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Term paper on “SWOT Analysis -Grameen Phone”

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Table of contents

SL No Topic

01 Front Page
02 Transmittal Letter
03 Table of Content
04 Acknowledgement
05 Executive summary
06 Introduction
07 Objectives of the study
08 Sources of Data Limitations
09 Methodologies
10 Limitations
11 Company Profile
12 Products & Services of the company
13 Others
14 Overall view of the company
15 Analysis of the company
16 Profit
17 Analysis of SWOT
18 Analysis “S” of the company
19 Analysis “W” of the company
20 Analysis “O” of the company
21 Analysis “T” of the company
22 Finding
23 Suggestions & Recommendations
24 Conclusion
25 References
26 ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE (TOTAL)

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(5) Executive Summery

Grameen Phone is one of the best Companies of the Bangladesh. It took the name
Grameen Phone from Telenor Company. From then on, it has been dominating the
networking service of our country by satisfying customer needs.
GP provides the best service to their people and they are aware about their quality. The
customers are very loyal to the hospital. Because it is offering quality service with care.
They usually like the service for its environment, availability, promotion and quality.
This report is done as a part of our study and it helped us to understand the real life
scenario of communication. This report also facilitated the understanding of the academic
theories associated with the course of BBA.
The purpose of this report is to identify the problems, services and prospects of private
Call center and also the strengths and opportunities of Call center in the market which
will help GP to retain the better position and to increase its profit. At the same time
identify the problem faced and to find out a possible solution for the problems.
To know the market response following criteria were taken as the key point of
investigation and recommendation.

 Competitor’s activities and market strategies.

 Developing some strategies to cope up with the present situation.
 Customer care services and quality.

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(06) INTRODUCTION
Today, bromides and panaceas for solving people problems are being replaced by a total,
a professional approach to human resource management. HRM focus on people in
organizational settings. It is concerned with the employees of organizations-the clerks,
technicians, supervisors, managers and executives. Large, medium and small
organizations understand clearly that to grow, prosper, and remain healthy, they must
optimize the return on investment of all resources-financial and human.

When an organization is concerned about people, its total philosophy, culture, and tone
will reflect this belief. Human resources management is used to describe the function that
is concerned with people-the employees. HRM is the function performed in organizations
that facilitates the most effective use of employees to achieve organizational and
individual goals. Terms such as personnel, HRM, industrial relations, & employee
development are used by different individuals to describe the unit, department, or group
concerned about people. The term HRM is now widely used, though many people still
refer to a personnel department. It is a term that reflects the increased concerned both
society and organizations have for people. Today, employees-the HR demand more of
their jobs and respond favorably to management activities that give them greater control
of their lives.
Our visited company is “Grameen phone Ltd, Bangladesh” which is the largest mobile
operator in Bangladesh and offers special packages and agreements to the largest
companies and organizations in the country. We have analyzed the managerial skills of
human resource department and try to point out their lacks and suggest some new ideas.

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(7) OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

In this report I have tried to look into the two major activities of HR e.g. Recruitment &
Selection & Training & Development of the Sales Department under the Marketing &
Sales Division of Grameen Phone. I will also show how these activities support the
organization’s overall strategy, and how it is linked to other sales activities within the
organization.
(8) SOURCE OF DATA
Grameen Phone Customer Care

(9) METHODOLOGY

The study is basically a combination of primary & secondary data. I have interviewed
associated personnel of the Sales department & it was not very difficult for me, because I
worked in this department before for six months as a part-time employee in the year of
2004. As the secondary source, information was also taken from books and other
vouchers and as well as from World Wide Web.
(10) LIMITATIONS
The major limitation factor for this report was primarily the reluctance and strict
adherence to confidentiality maintenance attitude shown by the officials of Grameen
Phone. Though I knew & had access to much information, but there are still some
important things which I couldn’t get hold of & they don’t even prefer to disclose those
in front of general people.

(11) COMPANY PROFILE

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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.

(12) Products and Services of the company

Products

Pre-Paid

 Smile
 Djuice

Post Paid

 xplore

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Recharge

 Flexi-Load
 Scratch Card

Hardware

 Genuine Handsets
 GPRS and EDGE Modem
 Accessories ( Charger, Battery etc)

Services

Public Phone Activation

Value Added Services:

 International Roaming
 EDGE
 Voice Mail Services
 Text Messages

Bill Payment

You can pay your post paid bill of any amount at any Grameenphone Center

Grameen Phone launches new price plan

Grameenphone Ltd. announced a new range of price plans that is expected to bring
greater simplicity in the pre-paid category. The company has also revealed a new price
plan for its djuice product as well.

Details of the new price plan were announced at a press conference today, 14 March
2010, held at a local hotel.

The three prices packages – Shohoj, Aapon, Bondhu, along with djuice – have been
developed for pre-paid subscribers and offers interchangeability and easy migration.

“The price plan is not just a simplification of our tariff plan,” said Grameenphone CEO,
Oddvar Hesjedal, “it is a conscious effort to provide the best and most cost efficient
solution to our customers, based on their individual calling requirements.”

The Grameenphone CEO was present at the event with Mr. Arild Kaale, Chief Marketing
Officer, and Mr. Kazi Monirul Kabir, Chief Communication Officer, among other
officials.

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Explaining the dynamics of the new price plan, the Grameenphone CMO added that the
“launch of the price campaign represents the largest and most comprehensive tariff offer
for Grameenphone subscribers since its inception”.

The Shohoj package will cater to users who need to call all networks and offers callers a
low, flat rate of BDT 0.79 per minute to any operator number. Shohoj users will also have
the option to SMS any number at BDT 1 per SMS. The Aapon package has been designed
for callers who have a predominately Grameenphone calling base. Aapon offers a special
day time tariff and night time tariff (12pm-4pm and 12am-8am respectively) of 49 paisa
per minute. Aapon users can also call three FnF numbers (Grameenphone numbers only)
at 49 paisa per minute any time, and send SMS to the FnF numbers at BDT 0.50 paisa per
SMS. Aapon users will also have the option to SMS any number (GP and other operator)
at BDT 1 per SMS.

The Bondhu package is for users whose calls are usually limited to a tight FnF circle.
This package offers the highest number of FnFs and users can call seven FnF numbers at
49 paisa per minute any time. With Bondhu package, calls to all other numbers (Other
than the seven FnFs) are BDT 0.99 per minute. SMS rates are BDT 0.50 per SMS to GP
numbers and BDT 1 to other operator numbers.

Djuice retains its youth focus where there is big interest in community tariffs and special
night time tariffs. What’s new is that any Grameenphone pre-paid customer can opt for
djuice, or vice versa. Notably a regular migration fee of BDT 10 will be charged for
migration to or from all packages after 13 April 2010.

“Subscribers can migrate from package to package every 30 days to find the one that fits
them best. This ensures a way for pre-paid subscribers to opt for the best value solution in
stride with the changes in their needs”, said the Grameenphone CMO.

Services

 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

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(13) Others

Welcome To Grameenphone Internet

Internet is the most convenient medium of information, through which people can
enhance their knowledge, spread the same from one corner of the globe to whichever
place they wish with a single click.

Communication solutions developed by Grameenphone across all the media have always
focused one single thing – to help people stay close to their dear ones and to enlighten
their lives through free and flawless access to information. Grameenphone internet is
another step towards fulfilling this goal. With this step, Grameenphone promises to
enlighten the lives of 20 million people by providing easier and faster access to
information than ever before.
Grameenphone so far brought Internet to people in the following ways:

1) Desktop and Laptop browsing: by using the mobile as modem or by internet modem
2) Mobile screen browsing: WAP/internet browsing on the mobile
3) CIC: More than 550 CICs all over the country for those who do not have access to
PC or other facilities.

Grameenphone is looking to expand further into the digital world by expanding its
internet platforms and developing more internet related products, thus becoming the
biggest Internet Service Provider of Bangladesh.

(14) GRAMEEN PHONE - AN OVERVIEW

Grameen Phone Ltd. is a multinational mobile telecommunication company that came in
Bangladesh with big promises. It not only promised to cover the whole Bangladesh in six
years, the most important thing that it promised was to make available mobile phones to
our poor rural people that would change their life-style dramatically. Most of their
revenue comes from service charge rather than selling the handset.
Grameen Phone got license on November 1996. After launching officially in March 26,
1997; Grameen Phone has already marketed following products from the initiation of
business.

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(15) ANALYSIS OF THE COMPANY

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

November 5, 2006

After almost 10 years of operation, Grameenphone has over 10 million subscribers

Grameenphone is now the leading telecommunications service provider in the country

with more than 23 million subscribers as of December 2009.
Presently, there are about 50 million telephone users in the country, of which, a little over
one million are fixed-phone users and the rest mobile phone subscribers.
Starting its operations on March 26, 1997, the Independence Day of Bangladesh,
Grameenphone has come a long way. It is a joint venture enterprise between Telenor
(55.8%), the largest telecommunications service provider in Norway with mobile phone
operations in 12 other countries, and Grameen Telecom Corporation (34.2% ), a non-
profit sister concern of the internationally acclaimed micro-credit pioneer Grameen Bank.
The other 10% shares belong to 10% to general retail and institutional investors.
Over the years, Grameenphone has always been a pioneer in introducing new products
and services in the local market. GP was the first company to introduce GSM technology
in Bangladesh when it launched its services in March 1997.The technological know-how
and managerial expertise of Telenor has been instrumental in setting up such an
international standard mobile phone operation in Bangladesh. Being one of the pioneers
in developing the GSM service in Europe, Telenor has also helped to transfer this
knowledge to the local employees over the years.

The company has so far invested more than BDT 10,700 crore (USD 1.6 billion) to build
the network infrastructure since its inception in 1997. It has invested over BDT 3,100
crore (USD 450 million) during the first three quarters of 2007 while BDT 2,100 crore
(USD 310 million) was invested in 2006 alone. Grameenphone is also one the largest
taxpayers in the country, having contributed nearly BDT 7000 crore in direct and indirect
taxes to the Government Exchequer over the years. Of this amount, over BDT 2000 crore
was paid in 2006 alone.

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Since its inception in March 1997, Grameenphone has built the largest cellular network in
the country with over 10,000 base stations in more than 5700 locations. Presently, nearly
98 percent of the country's population is within the coverage area of the Grameenphone
network.

Grameenphone was also the first operator to introduce the pre-paid service in September
1999. It established the first 24-hour Call Center, introduced value-added services such as
VMS, SMS, fax and data transmission services, international roaming service, WAP,
SMS-based push-pull services, EDGE, personal ring back tone and many other products
and services.

The entire Grameenphone network is also EDGE/GPRS enabled, allowing access to high-
speed Internet and data services from anywhere within the coverage area. There are
currently nearly 3 million EDGE/GPRS users in the Grameenphone network.

Grameenphone nearly doubled its subscriber base during the initial years while the
growth was much faster during the later years. It ended the inaugural year with 18,000
customers, 30,000 by the end of 1998, 60,000 in 1999, 193,000 in 2000, 471,000 in 2001,
775,000 in 2002, 1.16 million in 2003, 2.4 million in 2004, 5.5 million in 2005, 11.3
million in 2006, and it ended 2007 with 16.5 million customers.

From the very beginning, Grameenphone placed emphasis on providing good after-sales
services. In recent years, the focus has been to provide after-sales within a short distance
from where the customers live. There are now more than 600 GP Service Desks across
the country covering nearly all upazilas of 61 districts. In addition, there are 72
Grameenphone Centers in all the divisional cities and they remain open from 8am-7pm
every day including all holidays.
GP has generated direct and indirect employment for a large number of people over the
years. The company presently has more than 5,000 full and temporary employees.
Another 100,000 people are directly dependent on Grameenphone for their livelihood,
working for the Grameenphone dealers, retailers, scratch card outlets, suppliers, vendors,
contractors and others.

In addition, the Village Phone Program, also started in 1997, provides a good income-
earning opportunity to more than 210,000 mostly women Village Phone operators living
in rural areas. The Village Phone Program is a unique initiative to provide universal
access to telecommunications service in remote, rural areas. Administered by Grameen
Telecom Corporation, it enables rural people who normally cannot afford to own a
telephone to avail the service while providing the VP operators an opportunity to earn a
living.

The Village Phone initiative was given the "GSM in the Community" award at the global
GSM Congress held in Cannes, France in February 2000. Grameenphone was also
adjudged the Best Joint Venture Enterprise of the Year at the Bangladesh Business
Awards in 2002. Grameenphone was presented with the GSM Association's Global
Mobile Award for ‘Best use of Mobile for Social and Economic Development' at the

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3GSM World Congress held in Singapore, in October 2006, for its Community
Information Center (CIC) project, and for its HealthLine Service project at the 3GSM
World Congress held in Barcelona, Spain, in February 2007.

Grameenphone considers its employees to be one of its most important assets. GP has an
extensive employee benefit scheme in place including Gratuity, Provident Fund, Group
Insurance, Family Health Insurance, Transportation Facility, Day Care Centre, Children's
Education Support, Higher Education Support for employees, in-house medical support
and other initiatives.

(16) Profit

Grameenphone posts record high addition of 2.6 million new

subscriptions in Q2

Grameenphone Ltd. reported BDT 3,581 crore revenues for the first half of 2010 with
12% increase from the first half of 2009. Total revenue for the second quarter of 2010
was BDT 1,877 crores, up by 15% from the same period of 2009. The growth in revenue
was mainly in voice revenues due to subscription growth and revenues from sale of GP
branded handsets and data cards. Data revenues also contributed to the consistent revenue
growth, increased by 68% from the first half of 2009.

“We are delighted to share with our shareholders that GP has delivered a strong revenue
and subscription growth in the first half of 2010,” said Raihan Shamsi, Deputy CEO &
CFO, Grameenphone Ltd.” He added, “Superior service quality and innovative products
& services have given us a competitive edge over the market. He also noted “our rural
footprint is now even stronger through our new product ‘Baadhon’ bundled with low cost
handsets.”

The Company has added record high 2.6 million new subscriptions during the quarter.
This addition takes Grameenphone’s total subscription base to 26.5 million, serving 44%
of the mobile market.

Net profit after taxes for the first half of 2010 was BDT 483 crores with 13% margin
compared to BDT 478 crores with 15% margin of the first half of 2009. Despite the
revenue growth, the fall in margin was mainly due to heavy subsidy of BDT 327 crores
provided by Grameenphone for high subscription acquisition. This has also pushed the
EBITDA margins down to 49% for the first half of 2010 compared to 59% of same
period of 2009. Raihan Shamsi noted that “We see this dent in profitability by acquiring
more subsidized subscriptions as a short-term investment and are hopeful to see better
return through revenue generation on a long-term perspective.”

Raihan Shamsi also underscored that “SIM tax, which is limiting the growth of the
mobile industry as well as the progress of bridging the digital divide, has been
overlooked in the approved National Budget for 2010-11, creating a conflict between
industry growth and the dream of Digital Bangladesh”.

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Grameenphone contributed BDT 1,814 crores to the national exchequer in first half of
2010 and BDT 16,600 crores since inception. Despite having lower corporate tax rate,
Grameenphone has paid BDT 468 crores in corporate taxes during the first half of this
year, which was BDT 82 crores more compared to first half of last year.

Grameenphone, for the first time as a listed company, conducted its 13th Annual General
Meeting on 8 June 2010 amidst huge participation of the Shareholders and created a
benchmark by complying with all applicable regulations, even being the largest corporate
house in the country. The shareholders approved the financial statements and 60% cash
dividend for the year 2009 among other agenda.

(17) ANALYSIS OF SWOT

(18) Strengths (S):

 Good Owner Structure

 Availability of Backbone Network (Optical fibber)

 Financial Soundness

 Market Leader

 Brand Name / Grameen Image

 Skilled Human Resource

 Largest Geographical Coverage

 Good Human Resource and Infrastructure Installation all over the country through
Bangladesh Railway and Grameen Bank

Access to the widest rural distribution network through Grameen Bank

 High Ethical Standard

 Highest and advanced value added service provider.

(19) Weaknesses (W):

 Mixture of different cultures is used as an excuse not to solve problems
 Too much inside out thinking in the company

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 Different departments not working together

 Poor interconnection with BTTB
 Complicated price structure
 Billing System can’t handle sophisticated billing
 No long-term Distribution/Channel strategy

(20) Opportunities (O):

 Economic growth of Bangladesh
 New and better interconnection agreement
 Huge need for telecom services
 Increased intentional activities in Bangladesh
 Declining prices for handsets
 Future privatization of the fixed network
 New international gateway
 Demand for inter-city communication
 Growth in other operator will give more connection.

(21) Threats (T):

 More rigid government regulations
 More influence of competitors on the fixed network
 Change of government might lead to competitors having more clout
 Devaluation of Taka
 National catastrophes
 Sabotage of installation
 Non-co-operation of government and fixed PSTN (Public Service Telephone
Network)
 Risk of fire in GP’s Installations
 Price war
 Non-availability of funds

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 BTTB has limited capacity for interconnections

 New Tele-talk; a cheaper mobile phone service is launching which is government
owned.

Lastly I can say that there is threats and weaknesses are simple than the strengths and
opportunities.GrameenPhone must be able to achieve their goal.

Since 1996 Grameen Phone is driving its car on the high way of telecommunication
industry of Bangladesh and they have achieved the position of market just because of
their quality service, extensive marketing research, and well infrastructure and for an
exclusive management team; where the competitors are far behind them. Grameen Phone
has got the highest number of subscriber.

(22) FINDINGS

There is actually no organization in this world which is free from problems. GP is not
also free from problems: in GP we have found the following problems. Some are general
problems & some are specifically related with Compensation & Reward policy of HRM:
a) Their working environment is not good. There is not enough free space to
walk smoothly. There are not even enough chairs to seat. The arrangement
they made is not also good. More or less the environment of GP (HRD) is not
very good.
b) They don’t have any flexible benefits plan for their employees.
c) There is no slot for Part Time job in GP
d) GP does not have the profit sharing policy.
e) There is no regular meeting in GP with senior management.
f) The numbers of direct & indirect rewards are very few.
g) They don’t help their employees in tax cutting.
h) The number of female employee is very low & no female official is there in
the top management. It’s a sort of discrimination
i) The practice of job evaluation is still not there.
j) There is no system like Pay-Leave in GP

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These are the problems that we found in GP while we went there to take
interviews from the employees working there in GP.

(23) SUGGESTION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

However, as far as our project is concerned, we have identified the problems in GP up to

a certain level. Now at this stage we would like to give some suggestions to GP for a
better future:
1. They should make some improvement in the work environment. As we have seen
it is very much congested & not even friendly. They should bring some more
chairs & reception should be improved more.
2. From our point of view, flexible benefits plan is something very motivated to the
employees. It gives the employee some extra honor & opportunity to work more
perfectly. You may not know what his or her need is, but you can make the
opportunity available then we think it is very much helpful to them.
3. Part time job should be introduced. They should make some opportunities
available for the students. If they only thinks about profit or nothing beneficial to
the society than they will run out from the competition very soon. It’s a matter of
image.
4. Profit sharing with the employees is something another very motivating item. It
helps the employees to concentrate more. Well, if you give him or her share from
the profit than obviously it would be very much motivated.
5. The executive that we talked with is in very much support to introduce regular
meeting with senior officials. At the end of the day all the employees of the
company will join in a place and tell the experience & problems that he or she
faced. In this way the improvement in all areas can be possible.
6. The number of reward should be increased. It may sounds like that, if the
company increase the number of rewards then the costs will go up, but you may
never know how the profits are coming.

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7. In our country female don’t get jobs easily. We don’t know what the reason
behind that is. GP is not even different from it. So our suggestion to them is to
make a slot for the female employees, like out of 10 employees at least 3 should
be female. In this way they can come across the discrimination.
8. Any sort of evaluation is very important. It helps to know the weakness of some
particular thing, but we found no sorts of evaluation in GP. So they should
introduce this evaluation system as early as possible.
9. They should introduce something like counseling services for the benefit of the
employees.
10. GP should look after their employees & health care program can be one of them.
Till now they have not introduced it.
11. From many surveys it was found that team work is better them individual work in
many cases. So assignments should be done by team based.
12. Give more and more recognition to the employees, both inside and outside the
organization.
13. Incentives can be developed in the forms of profit sharing, team incentive pools,
and awards for achievement against defined objectives, gain sharing, cost savings,
or management discretion.
14. Model the proposed plan under various scenarios to identify impact at varying
success levels.
15. Develop a comprehensive employee communications plan with dates, materials,
etc.
16. Develop a management communications plan to parallel the employee
communication plan.
17. The things to be remember:

The first time an employee receives an award, they perceive the reward as
performance based and greatly appreciate it.
The second time an employee receives an award, the perception is a reminder
and reinforce of performance.

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The third time an employee receives an award; the perception can be that the
reward is an entitlement.

(24) CONCLUSION

In this report I have talked about GP’s recruiting & training process, what is required for
recruitment & training and so forth and also we have discussed about the training
technique of the sales force at the same time I have discussed about the drawbacks of
both recruiting and training process. I have also recommended for overcoming these
drawbacks. So the bottom line of the project paper is Grameen Phone is a well-known
and most popular mobile phone company in this country.
For any organization, recruiting and training, these two are very significant tasks.
Recruiting the right sales force for any company has a very significant impact for
Grameen phone. As it is the leading telecommunication organization in this country, it is
very important for the company to recruit the right sales force for its operation. If they
fail to recruit the most efficient sales force, it will be not possible for the company to
remain as the number one mobile industry in the competitive market. And to remain as
the number one mobile industry Grameen Phone need to train its sales force more
efficient and effective than ever before. And to do so, they will have to make the training
technique more effective, more motivational and more efficient.
Company Profile

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(25)Reference

 Website of Grammen Phone (http://www.grameenphone.com)

 www.Grameen- Daily news paper. “The Daily Janakantha.”13 August,2003.

(26) ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE (TOTAL)

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*******END******

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