OVERVIEW OF THE CASE:

The development of building digitalized Bangladesh has been fueled by BRACnet, the largest

ISP in the country, as it creates a well-organized and sustainable IT environment and social

infrastructure through reactive and innovative services with care, excellence and interactive

management process across the nation. Since 1996, when BRACnet started its journey, it never

looked behind because it has initiated a nationwide data network using Wimax, xDSL and fiber

optics of 3.5 GHz bandwidth by ensuring a clear and continuous broadband communication for

corporation, SMEs, government agencies, educational institutions and individuals including

urban and rural. To become financially sound and industrial expertise, BRACnet strategically

formed joint ventures with DEFTA and KDDI respectively. With the primary objective of

building IT sustainable Bangladesh, it is delivering high performance service by working as a

team and offering diversified range of services at a reasonable price to grasp all sort of customer.

In order to manage and utilize its internal resources effectively and efficiently, BRACnet is

currently providing high communication channels among departmental employees by recruiting

competent employees, ensuring collective collaboration, resource sharing and clarity among

them so that they can fully understand the organogram, corporate culture and flow of all

communication within organization which are required to provide perfect connectivity solution

throughout 64 districts of country. Now, despite of facing many problems, it is planning to

expand its service length in order to achieve remarkable growth rate.

ISSUES OF THE CASE:

Though Internet was introduced in Bangladesh almost three decades ago, but still young

entrepreneurs who are mostly young graduates are playing vital role in this industry. They have

high potentiality, some of them have foreign degree but lack of experience is slowing down the

pace of the growth. This is one of the problems of IT sector of Bangladesh according to the case.

Secondly, one of the major challenges that BRACnet is currently facing according to this case is

its effort to introduce e-governance in the government agencies. The organizational culture and

the government officials are resisting this transition which decelerates the process of alteration.

Besides, the lack of knowledge regarding internet among the government officials make it

difficult for BRACnet to operate smoothly. The government officials, for example, take

connectivity of internet services that provide lower speed than required. Then, they complain

about the ‘slow’ internet connection. Due to the lack of communication of such knowledge

between BRACnet and the government officials, all the government projects that BRACnet is

involved in are slowed down.

Although the infrastructure of ICT is developed and functional, there is lack in scope and

capacity that constrains from utilizing the infrastructure to its fullest potential. Again, although

the infrastructure is developed in the urban and industrialized locations, the rural and

underdeveloped areas lack any access to fundamental information technology. Besides, lack of

standardization and scarcity of proper commercial premises have led the stakeholders of

BRACnet to an alarming position. In addition to this, the high turnover of employees within the

industry, due to lack of sufficient knowledge regarding ICT is rather distressing.

To make matters worse, the government has put price ceilings to the service prices provided by

all ISPs. This steepens the profit margin for BRACnet and all other internet service providers

(ISPs). In addition, the industry has become saturated with numerous competitors. BRACnet is

struggling in developing new customer base. BRACnet has numerous corporate clienteles and

that is their target market. Once all the corporations are covered by all the ISPs, it is difficult to

develop new customer base with the existing infrastructure. BRACnet is a slow entrant in this

new market of domestic clients and hence other smaller ISPs have secured bigger market share

in this new target market.

The existing clientele base of BRACnet is geographically distant from this new target market

which makes it an expensive expansion decision on BRACnet’s part. Currently, the demand

exceeds the supply of ISPs in the country and in order to capitalize on this growing demand,

BRACnet diversify its customer base, provide competitive packages (e.g. “night doubler”) and

provide satisfactory customer service.

Another issue according to the case is, they have four offices, one in Chittagong, one in Dhaka,

One in Sylhet and one in DEPZ. But surprisingly, they don’t have any office in Southern and

Northern part of Bangladesh i.e. in Rajhshahi or Khulna District. So this is making their

operation complicated as they have to operate their activities of those locations from Dhaka head

office.

CONCLUSION:

In this case we have found several issues. All those cannot be solved at once. First of all there is

some problem in this sector. To remove the experience problem, arranging seminars, training

sessions, workshops on a regular basis could be a good option for Bangladesh government so

that young entrepreneurs can learn from the experienced people in this sector. This will enhance

their effectively and decrease the effect of lack of experience.

The solutions of the issues of BRACnet would be,

1. Since BRACnet is facing problems due to lack of knowledge regarding internet and lack

of effort towards introducing e-governance, all the people associating BRACnet

including government officials, corporate and home users needs to be educated. So

BRACnet can arrange or influence the government to arrange ICT fares (Digital fares

like BASIS’s Digital World Bangladesh) which can be a good initiative to make the

people aware about ICT and make them educated. The government officials need to be

educated regarding internet services and they must understand that transition to e-

governance will only make their job easier. Here also, arranging seminars, training

sessions, workshops will help a lot.

2. BRACnet should focus more on customer demand, offer new services, provide

competitive packages and provide satisfactory customer service to compete in the high

competitive market and ensure higher market share. Moreover, they should think about

cost minimization to overlap the government restrictions. Providing better service at a

lower price will automatically increase their market share.

3. Last but not the least; proper use of infrastructure of ICT needs to be ensured. To get the

full capacity, BRACnet should utilize its full infrastructure support. Rural and

underdeveloped areas should be handled with proper care. A strong HR department

should come into action to minimize the turnover issue, internal problems and

shareholders problems. To make their operation smoother, they can open up some

regional offices and this will increase their efficiency. This will also solve the problem of

their entering into new target market which is geographically distant from their head

office and operations. Again, they need to take decisions quickly to beat the competitors.

So, if BRACnet can successfully overcome the issues, they will easily be the market leader and

maximize its profit.