging and important part of an organization. Telecommunication market is too much competitive now a days so a Product Development unit of a telecom company need to be highly dynamic, efficient, creative, innovative and consumer oriented. Luckily I got a chance to work with this unit and learn some major Marketing related real life factors. Overall I have experienced a very friendly and supporting environment at Grameenphone Limited which gave me the pleasure and satisfaction to be a part of them for a while. The overall approach of the report is a descriptive one as it goes into the depth of end consumer and business customer integration strategies of Gramenphone Ltd. Here both primary and secondary information were used. Interview was the basic techniques comply to collect primary data from any people within the organization. Information about the varieties of activities within the correspondent Marketing Strategies was collected trough interviewed. In case of secondary data source some related website and journals helped me a lot. During my internship period while I am preparing this report I have faced some problems liketoo much work pressure, multiple tasks etc. but though I have learned so many things that is described in the lessons learning chapter. The findings of this report shows some Marketing related and Organization related problems. Like lack of innovativeness, complex services, lack of young capturing ideas etc. Some recommendation has been added at the end of this report. I hope these will be helpful for them.
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Table Of Content Letter of Transmittal ___________________________________________________________ i Letter of Endorsement _________________________________________________________ ii Executive Summary ___________________________________________________________ iv Chapter – 01 _________________________________________________________________ 6 Introduction _________________________________________________________________ 6 1.1
Rationale of the study: _____________________________________________________ 7
1.2.1 Background (Description of the Organization/Company): ______________________ 8 1.2.2 Grameenphone’s Mission: _____________________________________________________ 10 1.2.3 Grameenphone’s Vision: ______________________________________________________ 10 1.2.4 Grameenphone’s Values: _____________________________________________________ 10 1.3 Objectives: ___________________________________________________________________ 11 1.3.1 Primary Objective: __________________________________________________________ 11 1.3.2
Secondary Objectives: _____________________________________________________ 12
Chapter – 02 ________________________________________________________________ 13 ACTIVITIES UNDERTAKEN ______________________________________________________ 13 2.0 ACTIVITIES UNDERTAKEN________________________________________________________ 14 2.1 Short brief about Grameenphone Product Commercial Department _____________________ 14
2.2 Activities of my assigned unit: _______________________________________________ 15 2.3 Strategies of integrating Grameenphone’s various tracking services with the corporate and consumer market: ________________________________________________________________ 16 Vehicle tracking service (VTS) _______________________________________________________ 16 Buddy tracker ____________________________________________________________________________ 16 Team Tracker ____________________________________________________________________________ 17 M-Reporting _____________________________________________________________________________ 17
Benefits: ________________________________________________________________________ 17 2.4 Work Process Of Developing a Product or Service: ___________________________________ 19
2.4 Work related activities _____________________________________________________ 20 2.5 Organization-wide _____________________________________________________________ 22
2.6 Products and Services______________________________________________________ 23 vi
Products ________________________________________________________________________________ 23 Services_________________________________________________________________________________ 23 Special Feature ___________________________________________________________________________ 24
Chapter – 03 ________________________________________________________________ 25 Constraints/Challenges and proposed course of actions for improvement of Grameenphones Tracking Services. ____________________________________________________________ 25 3.1 Identified Marketing Problems __________________________________________________ 26 3.2 Organization Wide Faced Challenges _____________________________________________ 27 3.2.2 Stress management: __________________________________________________________ 27 3.2.3 Working as a team: __________________________________________________________ 27 3.2.4 Relationship with supplier/vendor: _____________________________________________ 27 3.3 Problems due to lack of adequate and appropriate academic preparation: ______________ 27 3.3.1 Academic Similarities: ________________________________________________________ 28 3.3.1 Academic dissimilarities: ______________________________________________________ 28
Chapter 4 __________________________________________________________________ 30 Lessons learnt from the Internship Program _______________________________________ 30 4.0 Lessons learnt from the Internship Program: ___________________________________ 31 4.1.1 Market Segmentation Process:__________________________________________________ 31 4.1.2 Multi-dimensional Task Accomplishment: _________________________________________ 31 4.1.3 Team work and group tasking activities: __________________________________________ 31 4.1.4 Adjustment with the work place and Socialization: _________________________________ 32 4.1.4 Enhancement of Communication Skill: ___________________________________________ 32 4.1.5 Familiarization with Corporate Culture: ___________________________________________ 32 4.1.6 Facilities I got as an Intern which motivated me: ___________________________________ 33 4.2 Lessons I have learnt from University’s Internship Program: ____________________________ 33 4.3 Others: ______________________________________________________________________ 33
Chapter – 05 ________________________________________________________________ 34 Concluding Statement ________________________________________________________ 34 5.1 Concluding Statement __________________________________________________________ 35 5.2: Recommendations for future strategic actions ______________________________________ 36
Chapter -6 __________________________________________________________________ 37 vii
References _________________________________________________________________ 37
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Chapter – 01 Introduction
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1.1
Rationale of the study:
Rationale for Selecting the Report: Internship program helps a student to gather real life experiences of professional life. This is very important because it’s the only platform for a student to learn something out of the book. If someone already engaged in a professional life as a student than it’s a different issue. In my internship report I want to discuss about Grameenphone’s Tracking Services (TS). Tracking service is one of the most unique and diversified product segments in Grameenphone’s product line. There are several tracking services –VTS, Buddy Tracker, Employee tracking and M reporting. Vehicle Tracking service is a GPS based vehicle tracking solution that provides instant location information to the vehicle owner/authorized person through web/SMS with other flexibilities. It can also reduce the fuel consumption, accidents. It helps to the insurance liabilities and Legal issues. It actively monitors the time per stop or start for a vehicle. I’ll discuss about other services in this report too. Tracking services surely works as a competitive advantage of a company. I choose this topic for my internship report because of it’s a new and different concept as a business. I am currently working in the Grameenphone’s Product department, Commercial division as an intern. There are several teams working for developing various products. I am assigned to the Business/Corporate Solution team where the main focus is to design and develop several products targeting the business market not usually the consumer market. Tracking Services are part of this team which is generating a large number of revenue for Grameenphone. In this report I will try to bring some details of this service. I will show how it works, impacts of this service, the vendor/suppliers relationship. I believe that this report will help the students of Business Administration to learn about a new and dynamic business which has competitive advantage. It will also be helpful to understand the relationship of B2B marketing. As a student of Marketing, this study will help me to enhance my knowledge and the capability of understanding B2B relationship, developing new product and implementation of new product.
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1.2.1 Background (Description of the Organization/Company): Starting its operations on March 26, 1997, the Independence Day of Bangladesh, Grameenphone has come a long way. Grameenphone pioneered the then breakthrough initiative of mobile to mobile telephony and became the first and only operator to cover 98% of the country’s people with network. Grameenphone widely known as GP, is the leading telecommunications service provider in Bangladesh. With more than 46.04 million subscribers (as of September 2013), Grameenphone is the largest mobile phone operator in the country. It is a joint venture enterprise between Telenor and Grameen Telecom Corporation, a non-profit sister concern of the internationally acclaimed microfinance organization and community development bank Grameen Bank. Telenor, the largest telecommunications company in Norway, owns 55.8% shares of Grameenphone, Grameen Telecom owns 34.2% and the remaining 10% is publicly held. Grameenphone has approximately 5000 employees all over the country and around 2000 employees work in the corporate headquarter which is called the “GP House”. Grameenphone shifts to GP House at July 2010, previously Grameenphones headquarters was in Celebration Point, Gulshan, Dhaka. Grameenphone has built the largest cellular network in the country with over 8500 base stations . Presently, nearly 99 percent of the country's population is within the coverage area of the Grameenphone network. Grameenphone has always been a pioneer in introducing new products and services in the local telecom market. Grameenphone has so far invested more than BDT 23,600 crore to build the network infrastructure. They are the largest taxpayers in the country, having contributed more than BDT 36,700 crore in direct and indirect taxes to the Government Exchequer over the years.
figure : 1.1- Ownership percentage of GP
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There are now more than 1600 GP Service Desks across the country covering nearly all upazilas of all districts and 94 Grameenphone Centers in all the divisional cities. 300,000 people are directly dependent on Grameenphone for their livelihood, working for the Grameenphone dealers, retailers, scratch card outlets, suppliers, vendors, contractors and others. Grameenphone at a glance: Logo
Company type
Limited
Founded
1997
Headquarters
GPHOUSE, Basundhara, Baridhara, Dhaka-1229. Bangladesh.
CEO
Vivek Sood.
Products
Telephony, GSM, GPRS, EDGE,3G: UMTS, HSPA, HSPA+
Revenue
৳ 59.5 billion (2012)
Net income
৳ 18.3 billion (2012)
Parent
Telenor 55.8%, Grameen Telecom 34.2% Public 10%
Slogan
Go Beyond
Website
www.grameenphone.com
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1.2.2 Grameenphone’s Mission:
Leading the industry and exceed customer expectations by providing the best wireless services, making life and business easier.
\ 1.2.3 Grameenphone’s Vision:
We exist to help our customers get the full benefit of communications services in their daily lives. We want to make it easy for customers to get what they want, when they want it. We're here to help.
1.2.4 Grameenphone’s Values:
Make It Easy Keep Promises Be Inspiring Be Respectful
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Figure: 1.2 Organogram of Grameenphone.
1.3 Objectives:
1.3.1 Primary Objective:
To learn the strategy of integrating Grameenphone’s various tracking services with the corporate and consumer market.
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1.3.2
Secondary Objectives:
To learn the activities of Grameenphone Product Commercial (GPPC) department.
To know the of GPPC’s working environment.
To get the basic idea about GPPC’s different teams.
To learn the details about different tracking services of Grameenphone.
To Study of sales and promotional strategies of Business Sollution and VTS
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Chapter – 02 ACTIVITIES UNDERTAKEN
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2.0 ACTIVITIES UNDERTAKEN 2.1 Short brief about Grameenphone Product Commercial Department There are several departments under several divisions in Grameenphone. All of them are inter dependent with each other. All of the divisions of Grameenphone are fully synchronized with each other to achieve the ultimate goal. Grameenphone product commercial department is a department under Grameenphone commercial division. There are approximately 70-80 employees in this department. This is one of the core departments of Grameenphone, most of the work regarding product development, customization, replacement etc designed from here. Several teams are there under Product Commercial department. They are:
Figure: 1.1 (Teams of product commercial)
I am working in the Business Solution team. There are 8 employees in this team. Basically this team handles all the corporate level clients and services of Grameenphone. There are only some services and product of this team which are for the end user.
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2.2 Activities of my assigned unit:
I am currently working under Mr. Muid Hasnat (Specialist) in the Business Solution Team. My supervisor handles the Tracking Solutions products of Grameenphone. Before going into details about my report objectives I want to share some basic information about my working unit as well as the department. This unit is involved in the life cycle management and designing of the business prepaid (GP Public Phone, BPO, Village Phone, Ekota, Business Solutions Prepaid) and postpaid (Business Solutions Postpaid) products, these are the core products of this team. There are other services like: VTS, M-reporting, Buddy tracking, Team tracking, Bulk SMS sell, corporate fiber connectivity etc. They are responsible for planning all the marketing and functional activities for each consumer product from setting sales and revenue target to training customer services. Some of their core duties are mentioned below: Manage business product development and all stakeholders in value chain Life cycle management of business prepaid and postpaid products (i.e. product management, quality assurance, profitability) Business Product roadmap Strategic pricing and profitability of business products Channel marketing, i.e. break down sales and revenue targets Training of Sales and CS accordingly Product customization as per the request of respective clients Conducting UAT of the product in test and live status of the product Analyzing competitors offers and movement
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Forecasting revenue generating subscribers Implementing new offers as per the customer requirement
2.3 Strategies of integrating Grameenphone’s various tracking services with the corporate and consumer market:
Grameenphone has various tracking services. Among them VTS (Vehicle tracking solution) is the most popular and revenue generating. There are also some other tracking solutions of Grameenphone. Like- M-reporting, Buddy tracker, Team tracker. Here is some details about these tracking services:
Vehicle tracking service (VTS) Vehicle tracking service is a GPS based vehicle tracking solution that provides instant location information to the vehicle owner/authorized person through web/SMS with other flexibilities. Benefits of Vehicle Tracking Service
More efficient operations - Reduce costs (fuel, maintenance, etc.)
Asset management - Reduce risk on valuable assets and cargo
Fleet safety & security - Reduce unauthorized vehicle use
Vehicle safety - Increase vehicle and driver safety
Reduction of fleet abuse - Prevent rash and dangerous driving
Operational control - Reduce excessive overtime claims
Support in recovery of stolen vehicle
Factual reporting
Buddy tracker It is basically a SMS based tracking service. Here individual can track his near and loved ones simply typing some short codes. GP has introduced Buddy Tracker service so that someone can track their friends, family members and near & dear ones anytime they want. 16
Team Tracker Team Tracker is a new value-added solution for the Business Market. This solution will help bring about efficiency to the value chain of organizations having field employees. Managing field operations & directing field employees towards the business success has always been a concern for field managements like National & Regional Sales Managers, Area Managers & Distributors. With the services of Grameenphone Team Tracker, organizations can now locate its employees, assign tasks to them digitally & also receive task updates electronically. The system is robust enough to handle data for even a thousand employees.
M-Reporting
M-Reporting is a Managed application service for field force Sales order collection Payment collection Survey Stock Report etc. Generic off the shelf services readily available Customizable to support business requirements
Benefits:
Automate sales order collection and other filed level work. Data sent through SMS / GRRS is received, processed and delivered to Clients Head office, Depot or Sales Center Simple solution and short learning curve Fast deployment Secure Uses SMS/GPRS as a media of communication
Tracking services are basically designed to track down specific objective or person by the user of the service. Grameenphone basically segmented these services into two basic class. Some of them serve in the consumer market some of them serve in the business market and some of them serve in both market.
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Figure: 1.2 (Various tracking services and their core target market) Several tracking services are from several vendors. Basically these vendors/suppliers use Grameenphone’s brand name, sales outlets, basically designed to track down the vehicle/person/team by the user. Grameenphone is providing this service in the consumer and the corporate market for a very long time. Here is some of the Grameenphone’s core strategies to obtain business customer as well as regular individual customer: Consumer targeting strategies
Sales discount: To attract customers in several tracking services of Grameenphone by giving on spot sales discount on devices or monthly sales discount.
Various promotional offers: Grameenphone gives several promotional offers based on the customer’s retention.
Increasing consciousness: Tracking services are build to determine some ones or some things approx/exact location.
Activation program: Attending in various car shows, sending bulk E-Mail, SMS, Telemarketing calls to the car owner (for VTS), HR department of an organization (for M-reporting and Team tracker).
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Business customer integration:
Bulk purchase discount: Usually business clients purchase bulk quantity of various tracking services. Grameenphone gives discount based on the purchase volume. It has to be more than 100 pieces in case of VTS to obtain this discount.
Monthly service charge discount: When corporate or business clients purchase devices or take other tracking services Grameenphone offers them some customized tariff on monthly usage.
Competitive advantage: There are some competitive advantages of Grameenphone one is their product line of various tracking services are unique and hard to be found them in other competitor’s product line. Specially M-reporting and Team tracker. Grameenphone got the first mover advantage with these two services.
Competitive rate: Grameenphone offers very competitive rate to obtain business customers.
2.4 Work Process Of Developing a Product or Service: For the development of any product, services, campaign, new initiative the Product Management Voice works with many departments and/or divisions. From the first phase of development, we form a working group works together in developing and testing the products. The Product team presents their requirements for development of the product to the working group, the Technology, Network and IT works at the technical end to make it feasible involving Segments department, Technology department, Networks department and IT. This working team. And Segments works with the go-to-market plan in order to launch the product in the market. Segments also produce necessary documents for different stakeholders such as FAQ for Customer Services. Within the PMV, the Business Process Management team produces the business cases for the Consumer product team. The consumer product team uses these business cases to design or redesign their product/service. The working group also communicates the Communication Division at the pre-launch face. The Communications division then takes
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necessary initiatives for going into the mass media. They create TV commercials, print Ads, billboards, etc. Once the product is launched, we move onto the performance review period. Here, we get a lot of input from the Customer Services departments, as they provide us with valuable insights on the problems and quarries reported by customers on which the consumer team may work on. We also rely on the Business Process team, Business Intelligence department, Assurance Technology department, Networks department and Revenue Accounting department for reviewing the financial performance and technical performance. The Customer Experience department also performs a „Customer Journey Mapping to understand customer’s perspective. The working group sits together regularly to analyze these data and come up with mitigation plans and develop new plans where necessary. And the process goes on in this loop.
2.4 Work related activities During my period as an intern in the Business Solution, Product Commercial, I have been assigned to various roles and responsibilities. I had to work with numerous colleagues within or outside my department. I had to carry out a lot of tasks which is probably not the duty of our department, but those were given to me so that I could be exposed to different conditions and learn a lot of new things. During my work I came to know what team work really means, how to synchronize tasks with other department, how the cross departmental works need to be done etc. I also learned how Grameenphone align its business with 3rd parties and the Government. As a part of the Business Solution team, I got the opportunity to work with all the members of the team at various projects at various times. Few of my general responsibilities as an Intern are enlisted below:
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I.
Preparing business cases for forecasting revenue: For forecasting next quarter revenue there are several business case templates. I have to input data and forecast the approximate revenue.
II.
Analyzing AMPU/ARPU (Average minute/revenue per user): I have to analyze AMPU/ARPU of last quarter to determine the client’s status.
III.
Explore existing ideas and suggest appropriate and feasible improvements: Sometimes I have to give my opinion and logical suggestion for new or existing projects.
IV.
Design & apply UAT (User Acceptance Test) in accordance with the set parameters: Have to design UAT template and structure according to the previously set parameters.
V.
Conduct UAT (User Acceptance Test) in products test and live status: One of the most frequent doing task during my internship. This task is very important for the existing and upcoming product. Have to test products performance test in both pre and post launching situations.
VI.
Report findings of UAT with the concerned and take corrective actions if needed: Need to submit the findings in a structured format. Action need to be taken if there is any changes required.
VII.
Contact internal/external related team for technical support: Need to contact with internal/external support team.
VIII.
Study, document and report competitor activities: Have to conduct market research to analyze competitors’ activities.
IX.
Validating invoices for vendors: Receive vendor’s bills and invoices and cross check information than prepare them for final submission to the finance department.
X.
Study different offers by foreign telecom companies and suggest packages feasible in Bangladesh: Need to study foreign telecom operators offers, format, products, services etc and suggest appropriate offer/format to follow.
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XI.
Gather customer insights and transform them into useful data: Collect end user experience and transform them into data which can be useful for designing new product or customizing existing product.
XII. XIII.
Customer lifecycle exploration Arranging supplier/vendor meeting as per the supervisor instruction: There are lots of vendors and suppliers and Grameenphone need to up to date with their status. So as per the Supervisor instruction I have to arrange meetings with the suppliers/vendors.\
XIV.
Attending in the compliance inspection of vendors with my supervisor: My supervisor is an inspector of Telenor group. He has to visit suppliers/vendors firm to check the compliance issues. There is a format of checking these issues. I have to follow up those issues with my supervisor.
2.5 Organization-wide Grameenphone Ltd. has more than 4500 employees working at different levels of organizational hierarchy. There are 7 functional divisions engaged in managing these employees- with the aim to meet organizational objectives. Grameenphone follows a mix of centralized and decentralized decision making process-where the top management mainly takes all the strategic decisions while the functional managers have flexibility to take decisions by themselves on a day-to-day basis. At Grameenphone the Managing Director is assisted by 9 Senior Executives who are heading different departments in the strategic decision making process. The departmental names of Grameenphone are given below:
Corporate Affairs Division Commercial Division Finance Division Human Resource Division
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Technology Division MD Division Communication Division Grameenphone follows a 3-layer management philosophy in Bangladesh. These are Directors, Managers and Officers. The CEO is the top most authority of all the levels. Directors are the departmental heads that are responsible for the activities of their departments. Managers have the authority next to directors. These two layers represent the management level of Grameenphone. Officers are the next persons to stand in the hierarchy list. They are the typical mid-level employees of Grameenphone’s organizational hierarchy. These officers are responsible for managing the operational activities and operating level employees.
2.6 Products and Services Products Grameenphone mainly provides the telephony service to the customers. But in the recent years GP‟s is showing interest to capture the whole customer insight by offering them different type of products. It offers pre-paid products like Smile, Shohoj, Aapon, Bondhu, Djuice, Baadhon, Business Solution, Ekota, GP Public Phone, BPO and Village Phone. In addition it has a very exclusive post-paid package named Xplore. It also offers internet modem along with an internet sim that may be pre-paid or post-paid. Services Grameenphone also introduced a number of value-added services during the last 13 years. It may be noted that Grameenphone was the first mobile phone operator in the country to introduce value-added services like Voice Mail Service, Text Mail Service and fax and data transmission services, in particular Internet access, downloadable content and ring-back tone services. Grameenphone also launched the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). Other services include International Roaming, SMS (short message service), SMS Push-Pull Services, Voice Mail Service (VMS), Voice SMS, Web to SMS, Cell E-mail, MMS, EDGE/GPRS, GP World, 23
BlackBerry services (Will not be available from May as per the BTRC notice), Vehicle Tracking Service (VTS), M-reporting, Buddy tracking, Team tracking, Welcome Tunes, Call Block Service, Dynamic Pricing, E – Bill, Music Radio, Study Line, Mobile Backup Service and Missed Call Alert. People’s life is now much easier as they are getting services as per their necessities. Cell phones are now something more than just a cell phone. And Grameenphone pioneered in taking telecom industry to new and more dynamic heights. Special Feature Grameenphone is always working relentlessly to introduce new features and packages in the industry. They are always looking for a way to make life simpler for their customers. That is why, for the first time in Bangladesh, Grameenphone launched the feature “My Zone”. It is a magnificent feature where customers might get upto 83% discount on a base tariff of BDT 1.50/min for on-net calls, BDT 1.00/min for F&F and community calls. The discount is based on the network usage of the area you are in and the time of the day. It is a fully automated discount system based on previous usage patterns. We have already launched it all-over the country and it is getting hugely appreciated and accepted by our customers. Even with such a success, Grameenphone is constantly monitoring the customer satisfaction level and striving hard to ensure and sustain maximum satisfaction. This shows the integrity with which Grameenphone does its business. And it is not a surprise why they are the market leaders since the birth of this industry.
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Chapter – 03 Constraints/Challenges and proposed course of actions for improvement of Grameenphones Tracking Services.
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3.1 Identified Marketing Problems Though Grameenphone is leading the telecommunication market for a very long time though it face some minor and some major level challenges. These constrains are not like a severe threat to Grameenphone but they need to pull out some strategies to resolve these problems. I found out some challenges in my assigned area (Tracking Services) as well as in other working teams:
3.1.1 Lack of Innovativeness: Grameenphone is continuously offering different products which are not that much unique. In case of tracking services, most of the product are designed and developed by the suppliers and they are taking a large part of the revenue. If Grameenphone can build up some of their own innovative product than it would increase their revenue.
3.1.2 Large product line: Product line is quite large of Grameenphone. As a customer I think it can be narrowed down which can attract young customers.
3.1.3 Competitors product: Sometimes other competitors offers greater value product than Grameenphone. For example all the other major competitors giving 1mbps as minimum speed of 3G but GP is giving 512kbps.
3.1.4 High pricing: Grameenphone is known for high price hiker for the very long time though they are providing quality services in accordance to the price but end user always go after lowest price. 26
3.1.5 Complex offers or tariff plans: Grameenphone frequently give promotional offers but the problem is most of the offers are interdependent with activating other services which lead the customers to the hassle. Most cases end user find those conditions a bit complex and try to omit them.
3.2 Organization Wide Faced Challenges 3.2.1 Time limitation: Most of the department in Grameenphone ar inter dependent. They need to work together in each and every project. The main problem is the telecommunication market of Bangladesh is so much competitive. Every telecom company needs to conduct new offers for the customers. In order to do that each and every time they need to search for new ideas. So it needs time to identify, evaluate and implement but most of the cases the team or the individual don not get sufficient time to do the task.
3.2.2 Stress management: Most of the employees work under heavy stress though there are several ways to remove stress in Grameenphone. In a sense possibly this is one of the best organizations in Bangladesh where the management always try to give their employees the best environment to remove stress. The overall environment created in that way to remove the boredom of their work and stress.
3.2.3 Working as a team: This department work as a team. So everyone has to be a team player. Working as a team requires mutual trust and co-ordination. Sometimes it becomes difficult to find some responsible person in order to get assistance. He/She might be busy with some other jobs. So regular followup and proper planning should be followed by everyone.
3.2.4 Relationship with supplier/vendor: Grameenphone highly relies on its vendors and suppliers. Specially some of their services are totally develop, maintain and support by their suppliers/vendors. So Grameenphone need to provide best support to them for their satisfaction.
3.3 Problems due to lack of adequate and appropriate academic preparation: 27
The main objective of an internship program is to make the bridge between the theoretical knowledge and implication of it in the practical professional life. There are number of courses have been undertaken during my BBA program in AIUB and I have chosen Marketing as major because of great importance of this field in the current professional life. Nevertheless, all the courses I have undertaken might not match precisely in the practical field and I have come across a numbers of relevance and mismatches during pursuing my internship program. If I compare our academic preparation with the professional environment than sadly I need to confront that our academic lessons are not adequate for any kind of profession.
3.3.1 Academic Similarities: During my internship period in Grameenphone I have to work for the department which is fully marketing oriented. I always wanted to be a part of a team where they create the product I got that opportunity. I am a student of Marketing department and I found lots of my study materials which are fully related with my work. Specially product development strategies, market segmentation strategies, market expansion etc. Basic marketing terms I have learnt are very useful in some cases. Courses like Brand Management, Sales Management, Business Communication, Research, Operational Management helped me a lot to understand several business terms and facts.
3.3.1 Academic dissimilarities: In many cases, I have experienced mismatch with my academic courses while I was doing my internship program. This is because the university does not always provide the practical knowledge and I found very few courses those focus on Marketing Activities/Product development solely. In my BBA course I had to gain knowledge in various broader aspects including Market Segmentation, Market Penetration, Product line extension, Diversification etc where very few of them deeply focuses on real life Marketing and Product development activities. Also, the university always emphasis on the theoretical knowledge and I had not much scopes for gaining much practical knowledge. I used to do a part-time job because of that I am aware of some organizational basic rules, policies, norms and also some work related terms, 28
jargons and techniques. There are lots of student who come to the working environment for the first time in that case they found it very much difficult to cope with because they totally do not have any idea about how to communicate with the colleagues/superiors or how to manage the work pipeline. My university always taught me by the books but in the real world every organization follows different rules and structure. Another major problem during my BBA I only had the chance to get to know about some basic Marketing Strategies but my university did not trained me with up to date technologies which are currently using by most of the firms (software and hardware related). I had to learn those things from my own with the help of other senior colleagues or internet.
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Chapter 4 Lessons learnt from the Internship Program
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4.0 Lessons learnt from the Internship Program: The lesson about the organization I have learnt from the entire internship program was really important. I had the opportunity during the program to get a closer look at the various Product Development activities along with all other Marketing activities of the Product Commercial division, Grameenphone. All I have learnt is about various departments of the Organization, their management, general activities, operation and so on. Overall, the whole program helped me both understanding the marketing activities and making the report smoothly required by the department.
4.1.1 Market Segmentation Process: As a student of Marketing major my focus was to find out several marketing related factors. Here I learn one of the most important marketing factor: Market Segmentation. I learnt how to segment the market into pieces and collect revenue from those pieces.
4.1.2 Multi-dimensional Task Accomplishment: It is required that an intern will deal with various sectors and departments of an organization. The variety of task I have performed in the commercial division was not of the same taste, however, I felt that I have achieved some more dimensions while I was studying on the various sectors of the organization. These multi-dimensional pieces of work could be valuable for my career ahead of me.
4.1.3 Team work and group tasking activities: A team can make something happen quicker than an individual. Team work is the best way to achieve some greater goals. I came to know how important is team work and how to synchronize works with various teams. In Grameenphone every team, unit, department, division are totally inter dependent so it was a great opportunity for me to learn these things.
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4.1.4 Adjustment with the work place and Socialization: Organizational socialization means the adjustment of the skill, academic knowledge and behavior with the working environment in the working place. While I was performing my internship program in Grameenphone, I was being treated as an employee like others in the organization. I got sufficient assistance from the working people in terms of acquiring enough idea about their working strategy. This enhanced my knowledge, skill and the power of implementing of my academic knowledge in a workplace. I believe this is much quite important and also the whole program made me ready for starting my professional career in the same environment.
4.1.4 Enhancement of Communication Skill: Grameenphone provides a very friendly corporate environment whereas there is always a chance to discuss relevant matters with the seniors’. This helped me to learn some inter personal communication factors. Within my team I had to attend in various meeting and presentation where I have to engage in the team conversation. Through these I achieved significant amount of knowledge about the basic communication terms.
4.1.5 Familiarization with Corporate Culture: It is required that a workplace could have people from different cultural back ground within it. It was not the exception while I was working in Gameenphone. Mixing with the culture of the organization and coping up with the people from different background really equipped me with knowledge of workplace diversity. I have also observed the customers from different cultures are being served by the multinational organization and gained the skill of maintaining a unique culture regardless possessing different cultural backgrounds by the people. Additionally, the corporate culture of Grameenphone was truly amazing. Undoubtedly Grameenphone offers the best corporate culture to its employees and I am lucky enough to get touch of that culture.
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4.1.6 Facilities I got as an Intern which motivated me: Grameenphone do not provide any Internship Allowances but they provide Transport facilities (Pick and Drop) and Lunch facility. Which gave me some extra motivation for work because there are very few organization who provides these kind of facilities to the interns.
4.2 Lessons I have learnt from University’s Internship Program: This internship is a part of my BBA program. AIUB has given us this opportunity to have a practical job experience before getting into a permanent job as a full time employee. Definitely this internship program will help me a lot in job sectors. Internship helps me to learn lots of things which will be very effective for the near future. From university’s internship program I have learned: I. II.
How to give a company’s portfolio in the report How to present work experience in the report
III.
Cooperative education experience
IV.
Concern for integrating experiences and external experiences
V. VI.
Applying theoretical knowledge into professional life Way of communication.
4.3 Others: While doing this internship I have learned lots of new things, which was totally unknown for me. Besides learning from the organization and the university I have also learned some other things which are very essential for me. I.
Increased trust, confidence and professionalism
II.
Improved subject area and discipline knowledge
III.
Increasing sophistication
IV.
Developing skills and competencies
V.
Business jargons and their meanings. 33
Chapter – 05 Concluding Statement
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5.1 Concluding Statement The experience and learning I have gathered from my whole internship program with the Grameenphone Ltd was really important for me and I enjoyed the whole thing from the first day of my internship program. This internship program assisted me a lot to realize myfurther career for the coming future. Rather than drawing a conclusion, I would like to say that this study was utterly indicative for me for my future career. During the long three months program, in fact most of the units of my departments have been observed by me and I had acquired plenty of understandings about those. I had a great scope to match my theoretical knowledge with practical marketing and product development knowledge. I have come to know that along with their profit capturing foucs Grameenphone also performs some specialized financial activities for the growth of country’s economy. Grameenphone offers several product and services which are basically designed to make peoples life easier. This company is leading the telecom market for a very long time and I can understand why they are in the lead during my internship period. It is about their people. Grameenphones employees are the best in their field. They give their fullest effort to achieve their goal. Grameenphone do not treat them as employee they treat them more like a family member. From my observation I found that time is a big factor here and I learned so many things which will be very useful for my future career. I watched how to handle vendors/Suppliers, how to give proper feedback to the respective clients, hopw to customize product as per the customer demand etc. Grameenphone offers a greatest workplace and corporate culture which motivates an employee in a highest level. From the experience of the whole internship program, Grameenphone is a nice place towork with its nice and cooperative people within it. Additionally, I understand various things about corporate culture, business planning, strategies, implementation, market segmentation process and other marketing related activities. Finally it can be said that Grameenphone is playing a vital role for the economy of Bangladesh as well as for building some true corporate leaders.
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5.2: Recommendations for future strategic actions There are several recommendations have been realized from the whole internship program. Some of them mentioned below:
The communication between the intern and the supervisor should be quite clear and on ther regular basis so that the intern has the total understanding and control over the entire internship program.
The university sometimes could take initiative for the students who often fail to get offer form the companies for internship. The university could make some reference lists with big companies and make them offer its students for internship.
A fresh intern is not always that keen to achieve full control on the program. He/she might not need some extra knowledge about corporate culture and some other things about a work place and companies. In this regard the supervisor could be a big helping hand for the intern. The supervisor can give initial view about corporate environment for a smooth start of the program.
The interns could get highly motivated by the supervisors while they will be performing the internship program in some particular companies. This motivation will drive the interns to get jobs from those companies. Also, the supervisors can arrange some group discussion to share the information about companies and make the interns fully understand.
Internship supervisors can make some clear guidelines for making the report and performing other activities. That guideline can guide the interns to do their assigned job (from university as well as the organization) properly.
University can arrange some workshop or seminar by inviting all the Interns of the varsity by that they can find a platform to share their experiences, thoughts, suggestions which may be very useful for all of them.
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Chapter -6 References
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Bibliography http://www.grameenphone.com/ www.btrc.gov.bd www.telenor.com/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telenor
http://www.dsebd.org/
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Appendix
NAZIUR RAHMAN Address: House No-324, Block-B, Avenue-02, Mirpur-13, Dhaka 1216 Mobile : 01670153751, 01715658604 e-mail :
[email protected],
[email protected]
Career Objective: To succeed in an environment of growth and excellence and earn a job Which provides me job satisfaction and self development and help me personal as well as organizational goals. Want to serve the organization with my best output.
Employment History:
1. Internee ( February 02, 2014 – May 04, 2014)
Grameenphone Company Location : Bashundhara R/A, Dhaka, Bangladesh Department: Commercial Division Duties/Responsibilities: - To conduct UAT (User Acceptance Test) in the Pre & Post sales state of the product - Product development and customization for the respective clients - Business case evaluation - Analyzing ARPU/AMPU for further forecasting - Cross matching and validating vendors/suppliers invoices - Keeping liaison with the suppliers/vendors
2. Call Center Executive ( June 21, 2012 - January 30, 2014)
MaestroUsa Communications Inc. Company Location : Mirpur-10 (Back Office Support), NY, USA (Main office) Department: Customer Service Department (CSD) Duties/Responsibilities: Worked in the company's Back Office Support center. Major Responsibilities: Participating in Inbound Support
39
and Outbound sales operation, Follow up the customers and maintaining CRM, fulfilling sales target.
3. Supervisor, Brand Promoter ( November 11, 2009 - July 30, 2010)
Market Access, IMS, Windmill, Asiatic Company Location : Dhaka Department: Marketing Duties/Responsibilities: Worked on several promotional and activation project of several brands. To obtain the goal of sales/promotion. Major clients were-Unilever, Nestle, Grameenphone, Robi, Marico, SCB, Nokia etc
4. Office Executive. ( July 17, 2009 - November 02, 2009)
Dynamic Sollution and Service Bangladesh Company Location : Kafrul, Dhaka Department: Communication Duties/Responsibilities: Make and analyze tender schedule, corresponding with the clients and vendors (home and abroad), Contact synchronization, Office management.
Academic Qualification: Exam Title
Concentration/Major
Institute
Result
Pas.Year
Duration
CGPA:3.3 out of 4
2014
Four Years
BBA
Marketing
American International University Bangladesh
H.S.C
Business Studies
B.A.F Shaheen College, Dhaka
CGPA:3.9 out of 5
2009
2 Years
S.S.C
Business Studies
B.A.F Shaheen College, Dhaka
CGPA:4 out of 5
2007
-
Career and Application Information: Looking For
: Entry Level Job
Available For
: Full Time
Preferred Job Category
: Marketing/Sales, Customer Support/Call Centre
Preferred District
: Anywhere in Bangladesh.
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Extra Curricular Activities: Used to debate in the secondary level of education. Play drums in a alter rock Band.
Language Proficiency: Language
Reading
Writing
Speaking
Bangla
High
High
High
English
High
High
High
Personal Details : Father's Name
: Saifur Rahman
Mother's Name
: Gulshan Ara
Date of Birth
: September 29, 1991
Gender
: Male
Marital Status
: Unmarried
Nationality
: Bangladeshi
National Id No.
: 19911269301600168
Religion
: Islam
Permanent Address
: House No-324, Block-B, Avenue-02, Mirpur-13, Dhaka 1216
Current Location
: Dhaka
Reference (s): Reference: 01 Name
: Barrister Shahriar Rakib Hasan Khan
Organization
:
Designation
: Faculty
Address
:
American International UniversityBangladesh
Campus - 5, Floor-3, AIUB, Banani,
Reference: 02 Mohammad Muid Hasnat Grameenphone Product Manager, Business Solution GP House, Bashundhara, Baridhara, Dhaka-
41
Dhaka, Bangladesh
1229, Bangladesh
Phone (Off.)
:
Phone (Res.)
:
Mobile
: 01727307074
01711506604
E-Mail
:
[email protected]
[email protected]
Relation
: Academic
Professional
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