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Table of ContentsForeword....................................1A fleeting look at banglalink:..............1Marketing-Mass Market Development-Prepaid. .2Banglalink Tigers and Tigress:.............3

My job as an Intern.........................3Internship Learning and Experience:.........5Communication with Supervisors and Coworkers 6Difficulties faced and dealt................7Expectation face to face with Experience....8Banglalink’s influence in my career plan. . .10Going back in the Tiger’s Den..............11Wrapping up................................12

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ForewordBachelors of Business Administration degree is a 4 year

program. It is mainly theory based degree with a 3 month long

internship requirement for degree completion. This was my 12th

semester registered under North South University. And this

semester I was supposed to do my internship. As I had a major in

marketing and a minor in Management Information System (MIS), I

applied for a marketing intern at different organizations. The

organization that I finally got in to was Banglalink Digital

Communication Ltd. I was offered a post as an intern for three

months in the Marketing department under the ‘Mass Market

Development-Prepaid’ team.

A fleeting look at banglalinkBanglalink digital communications limited is fully owned by

telecom ventures ltd. (previously orascom telecom ventures

limited) of Malta, which is a fully owned subsidiary of global

telecom holding s.a.e. (formerly known as orascom telecom holding

s.a.e.) (www.orascomtelecom.com). Following business combination

in April 2011 between Vimpelcom ltd and Wind telecom s.p.a,

Vimpelcom owns 51.92% shares of global telecom holding s.a.e.

(formerly known as orascom telecom holding s.a.e.). Vimpelcom

(www.vimpelcom.com) is one of the world’s largest, 6th to be

exact, integrated telecommunications services operators providing

voice and data services through a range of traditional and

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broadband mobile and fixed technologies in Russia, Italy,

Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Georgia,

Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Algeria, Pakistan, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Central

African Republic, Canada and Bangladesh. Vimpelcom is

headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and listed as an ad

on the New York stock exchange under the symbol “vip”.

Since banglalink’s launch in February 2005, its impact was

felt immediately. Overnight, mobile telephony became an

affordable option for customers across a wide range of market

segments. Banglalink’s initial success was based on a simple

mission,

“Bringing mobile telephony to the masses”

This was the cornerstone of its strategy. Banglalink changed

the mobile phone status from luxury to a necessity, brought

mobile telephone to the general people of Bangladesh and made a

place in their hearts. The mobile phone has become the symbol for

positive change in Bangladesh. The brand slogan of Banglalink is,

“Start something new”

It is in essence derived from banglalink’s promise of

empowering people with affordable communication solutions so that

they can take new initiatives in life. The company believes that,

it is through such new initiatives that positive change will

occur for the overall betterment of the nation.

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Banglalink attained 1 million subscribers by December 2005

and 3 million subscribers in October 2006. In less than two years

which is by December 2007, banglalink overtook Aktel (presently

known as Robi) to become the second largest operator in

Bangladesh with more than 7.1 million customers. Banglalink

currently has 29.37 million subscribers as of March’2014

(http://www.btrc.gov.bd/content/mobile-phone-subscribers-

bangladesh-march-2014), having a market share of 25.5%.

Banglalink’s growth over the preceding years have been

fuelled with innovative products and services targeting different

market segments, aggressive improvement of network quality and

dedicated customer care, creating an extensive distribution

network across the country, and establishing a strong brand that

emotionally connected customers with banglalink. And one thing

that I personally believe is that banglalink being the customer

and employee oriented company is how it has gained its position

in the market.

Marketing-Mass Market Development-Prepaid Prepaid product & market development and campaign planning

Achieve subscriber acquisition, revenue growth, churn

prevention targets.

Campaign launching through coordinating with Technical, IT

and others.

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Regular market analysis and KPI movement tracking, campaign

after impact analysis.

Planning for IN feature requirement, coordinating with

technical for IN feature implementation.

Managing micro-segment based campaigns using CMS (campaign

management solution)

Identifying variety of micro-segments based on subscriber

behavior and plan targeted campaign for the micro-segments

to improve their performance.

Banglalink Tigers and Tigress:As I was spending my time as a prepaid intern at banglalink

tiger’s den, I get to meet people in and out of my departments.

As this department is called the ‘bread and butter’ of telecom,

this department has to deal with other departments as well.

Besides, the departments are attached together for better

communications. I, being an intern, was able to learn a lot of

things from the departments and the people. The people were very

much helpful to any inquiry I made to them. I had my sitting

changed for about twice. This also added to my learning.

Beside their help, as per my observation, each of them is

clear about their jobs and working responsibilities. They just

don’t do it as a job. As far I have seen them work they enjoy

doing it. They take their work seriously. But one thing that

struck me is the late hours they have to work most of the times.

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My observation says that the softwares that are used as well as

the work type are what making them work late hours. Beside that

the environment is very flexible and independent. Everyone has a

target as well as the liberty to complete it their ways. Every

people have their designated workplace. In short, the people are

very much happy to work here. I would definitely like to be one

of them.

My job as an InternI was told that I was the first intern in the mass market

development-prepaid team in four years. At first they were

confused as to what job to provide me. Later on, I was given some

specific jobs to fulfill. My job responsibilities increased

gradually as I was showing progress. The responsibilities that I

had were,

Data Mining from SAP business objects:

o Recharge Data of Subscriber:

I was given a specific amount of recharge to mine

data of the subscribers having different bases and

offers.

o Call usage Data:

Similar to recharge data, there was a call usage

mart to mine data from. I used to mine data about

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the usage in the similar manner using bases and

offers.

o Daily Report on Bundle

There were three types of bundle package for which

I had to mine data for and I had to make a graph

and chart and mail the report to my superior.

Check Newspaper:

I had to check newspaper for the promotions of

competitor telecom brands new promotional offers and

report them to my team. Including that I had to check

the local telecom brands’ websites for new promotions

as well.

Conducting UAT:

I was given the responsibility to carry out almost all

the ‘User Acceptance Test’ (UAT). Actually this is a

testing for the upcoming offers of banglalink as a

promotion or counter promotion to the consumer and

before going it live and after going it live, it has to

be tested whether it is according the concept or not.

Ex. Bonus on recharge or bundle packs etc.

Idea Generation:

I had to check the foreign telecom brands’ websites for

ideas to be put in prepaid as this was a market

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development unit. I had summed up a number of ideas and

submitted it to the team.

Other Assigned jobs:

o Tariff comparison

o Start up offer comparison

o Recharge bonus comparison

o Reactivation bonus comparison

o Network complaints compilation

o BTL SMS report etc.

Card Sort:

In my last few weeks I was given a task to sort out

business cards of different persons and organizations for

the head of marketing. This was a side responsibility.

Internship Learning and ExperienceI never thought I would have the chance to work in a telecom

company. After getting in the company I struggled my first few

days, as I did not have any experience of working in an office

before. But while I was working there, I learnt the way an office

works. To be specific I learnt how banglalink works. I learnt

about the process of working there. The people or employees there

address each other as ‘Bhai’ and ‘Apu’. It is an effective way to

have communication among each other. This is one thing that I

will surely miss about banglalink.

While working there, I learnt about many interesting things

about telecom. I learnt how telecom actually works. I learnt

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about how ATL (Above the line) promotion and BTL (Below the Line)

promotion works in reality. I learnt some prepaid related terms

like VAS (Value Added Service), Partner number, Community number,

startup, reactivation etc. Though I had only access to prepaid

related information, I was able to meet people from different

departments. My department has the requirement to deal with the

IN and IT department. So I had the chance to meet the IT and IN

both. Where I learnt about live bed and test bed, which is used

to test new offers and check running offers and keep track of it.

VAS is an service that is provided to the customer for some

charge from the subscriber. They had a different unit for that.

Partner number is a number which is not a fnf number, rather it

is a number that has even less tariff, in other word it can be

said as super fnf. Starup is when someone buys a new sim and

gains some offer. Just like that Reactivation is an offer when an

unused sim is recharged and started using it. Community number is

for a certain group of people like the SME group. This are some

of the term that are used in the telecom industry.

Working there made me learn new software called the SAP

business objects, which is an internet and data based software. I

have also improved my Microsoft PowerPoint and Excel performance.

In the mean time, I also learnt a few new tricks as well as

forming a pivot table in Microsoft Excel. I used SAP business

objects for mining the data for my superiors which was my routine

work. Also for the purpose of communication I used to use

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Microsoft Outlook, which is a mail management software. This

software had my email enlisted here and I used this to send and

receive mail from my superiors.

Though a Business Administration student, I actually learnt

a lot of things about the information technology and the

intelligent network while I was working in the prepaid

department. Not only that I was able to meet up with my fellow

interns to learn about their job responsibilities and how they do

it. I even had the chance to learn about Human Resource working

process by actually helping one of my fellow interns. In short, I

was able to learn a lot of things that I was not supposed to as

it were not of my studies or department. But I was happy of the

fact that I was learning fast enough to impress my superiors.

The other types of experience besides the learning were the

food facility and the poll phone service. I, along with my fellow

interns, was provided with free lunch service by the company. And

I would like to mention that the food choice and quality both

were very good. Also the poll phone facility was providing us up

to BDT 5000 for mobile bill. This is one thing that made us

forget that we used to recharge our phone time to time before

that.

On the last week of my internship, I was sent on a one week

attachment program. The attachment program sent all of the

interns to different departments situated at different offices

together. We went to corporate sales, where we learnt about the

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corporate customers and corporate packages. Also I learnt how a

potential customer is approached, how a problem for a current

customer is solved and how service or product is delivered to the

customer. This is pretty much the work of corporate sales. Also

we visited the ICON department as well. ICON is for big shot

people who are concerned about themselves. Also we visited the

direct sales (SME), credit sales and customer care department of

banglalink. This actually helped us get an outline of the working

process. I hope this will help me somehow in the future.

Communication with Supervisors and CoworkersThe supervisor or as the office would term ‘line manager’

was very helpful towards me. The name of my designated line

manager was Tanuj Kanti Dhar. He is serving as the deputy manager

of the team since April 2012. Basically the team was consisting

of 4 members including one head of the unit. So basically I had

to work under all 5 superiors. As my line manager was busier with

his work, I was mostly assigned jobs by the other 3 supervisors

of the team. But my line manager did assign me work from time to

time. Moreover I was stationed at their cubicle for the first

week. This helped me learn about my first ABC about prepaid more

easily and effectively.

All of my supervisors were very helpful and brotherly to me.

They guided me not only how to do a specific job but also how to

behave and act in a corporate office. They were there to help me

with any query or problem that I faced. The relation that I had

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with them did not only stay within the work boundary or my job

responsibilities. They also made me engage in their fun time or

enjoyment. They were also happy of the fact and they admitted

that I am a fast learner and they are happy with my output of

work.

As far the colleagues are concerned, I already mentioned

that they were helpful whenever I made a query. I had the chance

to be in touch with a number of departments and I was

enthusiastic about learning about their work process. For this I

had to ask them questions, which they had answered me very nicely

and I understood clearly. Also while I was sent to conduct the

UAT, the IN and IT people were helpful to tell me the process.

The attachment program, helped meet me a lot of people as well.

Whoever I was tagged with, they guided me through their process

of work. In short, the people of banglalink are like a family. We

even called each other by Bhaia and Apu.

Difficulties faced and dealtWhile working as an intern, as I have already mentioned

that, I faced confusion and a slight nervousness as this was my

first time working in an office. I have never had a chance of

even see people work in a corporate office before. But I was able

to outcome the fear by my enthusiasm and excitement. At first I

did not have access to my own desk let alone my designated pc. It

took me about 2-3 weeks before I could start working on my pc.

For the first 2 weeks, I was memorizing prepaid offers of

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banglalink prepaid. I was also memorizing the tariffs and the

process of subscribing and unsubscribing from the tariff and

other stuffs related to it.

After I joined there was another problem that I faced was my

supervisors were out for an annual meeting for 2 days. Those two

days I had no one to guide me. But at that time I used it to

learn about the prepaid from the notes at my supervisor’s desk.

Also I kept the tariff learning going as well as I used the time

to learn about the other departments.

I faced problems as I advanced in my job. The first thing

that was complex was the prepaid tariff of banglalink. It seemed

so complex to me. I had discussed it with my supervisors and they

made me understand that they cannot close off tariff plans as

there are a good number of subscriber base in it.

Other problems like sometimes this so happened that as I

come back from some work, I see my chair has been taken for

meeting or similar purpose. In that case I had to bring a chair

from the conference room. Also sometimes this so happened that I

did not have access to my drawers, for that I had to put them on

the table or under the table. What I did was I decorated my table

with all the accessories and put all the paper piled up as

function under my desk. I tried to keep my working space on the

desk clean and I was able to do so.

There were a few complaints about my behaviors as I was new

to a corporate office. I used those complaints as a warning and

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learning to know how to behave in a corporate office. I hope to

use the learning and warning to use in my future jobs.

Expectation face to face with ExperiencePeople make expectations based on what they have seen or

learnt. Basically I would say my Bachelor of Business

Administration study was just a theory compared to what I

actually experienced. As I mentioned earlier, I had not worked in

any office, so I did not have any expectation as to what to see

in an office. This is why the corporate or the cubicle setup

actually amazed me. The way they are put according to the unit

and work specification was just amazing. At first I was

positioned to sit with my superior for temporary period. This

actually helped me learn better from them.

As I was about to start my Intern, I heard from different

friends that interns are supposed to, more like made to do odd

works like photocopying, escorting people to the department,

bringing tea, coffee etc. So I had some kind of similar

perception about banglalink as well. But as I entered and started

working as an intern, I found out my perception was wrong. Each

and everyone in the company have their own designated job and for

each job there is a designated person. We, interns were there to

help their line manager and the unit to relieve them from some

workload. This is to say that we had specific work to be done and

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the work was related to the designated department. So we had a

lot of scope to learn.

I though expected that there will be a strict and heavy

environment, where everyone is so much busy in their work. People

will be running here and there or glued to their desks. I

expected to see a bunch of grumpy looking people. All of these

are more or less proved to be true. But I would say it was a

strict but flexible environment. I actually did not felt any

heaviness in the environment. But people were busy in their work.

Actually they were not glued to their desks. They had the liberty

and flexibility to finish their work as they liked. Mainly they

had deadlines to meet and they maintain those. People were

running not only for work purpose but also for fun purpose too.

As this was a back office, which had no direct contact

whatsoever with the customers, there was no such thing as rush

hour. So I did not have any experience of rush hour. I expected

to have a market visit escorted by my superiors, but I was unable

to have one. I expected that I would learn about the customer

more closely, as the name suggests the mass market. But this unit

mostly works from the back or behind the scene. So I was a little

disappointed of the fact that I could not meet customers face to

face or go on a market visit.

At first, I thought that I would be treated as a newcomer

and become the target of a bully. But to my amazement, the people

at banglalink greeted me heartedly. Not only my unit but also

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people from different department, even the office assistant

treated me with importance. I was able to make such an impression

that I was given certain assignments to fulfill with

responsibility. The guidance that I expected from them, I

actually got more than that. I was even invited at one of my

superior’s brother’s marriage party.

My expectation also was that I would make a learning that I

would like to use in my future career. And I was able to do so.

The unit I was designated to was a department to learn a lot of

things. This actually was a place where I could learn. My

department was somewhat connected to the loyalty program by one

of my superiors. Though there was no direct connection but I was

able to learn about what loyalty program is all about. This was

just one of many things that I learnt, which I did not expect.

Last but not the least, the experience that I have gained at

banglalink was way out of my expectations. One might say that

this was my first experience working at a office, which is why I

am amazed at everything. But the truth is my expectation is based

on what I have heard from different sources and different people.

So if one looks closely, one is sure to find some real amazing

facts that I have seen and experienced at banglalink.

Banglalink’s influence in my career planActually when I started working at banglalink or even before

that when I agreed to work as an intern there, I did not have

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much of a career plan in telecom industry. But it was a growing

and good industry to build one’s career in. My actual career plan

is to reach the top position of marketing. That is I want to

sharpen my marketing skills, so that in 20 years time, I can hold

a top marketing position in an industry. So getting in the

banglalink was just a phase of my whole career plan as I thought.

I have heard from some of my friends and fellow interns that

once someone gets in an telecom industry, one cannot work well in

other industry. I have not found any truth to it whatsoever but

now I do have a change in my career plan after working in

banglalink. I have found this interesting and good enough

industry to make my career plan be complete.

As I have mentioned earlier, my final aspiration or career

plan is to gradually learn the practical ways of marketing and

climb the ladder of organizational hierarchy of marketing. So for

this I am supposed to be posted in different departments from

time to time and learn the ways. Different industries have

different marketing activities. Some industries like telecom and

manufacturing has more diversified marketing, whereas industries

like banking and service has less departments for marketing. I as

a marketing student, I would love to learn as much marketing as

possible from the real field.

When I was posted in the marketing department, which I

applied for, I was happy of the fact that it was marketing. Later

I found out there was more to the marketing than I expected.

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There were around 10 or more units under the marketing department

like the Public Relations, Market development prepaid and

postpaid, loyalty etc. This made me excited as well as kept my

hope high.

While working there, as I mentioned earlier, I had the

chance to meet up with a lot of people. The unit I was designated

made me learn a lot of practical things about the market and

marketing. I learnt about prepaid and prepaid related stuffs a

lot. This was a department that has helped me in gain knowledge

for building my career in telecom industry. I can say for sure

that the knowledge I gained from the market development prepaid

unit can help me start my job right away in any prepaid

department easier than I could have 3 months back.

My learning of telecom industry was not just limited to

prepaid only. I had the chance to learn basics about other

departments as well. I had the chance to learn about different

departments work system from my fellow interns as well as my

coworkers in different departments. All of these learning

ultimately contributed to my career plan. Because one cannot

simply be good at a specific field unless one have basic

knowledge about others. So to excel in marketing I need to learn

about HR and Finance to some extent. This I was able to gather

knowledge through the process of my internship.

In the last, I would like to add that my career plan always

included that I be a big shot of marketing as I love the subject

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marketing. The reason I was employed in this department was the

love towards the department and the love towards practical

marketing. I hope that the things that I have learnt about

marketing will help me do well in my future career, no matter

where I work. Because the department might be different there but

there are some rules and terms that stays constant. I think

internship is a great way to learn new and practical things to

use in one’s career. It is very helpful to everyone as here is

where all the theory meets reality and students ge to experience

them. And on a different note, internship should not be taken

lightly which many of us do. This can be a turn in our career.

Going back in the Tiger’s DenIf I am required to redo this internship, it means going

back to Tiger’s den. If I ever had the chance to redo this

internship, I have two choices mainly. One choice is to the same

department, other to a different department. I would like to

discuss about the both choices.

At first, If I am repositioned in the previous department

and same unit, that would mean to be designated to the mass

market development prepaid team. I would be once again known as

prepaid intern but this time my performance will be different. As

the team already knows me and my working process, they will

provide me with the responsibilities that I do best. Also they

would help me improve the loophole in my work. Not just them, if

I ever go back to the same position one more time, I will not

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make the mistakes that I made in this 3 months. Also I would try

to improve my software skills that I learnt in the 3 months time.

Also there is more to SAP business object than it seems. So I

would try to learn more about the queries in SAP. Also in the

last 3 months I had to work on Microsoft Excel. This time I am

going to learn more about Excel and its functions. I would try to

polish my Excel as well as outlook performance. Also the pivot

table creating that I learnt, I would try to advance in that.

This time I would make sure that I don’t miss the market visit as

last time I missed it as my supervisors were unsure of me taking

me to the market visit.

Secondly, if I have the chance to swap department or unit, I

would like to go to the ICON Department. This department mainly

deals with the individual people who are said to be the big shot

or in other words, the large businessman or the CEO or similar

level people. This is a department that provides the ICON

customers different types of facilities like discount at hotels,

resorts, air fare and etc. I would like to go to the department

to see how they actually provide service to the people. How do

they convince potential customer and how do they solve problems

of the current customers. I had the chance to get basic ideas

about the ICON department. Now I want to get in depth knowledge

about their functions. Also if I ever get a chance to work in

banglalink I would like to work in the ICON department.

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Wrapping upCompleting one’s 4 year Bachelor in Business Administration

degree requires one to do a 3 month long internship at an

organization. I was lucky enough to get an internship offer from

banglalink. After doing this internship I came to realize that I

learnt a lot of things from this organization and if I ever get I

chance I would definitely like to go back. Banglalink was a place

where I actually had my first ever working experience. This was

my learning ground not only for the telecom industry but also the

corporate world. I made mistakes nad I learnt from mistakes. I

hope that the mistakes I made will not be repeated and I will

continue to grow. This was a place where I sprout my job career.

I am thankful to banglalink for giving me this oportunity to work

with them as a trainee.

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Appendix

12-Week Journals