The case depicts the success story of the SME financing division of one of the leading financial institutions of the country, LankaBangla Finance Limited (LBFL). The company has been operating for over two decades in the market. Despite being a financial institution, the company took around a decade to initiate its core business. While the company enjoyed initial success with retail and corporate products, it struggled for 3 to 4 years to succeed with small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This case simply reflects the journey of SME financing— from struggling to develop a strong portfolio base to continue growth at higher rates. The case does not focus on any problems; nor does it review the situation in depth.
Bdjobs Training, in all likelihood, provides the best training facility for job-seekers in Bangladesh. In fact, it appears bigger and more potential than any other organization in playing host to the training programs in the country’s education and training sector. The way the organization serves as facilitator of the training industry at national level enables it to achieve an unsurpassable position. As a dynamic and booming industry, it is continuously confronted with certain challenges that need to be addressed properly so as to hold its present well-reputed position. The organization does not have to work under pressure from too much external competition at industrial level. However, the challenges and hurdles that it faces internally while in operation are tremendously critical to the sustainability of its business. Hence, it usually comes up with its own R&D that helps improvise its strategies to meet the challenges more effectively. In fact, it is the basic requirement of the industry.
This case is about Sheba.xyz, a new platform for service marketplace which initiates, facilitates and coordinates every type of home improvement service. Currently, the company delivers personal services and high involvement services as well such as beauty services. This marketplace has a lot of potential opportunities. The opportunities include alluring more and more customers but the costs appear as an impediment for their entry into this field. Sheba.xyz tried to utilize their existing assets in order to achieve value maximization.
This case deals with the cultural, infrastructural, and human resource problem of a rather new company named ‘Augmedix Bangladesh’ (AMB). AMB designs a strategic planning system to re-humanize the clinician-patient relationship by addressing the largest pain point in the US healthcare system– the burden of documentation. Ensuring the provision of a technology-enabled documentation service for health systems and doctors is one of the major strategic tasks of AMB. Strategically, the organization incorporates the US doctors and the scribes, the two professional groups that provide assistance for the smooth functioning of the organization. The incidents of load shedding, internet drops, call drop, and the like had a hampering effect on the organization, rendering the whole business ineffective. A pragmatic delineation on—the scarcity of skilled people in the market for the position of scribe and how AMB recruits and trains each individual for the tasks of scribe— brings about an exposure of the survival challenge of a tech-dependent company and the measures it takes to overcome the barriers. There are also queries about the alignment with SERVQUAL model. It depicts the journey of a young man who saw the prospect of a simple technology and came up with a business model (which gave way to a whole new dimension of business).
The case deals with the rise and downfall of a renowned Bengali magazine named UNMAD. The appropriate English term for UNMAD is insane or mad. The organization incorporates the cartoonists who—by their comic, incongruous and absurdist representations—caused amusement and satirized or caricatured human situations. The case shows how the people’s artistic sense imbibed the pleasure of humor from cartoons in the past and how such a form of art evolved in the present era. In fact, it depicts the way people’s choice absorbed a change in the sense of taste from printed version of amusement to digital format of humor with the march of time. The story identifies the underlying reasons for an inescapable shift in human taste. It talks about the time when a single issue of magazine sold out, nearly 30,000 copies per month; and also when the company has to sell other merchandises to stay afloat in the business. There are questions on “what could have been done?” or “what still remains possible to do to save the company?” UNMAD is the only humor-oriented cartoon magazine that injected the satirical sense and components of humor into the mindset of the vast multitude of people.
A story exceptionally grows appealing to the business readers when the challenges of an organization are transformed into the sources of innovative entrepreneurial opportunity. The topic of discussion in the case enables the readers to enthusiastically develop a prying inquiry into how a well-reputed, leading company named Shyamoli Paribahan (SP) got confronted with challenges in the transportation sector; and how the survival strategy of the organization enabled it to transform challenges, or in other words, obstructionist force, into the fountain of business opportunity. SP— while facing challenges—adopted the strategic planning initiative that incorporates creative insights into the business venture and accuracy of direction in the right pathway. And as such, it was able to revitalize its business operation.
This case elucidates a rather unorthodox case of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) initiative which is solely focused on producing high quality images for businesses to use for commercial purposes. Producing a clean and professional version of the image serves as a propellant force for online shopping. To make the tedious image processing task scalable, The KOW Company Ltd has implemented a hybrid of traditional project management methods and the fairly new SCRUM methodology. The reasons why business requires the images to be processed bear a link with responsiveness and clarity of image when viewed by consumers on a wide array of devices. And as such the ‘why’ factors, most importantly, are held responsible for the production of lucrative photographs. Moreover, it is reasonably assumed that most marketing outreach programs or campaigns attain higher reach among any given target demographic when paired with well processed high-resolution images.
This case tells the success story of the local export giants called Walton Hi-Tech Industries Ltd. In the sector of manufactured electronic products, the local brand Walton gears up to fight against the foreign powerhouse brands. Behind this tale, is a brand that has capitalized on the opportunities presented before them and soared through the unknown skies without a shroud of doubt in mind. Walton made the dreams of all the other local brands of the electronic manufacturing sector come true and they are not planning to stop anytime soon.
What can people rely on when the authority fails them? What will they look forward to in such grim times? The media comes to mind. What if the people of a country relied on a sole newspaper to inform them in the dark days of pandemic lockdown? The case is on Prothom Alo, the top and the biggest daily newspaper in Bangladesh. Widely popular and accepted as the undisputed best Bangla daily in Bangladesh, Prothom Alo has come a long way since the start of its journey in the late 1990s. With the most circulated print version among the Bangla dailies as well as more than 6.6 million daily readerships online, Prothom Alo’s online portal is the most visited Bangla website in the world. Prothom Alo caters to the entire population of the country, reaching every corner of it through its effective distribution. This case reflects on the marketing and communication activities of Prothom Alo, both physical and digital, to see how Prothom Alo leveraged its way to become the best Bangla daily through the years. The case also discusses how Prothom Alo heads its campaigns and how the daily diversified its portfolio to build a sustainable business in this saturated industry.
The startup ecosystem in Bangladesh has been seen to grow over the years. With some of the successful startups stories around, young people are now more prone to take the risk of entrepreneurship and building something from scratch. Such is the inspiring story of a homegrown startup Pathao. Founded in 2015, Pathao is arguably one of the largest digital services platforms in Bangladesh with around 8 million users, 300,00 drivers and delivery agents, 30,000 merchants, and 10,000 restaurants plugged into its network. The topic of discussion, in this case, is the food delivery business of Pathao. It describes how it has claimed the 2nd position in a cut throat competitive market, how it has grown over the years and how it has navigated the business during the wracked havoc of COVID-19 and beyond. As the economy stabilizes from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is time for Pathao to choose its next course of action. In a fiercely competitive market, if Pathao Food wants to maintain its foothold in the food delivery business and grow further, it needs to choose from two possible alternatives: concentrate more on increasing the market share in major metro cities or expand its operations in potential markets.
The food industry in Bangladesh suffers from food adulteration, a consequence of ignorance and greed. In the midst of all the problem, is a new industry being formed whose objective is to supply fresh, organic and untampered food to the entire country. Khaas Food is a prominent player amongst them. Realizing the necessity of fresh food places in Dhaka, Khaas Food was born as an e-commerce in order to fulfill their need. But, the lack of interest to adopt online shopping from the people of Bangladesh, forced Khaas Food to expand to brick-and-mortar in order to scale the business. This decision, however, brought in a new set of problems. Setting up multiple outlets requires a huge investment, so Khaas food adopted a franchise model as a means to both reduce the cost of establishing an outlet and easily delivering products to online based customers. This case highlights the effectiveness of establishing franchises which also helped Khaas Food tackle COVID-19 restrictions.
The e-commerce industry has recently seen growth that was unthinkable in previous years. As people continue to hesitate in putting their trust in the local e-commerce companies for their daily needs, most of these companies struggle greatly due to not having proper infrastructure. Even after being surrounded by all of these problems, Daraz Bangladesh has operated so efficiently that all the other e-commerce companies see Daraz as the golden standard to follow. But the road for Daraz has never been easy and looks to be rough in the future as well. Daraz has to constantly monitor the sellers for low-quality products as well as extended delivery time. Daraz also has to tackle the reluctance of the customers in putting their trust in an e-commerce company as well as in changing their traditional shopping experiences. This case tries to put the highlight these problems as well as the attempts of Daraz to address all of these. Apart from introducing more consumer engaging models, Daraz made significant changes in their operational process to account for all the existing problems. The COVID 19 lockdown came as a blessing for Daraz at the right time as the company saw sales numbers that were never seen before. So, amidst all these problems, Daraz Bangladesh slowly takes the necessary steps to build a sustainable business model in the e-commerce industry.
Where do people go to have burgers when there are at least 20 burger places just within a neighborhood? Usually, to the place that sells the best burgers. What if the burgers made by this place do not really taste like the “best burgers in town” to these people? The case is on Chillox, one of the top local burger joints in Bangladesh, that has been facing this issue for a while now. Widely popular for its ‘bang for the buck’ offerings and out-of-the-box marketing communications, Chillox has surely come a long way from its food-cart days by appealing to the value-conscious buyers, most of whom are students and young professionals. Now 11-outlet strong, Chillox caters to the needs and wants of the local youth through a variety of burgers and non-burger items and a unique mind sharing acquired via content marketing. However, in recent years Chillox has been struggling to make many of its customers happy with the taste and quality of its burgers. The case sheds light on what critical factors are responsible for much of this customer dissatisfaction and how Chillox tries to resolve this through product innovations and various promotional activities. The key issue of the case concerns validating Chillox’s claim that it sells the best burgers in town with the help of factual data presented in the case. While Chillox proudly claims that its burgers are the best, many a customer disagrees with it as is evident from the mixed criticisms Chillox burgers have garnered over the years. Students should be asked to assess the effectiveness of Chillox’s strategies and actions in handling the issues with its burgers. They then should be encouraged to share their perspectives about the course of actions Chillox should take to properly resolve the issue.
Banglalink is currently the third-largest mobile operator of Bangladesh. It emerged as a market challenger back in 2005 by offering the best call rates in the market. It quickly became the 2nd largest operator after its inception for its creative brand communication and best product offerings. However, slowly it has lost its touch with the competition when Grameenphone started investing aggressively, the merger of Robi and Airtel, and poor network quality of Banglalink. The complexion of the industry has shifted many times over its life cycle. From the differentiation by price and cost days and catering to the youth and slowly a shift to the internet age of 3G, 4G and differentiation through internet and data offerings to now where companies are trying to figure out the next new feature that will give them the edge over the competitors. Telcos are foraying into digital services, IT solutions, media platforms in order to determine the next big thing. The country is now at the doorstep to 5G which asks the biggest question, “Is the country ready?”.
This case encapsulates the scenario of the beverage industry of Bangladesh through the lens of the popular brand Frutika of Akij Food & Beverage Limited. Frutika entered the market with one of the strongest media campaigns to date with “Ektu beshi pure” but this outstanding media success didn’t lead to equivalent market share. Realizing that the success in this industry lies somewhere else, Frutika identified some of the problems that its supply chain was facing and thought of a few countermeasures to tackle them. The effectiveness of these countermeasures is in question as uncertainties arise regarding the sustainability of the market share increase of Frutika.