Bangladesh's Corporate World

The hectic surrounding of cattle hut is the biggest headache of people right before the Eid-ul-Adha which is coming to an end this year in Bangladesh for the establishment of online shopping.  Facebook pages and websites are recently covered up by photos of goats and cows, many of which are even offering free home delivery. The pictures contain caption of full details of individual animal. Akhoni.com is an online shopping site which is motivating buyers to shop right from their homes. They are announcing their cattle to be absolutely healthy and local on their official facebook page. They are also delivering them to anywhere in Dhaka absolutely free within 24 hrs! On the other hand, another popular online shopping site, Bikroy.com has also been sharing similar advertisements among people. They enlisted such ads under the “Pets and Animals” category.  Whereas the oldest shopping site, Ekhanei.com, enlisted such posts under “Farm Animal” category and contains ads of both loca...

Banking sector is currently one of the most promising growth sectors in Bangladesh. For quite some time, the banks have been participating as a noteworthy contributor in the economic escalation of Bangladesh as we know it through sustainable savings and strategic investments. Both state-run banks and private banks are contributing in the process. However, speculating the huge success of private sector compared to that of public banks or state owned banks and the loss that it is causing to majority tax payers, many experts opined that government should privatize the state owned banks and save the sinking boat of the tax-paying citizens. In the vast never-ending depth of corruption, the state-banks are merely hanging in the balance. Like every other government organization; the public banks are constantly being affected by the political exploitation, lack of transparency, negligence and inefficient security system. With bad debts expanding their roots there seems no sign of recovery o...

One of the biggest and famous chain supermarkets of Bangladesh, Meena Bazar is up to establish its online purchase of groceries as big as its fame with the rising trend of online shopping in the state. With the widely observed issue of urban people saving their time in every possible way, the idea of home delivery service has popped up where anyone can set order for their goods at www.meenabazar.com.bd and have them in their hands within 2-3 hours. It is quite a good relief for people living a frenzied lifestyle in this overly crowded and traffic packed city. Meena Bazar has been praised by those who took the home service for being very swift and punctual in delivery. For purchases over BDT 3,500, the service is absolutely free and only a fee of tk 100 for purchases below this amount. Payment can be done both during ordering online or while you receive them. This service prevails in Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna and in 3 more cities where Gemcon Food & Agricultural Products Ltd ope...

Due to the presence of biased obligation benefits, there is a chance that Bangladesh might find difficulties to compete with Africa nations to export garments to the U.S. Export of various garments to the US produced in African nations is increasing gradually with the zero-duty benefit under AGOA. This has been increased by 9.66% and reached $926.8 million in 2013, as stated by the US Department of commerce. Bangladesh is considered to be the most important country to export attires worth $5 billion per year to US by the payment of 15.61% duty. Garments exporters here had to pay worth $828 million as a duty to the customs of US in 2013 and a total of $3.41 billion in the past five years. Compared to the first 5 months export business of 2013, garment export to US by Bangladesh has decreased by 1.12% to$2.18 billion in this year. It is assumed that our competition will get tougher if African nations proceed this way to export to the US. The unfair duty system and expensive production c...

When we think about good and big companies, we tend to think anything other than our national companies. However the truth is very contradictory to our assumptions. Many of Bangladeshi companies including Beximco Group, ACI, Concord Group, Navana Group, Pran Group have created big names for themselves in the past.   We sometimes forget their contributions for the nation. Many Bangladeshi companies are contributing in many business sectors such as poultry, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, aviation, automobiles, real-estate, clothing, media, textiles, garments etc. Companies like Beximco Group and Concord Group not only opened whole new sectors as pioneers for the country but also they opened up new job opportunity and research facilities. These places required more quantity of workers; that generally lead to more job specific courses in universities, resulting in general raise in literacy and also technicians of the country. Bashundhara Group alone has a worker amount of ...

Being a third world country, Bangladesh possessed an under developed banking sector based on client care and services for a long phase. Initially, most of the banks were government owned. Eventually, with the brewing rate of industrial growth and denationalization private investments began to flow in this sector. During the mid and late 1980s there was a surge in commercial bank establishment which were owned by a board of shareholders. Private sector started to grow. As number of rural banks multiplied in that 1980 decade and more and more commercial banks were joining the market, Bangladesh’s banking sector officially turned into an industry. Since then it has gone through some quite significant challenges. With one central bank and four state owned bank and eight Islamic banks and thirty one private commercial bank there were approximately forty four banks in Bangladesh in the 1990s. There were also nine foreign commercial banks and five specialized bank along with one land develop...

The DTH is here. Bangladeshi viewers can enjoy satellite television programmes through advanced ‘Direct to Home’ (DTH) technology very soon. Beximco Group, a leading Bangladeshi corporate company, announced that it will bring the service in Bangladesh with a joint venture with Russian GS Group. It has already set up a sister company - Beximco Communications Limited, to offer this cutting-edge technology. The DTH technology allows a broadcasting company to directly beam the satellite signal to a TV set through a receiver, installed in the subscriber’s home. For DTH connection, the broadcasting company provides a set that includes a dish and a receiving set. No cable connection is required. Beximco Group plans to launch the DTH platform at the end of 2014. It aims to reach 300,000 subscribers by the end of 2015. Vice Chairman of Beximco Group, Salman F Rahman, recently said in a press conference, “At present, Bangladesh does not have any legal DTH operator. The viewers can only choose b...

Open market policies are required for attracting more investment. The case in no different for Bangladesh. The World Trade Organization (WTO) initiative on Aid for Trade operates with OECD support and is working to ensure that developing countries are able to realize the benefits of market openness by building their capacity to trade. Illuminating the economic arena of Bangladesh, the national trade forum is trying to recover the recent loss and is progressing at an impressive rate. Considering the current flow in business, the central bank, Bangladesh Bank is initiating creation of new policies. Centering round this action, a variety of discussions has originated. Among them, one of the most mentioned motion is “Can open market policy assist in expanding the sphere of investment”. Being an interesting theme of discussion, this promises an analysis of the future in the business sector. While most agree that the open market policies can boost the local and foreign investment, others cl...

Physical strength is important for people in the corporate world but mental strength is far more important. Physical weakness can be overcome by medication and rest but it is nearly impossible for mentally weak people to get back on their feet after a failure in the corporate world or any other field for that matter. That is why it is extremely important for entrepreneurs and professionals, especially in a developing country like Bangladesh to keep them psychologically strong. Here are 10 characteristics of a mentally strong person: 1. Never feel sorry for themselves: Failure is a part of life and mentally strong people know it very well. So they do not waste time feeling sorry for themselves. They give the whole incident one look to figure out what they did wrong and then they move past it. Mentally strong people are well aware of the fact that life is unfair and therefore they do not ponder over petty issues. 2. They take charge: Another sign of mental strength is stron...

If you are doing some sort of business or work for collection department of a corporate firm, you should know the ways to collect your money, specially from the slow paying consumers! It is true that collecting money is not always pleasant. Very important it is to ensure money flowing so that you can stay in the business. Collecting money can sometimes also be tricky. Here are some tips…. 1.    At the very beginning of signing any contract, you should make aware the other party of your rules, procedures and regulations about collection money. You should be professional about handling your customers so that they can understand that you are very strict to the rules of collecting money. You should clearly inform them about the due time for paying. You can also review previous profile or background related to their payment. 2.    You can give them instant discount on cash payment. However you should inform customers about your discount plan while signing the c...

It is essential for any business firms including Bangladeshi companies to be able to send their products to respective destination quickly and safely. For this purpose, many logistics companies have affiliation with air cargo transportation firms to get the best deals to transports goods from one place to another. Some of the biggest advantages of air cargo include stock piling and distribution and efficiency of daily transport operation. In the modern world, transportation via air is considered as the fastest and safest which will gives the guarantee that products will find their destinations within the deadline. Another advantage of airfreight is related to finance and marketing. Air cargo companies have the best knowledge regarding the taxes associated with importing a particular product in a particular country. They also have all the information on the routes available to send products to a particular destination. Airfreight saves a lot of money in terms of weight, labor, packagin...

Private corporate groups of Bangladesh received less foreign loans in 2013 compared to the year before. The volume of foreign loans declined due to political unrest and frequent workers’ protest throughout the year. It is an indication that foreign loans providers have lost a share of interest in giving loans to Bangladeshi corporate groups due to the lack of investment friendly environment in the country. To add to the farce, Import orders on capital machinery came to almost a halt.  The Board of Investment expected at the start of 2013 that the flow would increase. In reality, it did not. Board of Investment approved foreign credit worth $1.19 billion in 2013 compared to $1.50 billion in 2012. Fear factor is that it might continue the falling trend in 2014 as most international loans providing organizations adopted a wait and see policy. Volatile political environment is a serious no-go factor for any foreign loan providers. The second in line in the no-go list is workers’ unre...