ABOUT TRANSCOM LIMITED

Originated with tea plantations in 1885, TRANSCOM today is one of the leading and fastest
growing diversified business houses in the country employing over 10000 people. Not many
industrial groups in Bangladesh can claim a history of continuous business pursuits stretching
back over 125 years! Initially tea and later jute formed the backbone of the family business.
Although these are still part of the activities and contributing marginally to the overall group
turnover. Presently those early industrial ventures have moved over to businesses involving
high-tech manufacturing, international trading and distribution, forming strong ties with a host
of blue chip multinational companies. In recent years, TRANSCOM has emerged as the largest
media house in Bangladesh.
History

Latifur Rahman established Transcom Group in 1973 after W Rahman Jute Mills, the major earning
source for the Rahman family, was nationalised in 1972. This diversified business house now has
interests in many segments in the industrial and service sectors in Bangladesh. Transcom is the local
agent or comprador of international brands like Pizza Hut, KFC, Pepsi and Philips, etc. Leading Danish
insulin manufacturer Novo Nordisk has also chosen Transcoms pharmaceutical company Eskayef as the
sole manufacturer of its products after China and India in Asia.
Some of the foreign brands managed by the group include: Pepsi, 7Up, Mirinda, Mountain Dew, Diet
Pepsi, 7up Light, Aquafina, Sting, Evervess, KFC, Pizza Hut, Philips N.V, Whirlpool, Maybelline, Garnier,
Heinz, Frito-Lay, Lindt, Servier, Novo Nordisk.
Transcom Group also owns two major newspapers, The Daily Prothom Alo and The Daily Star, and a FM
radio channel, ABC Radio, to advocate in favour of their business policy.
Some other ventures by Transcom Group include Pharmaceuticals (Eskayef Pharmaceuticals Ltd.),
Distribution (Transcom Distribution Company ltd), etc.
The chairman and CEO of Transcom Group, Latifur Rahman, won the 2012 Oslo Business for Peace
Award for maintaining commitment to social responsibility and ethical values. Rahman is also the vice
president of ICC Bangladesh, and chairman of Nestlé Bangladesh, Holcim Bangladesh and National
Housing Finance and Investments.He is a director of Linde Bangladesh (formerly British Oxygen) and
member of the governing board of BRAC, the world's largest non-governmental organization.

List of Companies

 Transcom Ltd.
 Eskayef Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
 Transcom Beverages Limited (PepsiCo and its subsidiaries)
 Transcom Consumer Products Limited (PepsiCo, Mars, Conagra Brands, Kraft Heinz and its
subsidiaries)
 Transcom Distribution Company Ltd. (L'Oréal)

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  Transcom Electronics Limited (Samsung, Hitachi, Siemens etc.)
 Bangladesh Lamps Limited (BLL); is one of the oldest organization of the Transcom Group.
Bangladesh Lamps Limited was established in Bangladesh in the year of 1962 at the time of East
Pakistan, as East Pakistan Lamps Limited. They started the production of Philips GLS (General
Lighting Services). BLL has other two production unit those are FTL (Fluorescent Tubular
Lighting) and CFL(Compact Fluorescent Lighting). CFL Production unit started in 2008 and FTL
started its production at 2011. The product of both CFL and FTL production units are branded as
Transtec CFL and Transtec Tube Light. Almost 600 employees are working in BLL .It is enlisted as
Engineering Firm in the Dhaka stock exchange.
 Bangladesh Electrical Industries Ltd.
 Transcom Foods Limited (Yum! Brands, A&W Restaurants)
 Mediastar Ltd.
o Prothom Alo (Leading newspaper in Bangladesh)
o ABC Radio (Leading private radio station in Bangladesh)
 Transcraft Limited
 Tea Holdings Ltd.
 Trinco Ltd.
 Transfin Ltd.
 Monipur Tea Co. Ltd.
 Marina Tea Co. Ltd.
 M.Rahman Tea Co. Ltd.
Associates
 Mediaworld Ltd.
o The Daily Star
 Reliance Insurance Ltd.

Transcom Group is one of the biggest renowned company in Bangladesh which is goal/result oriented
brand and also as well market driven. Transcom practices many market driven practices by which
Transcom became so successful; Nevertheless Transcom’s market driven strategies which they use for
making them as a brand and the theoretical market driven strategies are given below--------

Market driven Strategy: The underlying logic of market-driven strategy is that the market & the
customers that form the market should be the starting point in business strategy. Market driven strategy
provides a company wide perspective, which mandates more effective integration of activities &
processes that impact customer value.
The characteristics of market driven strategy is projected here:
 Becoming Market-Oriented
 Determining Distinctive Capabilities
 Matching Customer value Requirements to Capabilities
 Achieving Superior Performance

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Becoming Market-Oriented: A business is market-oriented when its culture is systematically & entirely
committed to the continuous creation of superior customer value.
A market-oriented organization performs the following functions:
 Continuously gathers information about customers, competitors, & markets;
 Views information from a total business perspective;
 Decides how to deliver superior customer value; &
 Takes actions to provide value to customers
Market orientation requires –
 Customer focus,
 Competitor intelligence, &
 Cross-functional coordination

Determining Distinctive Capabilities: Identifying distinctive capabilities of an organization is a vital part

of market-driven strategy.
“Capabilities are complex bundles of skills & accumulated knowledge, exercised through organizational
processes, that enables firms to coordinate activities & make use of their assets.”

Classifying capabilities:

The outside-in process connects the organization to the external environment, providing market
feedback & forging external relationships. The inside-out processes are activities necessary to satisfy
customer value requirements. The outside-in processes play a key role in offering direction for the
spanning & inside-out capabilities. Market sensing, customer linking, channel bonding, & technology
monitoring provide vital information for new product opportunities, service requirements, & competitive
threats.

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Creating & Providing Value for customers: Customer value can be defined as the difference between
what the customer gets from owning & using a product & the costs of obtaining the product. The
organization’s distinctive capabilities are used to deliver value by differentiating the product offer,
offering lower prices relative to competing brands, or a combination of lower cost & differentiation.

Achieving Superior Performance: The supporting logic for becoming market oriented, leveraging
distinctive capabilities, & finding good match between customer’s value requirements is that they are
expected to lead to superior customer value & organizational performance. Market-driven organizations
display higher performance than their counterparts that are not market-driven.

Corporate Strategy: Corporate strategy consists of deciding the scope & purpose of the business,
its objectives, & the initiatives & resources necessary to achieve the objectives. Corporate strategies are
concerned with how the company can achieve its growth objectives in current or new business areas.

Components of corporate strategy:

1. Corporate vision: Vision is an almost “impossible dream” that provides a direction for the company.
Management’s vision defines what the corporation is & what it does & provides important guidelines
for managing & improving the corporation.
2. Objectives: Objectives need to be set so that the performance of the enterprise can be gauged.
Corporate objectives may be established in the following areas: marketing, innovation, resources,
productivity, social responsibility, & finance.
3. Business composition: Defining the composition of business provides direction for both corporate &
marketing strategy design. A business segment, group, or division is often too large in terms of
product & market composition to use in strategic analysis & planning, so it is divided into more
specific strategic units. A popular name for these units is the Strategic Business Unit (SBU). Strategic
Business Unit is a unit of the company that has a separate mission & objectives & that can be
planned independently from other company businesses. It can be a company division, a product line
within the division, or sometimes a single product or brand
4. Resources: It is important to place a company’s strategic focus on its resources- assets, skills, &
capabilities. These resources may offer the organization the potential to compete in different
markets, provide significant value to end-user customers, & create barriers to competitor
duplication.
5. Structure, Systems, & processes: Structure determines the composition of the corporation. Systems
are the formal policies & procedures that enable the organization to operate. Processes consider the
informal aspects of the organization’s activities.
The Marketing Strategy Process: There are four stages of marketing strategy process. They are:

1. Markets, Segments, & Customer Value

2. Designing market driven strategy

3. Market-driven program development

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 4. Implementing & managing market-driven strategies

1. Markets, Segments, and Customer value: Markets, segments, & customer value consider-

 Market & competitor analysis: Markets need to be defined so that buyers and competition can
be analyzed. Identifying the product-market, evaluation of competitor’s strategies, strengths, limitations,
and plans is a key aspect of this analysis.

 Strategic market segmentation: Market segmentation offers an opportunity for an organization

to focus its business capabilities on the requirements of one or more groups of buyers. The objective of
market segmentation is to examine the differences in needs and wants to identify the segments
(subgroups) in the product-market of interest.

 Strategic customer relationship management: A strategic perspective on Customer Relationship

Management (CRM) emphasizes delivering superior customer value by personalizing the interaction
between the customers and the company and achieving the coordination of complex organizational
capabilities around the customer.

 Capabilities for continuous learning about markets: Understanding markets and competition
has become a necessity in modern business. Sensing what is happening and is likely to occur in the
future is complicated by competitive threats that may exist beyond the traditional industry boundaries.
Manager and professionals in market-driven firms are able to sense what is happening in their markets,
develop business and marketing strategies to seize the opportunities and counter the threats, and
anticipate what the market will be like in the future.

2. Designing Market-driven Strategy: Designing market-driven strategies examines-

 Market targeting & strategic positioning: The purpose of market targeting strategy is to select
the people (or organizations) that the management wishes to serve in the product-market. The objective
is to find the best match between the value requirements of each segment and the organization’s
distinctive capabilities.

Positioning strategy is the combination of the product, value chain, price, and promotional strategies a
firm uses to position itself against its key competitors in meeting the needs and wants of the market
target.

 Strategic relationships: Marketing relationship partner may include end-user customers,

marketing channel members, suppliers, competitor alliances, and internal teams. The driving force
underlying these relationships is that a company may enhance its ability to satisfy customers and cope
with a rapidly changing business environment through collaboration of the parties involved.
 Innovation & new product strategy: New products are needed to replace the old products when
sales and profit growth decline. New product decisions include finding and evaluation ideas, selecting

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 the most promising for development, designing the products, developing marketing programs, market
testing the products, and introducing them to the market.

3. Market-Driven Program Development: Market-driven program development consists of-

 Strategic brand management: Strategic brand management consists of building brand value and
managing the organization’s system of brands for overall performance.

 Value-chain ( Distribution channel) strategy: decision that need to be made include the type of
channel organization to use, the extent of channel management, and the intensity of distribution
appropriate for the product or service.

 Pricing strategy: Price strategy involves choosing the role of price in the positioning strategy,
including the desired positioning of the product or brand as well as the margins necessary to satisfy and
motivate distribution channel participants.

 Promotion strategy: advertising, sales promotion, the sales force, direct marketing, and public
relation help the organization to communicate with the customers, value-chain partners, the public and
other target audiences. Promotion informs, reminds, and persuades buyers and others who influence
the purchasing process.

4. Implementing & Managing Market-Driven Strategy: Implementing & managing market-driven strategies
considers the following things:

 Designing market-driven organization: An effective organization design matches people and

work responsibilities in a way that is best for accomplishing the firm’s marketing strategy. Organizational
structures and processes must be matched to the business and marketing strategies that are developed
and implemented.

 Marketing strategy implementation & control: Marketing strategy implementation and control
consists of: (1) Preparing the marketing plan and budget; (2) implementing the plan and (3) Using the
plan in managing and controlling the strategy on an ongoing basis.

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