My debate in strategic management course

Our topic is how can be Banglalink number 1 in telecoms industry?

“This paper is copyrighted by M Zahid Hossain. It cannot be copied without permission of him. This project is submitted to TfH, MGT 489, School of Business, North South University.”
Lets start:

We had the task of strategizing how Banglalink could become the leading telecom operator in Bangladesh in the next 3 years. In order to design a successful strategy for Banglalink, we did preliminary research into the telecom industry of Bangladesh and other countries, and we identified several opportunities that are uncommon and in some cases, unknown in Bangladesh. In addition, we have developed some creative and new strategies that we believe will help Banglalink become the top telecom operator in this country in the next 3 years.

After extensive research and consideration, we have identified 9 strategies that we believe will benefit Banglalink the most.

Strategy 1.

Most professionals and even students nowadays have credit or debit cards. But most of us have not had the experience to purchase something using our cell phones, or from websites like ebay, amazon without a physical transaction. In fact, international credit cards in our country are rare and offered by very few financial institutions.
Typically, for online purchases we use cards of foreign relatives or friends.
Banglalink could introduce a service that we have named emarket.com.
It will have to negotiate and sign contractual agreements with providers such as grocery supermarkets, pharmacies, books stores etc. If the suppliers have the resources for home delivery then they can register their products with banglalink.

Banglalink could launch a website with the selected products from these participating vendors (a site not similar to grameenphone’s cellbazaar). This website can be made accessible from desktops, laptops and cell phones using wap services and also without internet using power menus like *789#.

For example, your faculty has told to buy book by next class, you have no time to go nilkeht, you go to website of the banglalink market, order the book, you will receive book within 4-8 hours. You use Nokia 1100,  and no internet connection, just dial power menu and order. Charge will be cut from your phone balance.

Another example, an old man live alone. He has become ill. He needs some medicine, as he is ill, he cannot go outside easily. As he does not know how to browse internet he can dial power menu, and order medicine. You know it does not need any technological knowledge to use power menu.
However it is open to all to register as the suppliers of banglalink emarket, just needs to fulfill some requirements. Here banglalink can earn money both from cellphone usage and suppliers registration/contract fee.
Here the business process does not need huge investment, just some contracts with strong and reliable suppliers. Banglalink has already the system of power menu, and cutting cellphone balance for value added services.
But with this, they will be the pioneer of real ecommerce, online banking. It will create a new flavor in their brand name by making people smart and digital!

Strategy 2:
We want new subscribers of banglalink. So to make it easier for switching new number/cell phone operator, banglalink can introduce auto notification system by sms. Like you use gp/warid/robi. Want to switch banglalink. After buying new sim, when you install it, it will ask your previous cell phone number, if you insert it will send sms notification to all of your contacts that you have changed your cell phone number to this. So you do not need to worry about how your old friends can know your cell phone number.
Regarding this if other cellphone companies allow, they can introduce number redirection like website redirection.
It is not like divert option and charging call rate for each seconds, it will be one time service charge and anybody call you to existing number he/she will be redirect to your current number.
Obviously this will be great opportunity for those who were afraid of changing cellphone number.

Strategy 3:
Banglalink should introduce to convert phone balance in to cash. When
they give the dealership to PCO they should give also this authority to pay people in cash when they transfer balance. So if a garments worker want to send money to her mom/dad living in village, what she needs to do just send money to her mom/dads banglalink cellphone. Then they can make it into cash by transferring to PCO’s cellphone. Also you can use your phone balance when shopping in various stores by transferring money to the cellphone of that shops/stores.

It does not need any new technology, as they are using similar technology in

“banglalink bill-pay service”.

Strategy 4:
The new premium sim card will be introduced and price will be 5000-10000 tk. With this SIM people can buy products/shop according to strategy 1 and 3, on credit. Banglalink can take extra little charge depending on timeline when they pay the credit. If anybody will fail to pay in time the sim will be suspended-this fair business policy from both end.
I hope there would be no problem with the monetary system of Bangladesh bank regarding this strategy, as Banglalink will not take interest, just charge service fee for due payment.

Strategy 5:

Like Nokia Vodafone, Banglalink should launch Nokia Banglalink and Samsung Banglalink phone sets. They will make a contract and customize the different and popular models of nokia and Samsung with their own operating system and appearance. But phone sets will be locked, only for banglalink SIM, and price must be below market price.
I think it will not fail like gp as gp introduces only few models of cellphone at almost same price as market.

This strategy however, is not something that we have innovated, instead it is based on the historical success of other mobile phone companies in other countries like AT&T in US telecom market,  tata indicom, or idea
global in India. We see that they have introduced a variety of handsets, ranging from expensive and sophisticated to cheap and functional. We recommend that banglalink employ the same strategy and introduce a diverse set of handsets that are designed by brand name manufacturers such as nokia and Samsung etc. along with their own brand.

GP has introduced their own branded handset. However, the quality of the

device and price clearly indicate that it is meant for the mid to low income population.


Strategy 6:

We know banglalink offers stock update, stock news, even you can manage your portfolio virtually through banglalink. Banglalink can contract brokers/financial institutes of stock markets and dse and cse, and then develop a system, as a result, people using banglink can sign up with broker with his/her cell phone number. Then any people can buy or sell share using power menu or sms system. Also it should offer auto sell and buy like some countries via sms or power menu. Here banglalink will not work as a financial institute. Just connect the financial institutes with their sms server.

Strategy 8:

Banglalink has already introduced remittance system, but it is limited to only two banks. It needs to increase the number of associate banks, and also advertise this offer massively especially in rural area as people in rural area need to receive money from their foreign relatives at large extend. May be they can arrange seminar in rural areas, and teach them how to operate this process, and how easy is this.


Strategy 8:

It should attract the corporations. Because in corporations they can sell in bulk amount, also get the customers who use much. Remittance is good idea in this regard, but it needs more idea like this, and customizing sims and mobile operating system for the corporation, and with some other extra benefits.

Strategy 9:

At last, This is our optional strategy, as it needs huge investment.
According to GP’s website, there are 27 million subscribers where 7 million is active internet users but banglalink has less than 0.01 million internet subscriber from it’s 17 million users. Banglalink’s one of the main drawback is data service. Again to make it unreachable for banglalink GP has invested 220 million US dollar in 3G system.
What banglalink can do is that invest money for 4G, as it needs very lengthy business process like 1-3 years to setup 3G or 4G Technology. For example, it has passed already 2 years GP has announced 3G. So then it will be difficult for grameen to switch 4G quickly. They do not want change their investment very soon too.

The internet service provider market has great potential, as we can see still no ISP, even wimax, wi fi, broad band cannot satisfy us with price and service. Whereas in India, 1mbs is 800 Rupee/month, in Bangladesh it is 5000tk. So this can be great if banglalink can offer like this which will help them to capture very large market share.


Conclusion:
To get effective results from these strategies, marketing strategy needs to be very strong too. However we are not focusing on that because we all know that so far they are very successful in marketing and advertising.
Our strategies are based on invest less, introduce something unique, and highly depend on negotiation. Also our main target market is middle class and upper middle class and smart people, but we have also something for others. The main reason behind this is that we want customers who use much, ability to switch, love varieties. In addition, we have not focused on pricing, because already banglalink is the price leader in the market, also they offer many bonuses on different occasions. So if it continuously invest more, get more subscribers and gain less revenue, that will not be good for their business even they would have highest subscribers. Our strategy is not only for making banglalink number one in subscribers, but also in profit. And about the network of banglalink, from the day of being banglalink is trying to improve it. The coverage area is also very close to GP. We have seen that GP has 44% market share whereas banglalink has 27%. Though it seems to be very high difference, banglalink has very good growth rate. And the telecom industry in Bangladesh is not at peak yet, telecom industry has captured only 29.2% market share. So still there are chances of entering this market, also seize the some market shares from GP.