Service and Producvtivity Of Grameen Phone Limited

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company profile

Grameen Phone Limited is an existing company, and is the leading cellular service provider in Bangladesh operating a nationwide. Over the past few years the use of cell phone brought about tangible changes in the lifestyle of the people of Bangladesh. Today, a cellular phone is a mere necessity. From a small retail trader at Karwan Bazaar to a remote villager uses cell phone. Four companies are operating in the mobile phone sector in Bangladesh. Grameen Phone, Citycell, Aktel and BanglaLink. Among them the services of Grameen Phone appear to be comparatively better in terms of nationwide networking, customer handling, trouble shooting, billing system etc. Grameen Phone (GP) has been established to provide high quality GSM cellular services at affordable prices. In addition to providing prepaid and postpaid cellular phone services, the company also assists in a -Village Phone- service by being the sole provider of telecommunications services to the Village Phone operators. The Village Phone service provides rural connectivity to approximately 30 million people. Grameen Phone’s total capitalization was US$120,000,000; including around US$50 million from IFC/CDC, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). It also received US$60 million in equity from the four Grameen Phone private partners. “Grameen Phone” might have been born in Bangladesh, but soon it is likely to join the international cellular jargon. GSM MoU Association at GSM World Congress in Cannes where many villagers made their first-ever call using pre-paid, recently rewarded rural cellular marketing, by Vodaphone in South Africa. “Grameen Phone” the unique cellular operator from Bangladesh, also made an impressive presentation at Cannes.  

Highlights:

? November 11, 1996: Grameen Phone was offered a cellular license in Bangladesh by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.

? March 26, 1997: Grameen Phone launched on the Independence Day of Bangladesh.

?After Eight years of operation: After eight years of operation, Grameen Phone has more than 2.8 million subscribers as of March 2005.

 

Vision, Mission & Challenge of Grameen phone

Vision:

 “To be leading provider of telecommunication services all over Bangladesh with satisfied customers and shareholders, and enthusiastic employees”

 

Mission:

Grameen Phone Ltd. aims at providing reliable, widespread, convenient mobile and cost effective telephone services to the people in Bangladesh irrespective of where they live. Such services will also help Bangladesh keep pace with other countries including those in South Africa region and reducing her existing disparity in telecom services between urban and rural areas.

 

Challenge:

The famous slogan of Grameen Phone is – “Connectivity is Productivity”.

 

Company Profile of Grameenphone:

Introduction: November 28, 1996: Grameenphone was offered a cellular license in Bangladesh by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications March 26, 1997: Grameenphone launched its service on the Independence Day of Bangladesh After eight years of operation; Grameenphone has more than 3.5 million subscribers as of May 2005More than 3.5 million mobile phone users in Bangladesh now prefer Grameenphone as of May 2005. GP added nearly 1.4 million new Subscribers to its network in 2004. It took Grameenphone six years to reach the one million subscriber mark in August 2003, about one year to reach the second million in September 2004 and just about six months to reach the three million subscriber mark in March 2005.

 

Main Even of Grameenphone:

Continued Growth:

The subscriber-base of GrameenPhone continued to grow at a healthy pace.Another 1.4 million subscribers were added to the network in 2004.

 

Network Expansion:

Increasing the capacity and expanding the coverage of the GP network around the country continued throughout the year. Starting with 680 base stations, GP ended the year with 1400 base stations on air.

 

Enhanced Coverage:

Coverage of the GP network continued to be expanded around the country. Sixty-one districts are under the coverage of the GP network.

 

New Products:

GP introduced two new postpaid bundled products named "Anytime 450" and “Anytime300” in April, the first such product to be launched in the local market.

 

Premium SMS service:

New features like ring tone and logo downloads were introduced in cooperation with the content providers last year. The subscribers can download ring tones and logos by sending SMS with codes to special numbers.

 

SMS to other operators:

Inter-operator SMS services were introduced with City Cell,Aktel and Banglalink.

 

Mobile e-mail Launched:

A new value-added service named ‘Cell E-mail’ was been launched with the help of Inforev Limited in September. This service has enabled the valued subscribers to send and receive e-mail through SMS from their mobile phone without any Internet connection.

 

Internet Bill Payment:

Grameenphone signed agreements with two banks named Eastern Bank Ltd and Commercial Bank of Ceylon Ltd enabling its subscribers who have accounts with those banks to pay their GP bills through the Internet.

 

Mobile Meal:

Grameenphone organized Mobile Meal, the country’s first ever exposition of mobile phone handsets and accessories in June 2004. Seeing the immense response from the visitors, the second such Mobile Mela was held in November in a much larger scale, with GP connections on sale too. More than 70,000 people visited the fair.

 

BTRC Citation:

Grameenphone was lauded by Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission for its role in expanding the tele-density in Bangladesh. BTRC Awarded GP with a citation and crest on the occasion of reaching the two million subscriber mark in September 2004.

 

Improved and New CRCs:

GP opened a Customer Management Center (CMC) in Dhanmondi in late December. Moreover, all the seven CMCs around the country now remain open on Saturdays, while the Gulshan CMC offers evening service from 5:00 pm till 8:00 pm. A new Call Center helpline was introduced to allow customers to call from any other telephone.

 

Flood Relief and Tsunami Aid:

Grameenphone took part in the flood relief program during the devastating floods last year. GP donated BDT 2.5 million to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund. The company also donated medicines to Bangladesh Red Crescent Society and ICDDR,B. In addition, health camps were set up and medicines and other relief materials were distributed among the flood-affected people. GP also donated more than BDT 10 million towards the ‘School Rebuilding Program’ of UNICEF for the Tsunami affected areas of Sri Lanka and The Maldives.

 

Computer Donation:

GP donated more than 100 computers to educational institutions mostly in rural areas, which is benefiting thousands of poor students.

 

International Roaming Program;

The International Roaming program continued to expand during the year. At the end of the year, GP had 230 International Roaming partner networks spread across 81 countries in five continents. Moreover, GP has introduced Local Direct Dialing, through which GP subscribers can make calls to a visiting roamer in GP network without ISD connection. A new hotline was also introduced for the International roaming customers and visiting roamers to cater to their queries in early 2005.

 

Growth of Village Phones Continues:

The Village Phone Program continued to witness rapid growth during the year, doubling the number of Village Phones in operation to more than 94,000.

 

Cricket Sponsorships:

Grameenphone sponsored two Corporate Cricket Leagues last year in April and in November. The players in the teams were from the National Team and the First Division League. The Grameenphone team won the title in the second Corporate League. Together with the Bangladesh Cricket Board, in December, Grameenphone launched the month-long ‘Grameenphone Pacer Hunt’ in search of fast bowlers from anywhere in the country. Selected players will be invited to be part of the High Performance Program for the 2005 off-season.

 

New employees:

A total of 371 new employees joined Grameenphone during the year, bringing the total to 1004. Extensive training programs, both at home and abroad, were arranged during the year for the benefit of the employees.

 

 

Deployment of 1800 MHz frequency:

GP has started to deploy the 1800 MHz base stations in Dhaka and Chittagong earlier this year.

This will enable the expansion of the capacity and further improvement of quality.

 

Launch of djuice:

GP successfully launched the international brand djuice in March 2005 with very good market response. It is specially targeted towards the youth, which is a very important segment of the market as they constitute about 40 percent of the population in the country.

 

FlexiLoad:

The electronic recharge system for pre-paid accounts was introduced in April. GP pre-paid users now have the freedom to recharge their account electronically with any amount they prefer.

 

EDGE:

GP introduced EDGE, an advanced high-speed mobile Internet and data service, for the first time in the country through a soft-launch in June this year. It enables advanced mobile services such as down loading of video and music clips, multi-media messaging (MMS), high-speed Internet access and e-mail on the move.

 

Balance Transfer:

Grameenphone introduced a new “Balance Transfer” feature of FlexiLoad, the electronic recharge system, for GP pre-paid subscribers. The Balance Transfer feature enables all GP pre-paid subscribers, EASY, EASY Gold and djuice, to transfer certain amounts of balance to any other GP pre-paid subscribers.

 

Grameen Telecom:

Grameen Telecom, which owns 38% of the shares of Grameenphone, is a not-for-profit company and works in close collaboration with Grameen Bank. The internationally reputed bank for the poor has the most extensive rural banking network and expertise in microfinance. It understands the economic needs of the rural population, in particular the women from the poorest households. Grameen Telecom, with the help of Grameen Bank, administers the Village Phone Program, through which Grameenphone provides its services to the fast growing rural customers. Grameen Telecom trains the operators, supplies them with handsets and handles all service-related issues. Grameen Bank currently covers more than 51,000 villages which are serviced by 1326 bank branches (December’ ‘04) all over the countryside. At the end of the year, the bank had 3.78 million borrowers,

 

95 percent of whom were women. Grameen Telecom’s objectives are to provide easy access to GSM cellular services in rural Bangladesh, creating new opportunities for income generation through self-employment by providing villagers with access to modern information and communicate.

 

current market situation

There are at present four companies operating in the mobile phone market. GP is the market leader in the mobile phone industry with nearly 70% of the market share.

? GP has more than 2.8 million subscribers as of March 2005.

? GP’s mobile-to-mobile connections have proved to be extremely successful. 94,000 of GP’s subscriptions are mobile-to-mobile.

? 55 out of 64 districts are at present covered by GP. Services in Barisal were recently launched, expanding GP’s coverage to all six divisions. GP has by far the largest coverage by any mobile phone operator in the country.

? 27% of the country's land area and 37 million people are under GP’s coverage

? GP has 75 corporate clients, including British American Tobacco (BAT) Bangladesh Limited, Unocal Bangladesh Ltd., Cairn Energy, BOC Bangladesh Ltd., and Lever Brothers Bangladesh Ltd. There is a separate Corporate Sales Section, and dedicated corporate clients’ service is available to provide to special services.

? GP launched International Roaming operations with 35 new operators in 2002, bringing the total of 127 operators in 49 countries.

? National Roaming facility is being provided with Pre-Paid well as post paid services.

? GP has 353 points of sale (including dealers, outlets and individual agents) all over the country.

Introduction to sales department of grameen phone:

The following picture shows the Organizational Chart of only Marketing & Sales Division, & Sales Department falls under this big division.

 

 

 

Director

Marketing & Sales

 

Assistant

 

Projects

 

DGM

Regional Dept

 

Chittagong

 

Khulna

 

DGM

Sales Dept.

 

Deputy Manager

Pre-Paid Sales

 

DGM

Marketing

 

Manager

Communication

 

 

 

 

 

Manager

Channel Sales

 

 

 

 

Deputy Manager Corp. sales

 

 

 

Manager

Product & Planning

 

 

The Sales Department of GP has been started their journey on the beginning of Grameen Phone. As its name suggests this department involves in the selling procedure of GP and thus enjoys the responsibility of direct interface with the customers. When the GP started their journey, there were only 12 sales representatives in that organization. Now the total number of sales personnel is close to about 1200.

 

responsibilities of sales department

  • Market survey and collecting the feedback
  • Participation in exhibition
  • Participation in opening of dealer’s outlet
  • Instant delivery
  • Introducing & selling new packages
  • Follow up with existing subscribers
  • Building up relations with subscribers

Distribution channel

The distribution channel consists of the Info Centers, Dealers and the Corporate Sales force.

Info Center:

Info center provides spot solutions. Here subscribers can get subscription. 8 trained and friendly people are serving at Info Center from 8am-6pm. There are also 2 Sales & Logistics Officer who is responsible for providing SIM (Subscribers Identification Module) cards and handsets to the subscribers and distribution of marketing items.

Dealers:

4 persons are responsible in dealing with Dealers at Dhaka and Chittagong each. There are 3 Dealers at present -Flora, Grameen Telecom and Butterfly.

 

Corporate Sales Force:

15 officers are ready to serve any corporate in Dhaka and 10 employees in Chittagong.

Recruitment is an important event for any department in any organization. Same is true for the sales department of Grameen Phone. Because sales persons come in direct contact with the customers and they are the ones to leave a direct impression of the organization in the customers’ mind. If a proper person is not recruited, this can in turn, substantially increase the hiring and training cost of the organization. The performance and potential of GP’s sales team has a direct correlation with the quality of recruitment. Recruitment is to find potential job applicants, inform them about the company and getting them to apply. The entire sales activities ultimately depend on a successful recruitment approach.

 

grameen phone recruitment process:

GP has a standard recruitment procedure for all the departments. However, that does not mean that the recruitment process is inflexible. It can vary whenever deemed necessary by the departments’ requirements. The same is true for sales recruitment as well. Vacancies may arise in sales department because of organizational growth, separation, resignation, etc. The HR Department is responsible for handling the recruitment process with an involvement of the sales department. The company follows the Equal Employment Opportunity Act by not being prejudiced against men, women, minorities, etc. GP has a recruitment policy, which is fair and consistent, and conforms to legal regulations and best agreed practice. It claims to be non-discriminatory on the grounds of sex, age, race, religion or disability. The HR department has the main responsibility for recruitment. It follows the following procedure for recruitment.

 

 

The interview

Grameenphone Recruitment Process

 

Identifying the need to recruit

 

Recruitment budget

 

Advertisements

 

Initial screening

 

The written test

 

Medical examination

 

Appointment and orientation