Amit Sharafath Al Rahman

Date:23.12.
2014
To
Rushdy Md Baksh (RMB)
Faculty,
School of Business,
North South University.
Dear Sir,
With due respect, I would like to inform you that, it is a great pleasure for me to submit the
working report on The Procurement department of Banglalink, as a requirement for BBA 498
program.While conducting the working report, I have gathered lots of knowledge on
procurement in telecommunication industry, especially Banglalink, and enjoyed working there.
Yours sincerely,
Amit Sharafath Al Rahman

ID-111-0674-030
Acknowledgement
All praises are due to Almighty Allah who enabled me to complete this report. This report
entitled the Refelction Report On The Procurement Unit Of Banglalink.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation to my supervisor, Mr. Rushdy Md
Bakth. It would not have been possible for me to complete this report without his help, advice
and overall supervision. His constant encouragement and supervision throughout the period of
this study have been greatest inducement for me and directly contributed to the accomplishment
of the task. I am also indebted to Mr. Nazirul Islam Khan (Senior Assistant Executive Manager
,Procurement), Ms. Rabeya Ferdouse, Mr. Saud-Al Faisal and to Mr. Rakibul Hassan,along with
others who had kindly spared me with their precious time, support and priceless information. No
words of appreciation can sufficiently express the immense gratitude that I owe to the
procurement team of Banglalink.
Equally I would also like to express my sincere gratitude and indebtedness to the authority of
North South University, Bangladesh for their kind co-operation.
Page | 1
Contents
Company Background ............................................................................... 3
Organogram ............................................................................................... 4
The Procurement Unit ............................................................................... 5
Employment Experience ........................................................................... 6
Findings and Recommendations ............................................................. 14
Expectation V/S Reality .......................................................................... 15
Redefining the career plan ....................................................................... 16
Redoing the Internship ............................................................................ 16
Conclusion ............................................................................................... 17
Appendix ................................................................................................. 18
Page | 2
Company Background
Banglalink Digital Communication Limited with a simple mission of bringing mobile telephony
to the masses in their mind launched their telecommunication business in February 2005.
Keeping their mission and vision in their mind, currently Banglalink is the second largest cellular
service provider in Bangladesh.
Though the journey of Banglalink is of nearly a decade the original infrastructure of the
company was laid in 1989. Sheba Telecom (Pvt.) Ltd. was granted license in 1989 to operate in
rural areas (Upazillas) and they expanded their business by obtaining their GSM license in 1996
and launched cellular service in the name of SHEBA in fall of 1997 under the joint venture of
Bangladeshi Integrated Services Ltd. & Malaysian Techno Resources Industries.
Due to a chronic feud between the companies and other internal problems, in 2004 Orascom
Telecom Ventures Limited of Malta (Now Telecom Ventures Ltd. of Malta), a fully owned
subsidiary of Global Telecom Holding S.A.E. was set to buy the Malaysian stake of Sheba
Telecom in an treaty of USD 25 million. In September 2004 Telecom Ventures Ltd. bought
100% of Sheba Telecom for USD 60 million and rebrands the franchise as Banglalink and
launches it on February 10, 2005.
Banglalink cellular service has significant impact on Bangladesh telecommunication market.
Overnight cellular communication becomes affordable for wide range of customers where
Banglalink changed the mobile phone status from luxury to a necessity.
In July 2013 a merger between Orascom Telecom Bangladesh Limited and VimpelCom takes
place and the company name changed to Banglalink Digital Communication Limited with new
Slogan NotunKichuKoro translated Start Something New
Page | 3
Organogram
Page | 4
The Procurement Unit

Procurement is the acquisition of goods and /or services at the best possible payment terms,
through selection and solicitation of sources, preparation and award of contract, in the right
quantity and quality, at the right time, in the right place for the direct benefit or use of the
organization
By procurement, in simpler terms, we understand something that encompasses the whole
process of acquiring property and services. It begins when the department identifies a need and
decides on its procurement requirement.
In general, two types of procurement can be observed in organizations. They include:
Direct procurement: Direct procurement is usually performed by a full-time professional
operating within a purchasing department.
Indirect procurement: Indirect procurement may be handled by a separate department. However,
it is also performed by people in all areas of a company; procurement is not their full-time role.
The procurement division in Banglalink works under the accounting and finance department
and plays a major role in maintaining a good collaboration with other departments within the
organization. Procurement team works under two sections, namely: 1.Procurement Technical
2.Procurement Non-technical
Procurement Technical
As I mentioned earlier, procurement department plays a vital role of the organization and the
technical team plays one of the most crucial functions to expand its network capacity. This team
primarily works for purchasing goods concerning civil construction such as equipments,
towers, generators, BTS, base stations and others. Technical team mainly receives request from
Network Deployment for their huge requirement regarding network expansion.
For example, when Network deployment identifies the need for network expansion in certain
areas and thus require setting up of BTS tower and antennas in both Greenfield and Rooftop,
they sent Purchase Request to Technical team. Vendor will start work only when they are
supposed to receive the Purchase Order from procurement. As a result, the user departments
always need to rely on procurement team for any type of request for technical purchase as
Procurement team has the authority of Purchase Order creation.
Procurement Non-Technical
Procurement Non-Technical deals with only purchase of non-technical materials needed by the
various functional units of Banglalink. Purchase Requests are raised by the following
departments: 1) Marketing2) Sales 3) Admin 4) IT 5) Customer Care Department (CCD) 6)
Human Resource Management.
I was an intern of the whole Procurement unit, but due to the higher work pressure I was
working mainly with the direct Procurement team. The team consisted of 6 members with the
Manager being Mr. Saud Al Faisal.The 6 members were divided into three groups of two people
each: Operations and Maintenance, Network Deployment and Foreign Purchase. The
Operations & Maintenance team had two members: Mrs. Tasnuv Zahan and Mr. Kazi Halim,
who were responsible for the internet bandwidth and maintenance of the network towers. The
Foreign Procurement unit consisted of Mr. Wahid Haque Shawon and Mr. Mahbubur Rahman
and they took care of the all the major purchases of network equipments from the foreign
vendors. Lastly, the Network Deployment team consisted of Mr.Nazirul Islam Khan and Ms.
Rabeya Ferdouse who were responsible from receiving requests from the technical team and
then purchasing then from the local vendors only.
Employment Experience
I was hired in the Procurement Unit of the Finance department to have an experience of
different levels of the department and my total internship is planned on project and tasks basis.
On my first day of internship, I and 22 other fellow interns were introduced to the Banglalink
through an induction program. It was conducted by the Organizational Development Unit of
Human Resource. The person concerned gave us a brief overview of the entire organization and
then every intern signed their agreement papers stating that we are all officially interns now.
After that, they gave us another paper stating the department and unit assigned. As mentioned
earlier, I was hired in the Procurement Unit of the Finance department. After that, all the interns
had lunch with the HR team and that was all for the day. We were told to report to our
respective departments from the next day. I was told to report to Mr. Sayeed Ahmed, who was
the General Manager of the Procurement Unit. Upon my arrival on the next day, I found that my
line manager has gone to perform Hajj and thus I reported to Mr. .Saud Al Faisal instead.Mr.
Faisal was the manager of the Direct Procurement unit. He was informed about me beforehand
and thus had a desk ready for meshed introduced me to the whole procurement unit first and
then instructed Mr. Nazirul Islam Khan to assign me my work. Nazirul Islam was the Senior
Assistant Executive of the direct Procurement team. My task was all supportive works and
included updating vendor database, confirming the Purchase Order Values, calling up vendor
meetings, Grouping Works, Filing and Data Entry. I was told that I was the first intern of the
Procurement unit in 1 year, and thus I will have a lot more work in the upcoming three months.
My first task was to update the vendor database of the Procurement Unit. The unit had more
than 280 vendors in their list and my task was to call them and ask for their updated e-mail
address, trade license and VAT registration certificate. The task wasnt the easiest as many of
the vendors changed their numbers and thus reaching them was difficult. While many vendors
were supportive in giving the necessary documents, most of them were reluctant and thus
receiving files from them were difficult. I wasnt given a particular time frame for the task but
was told to give periodical reports about the database update. As Banglalink was going digital, I
was told to collect the soft copies of the files only, put them in a folder and update it in the
master database. I had a hard time convincing vendors to give the files as most of them were
busy making excuses like their scanner was down, the concerned person was outlet.
Other than the database update, another thing that I did was sorting out the files, put them in a
chronological order and then file it.This task wasnt brainstorming, but was a bit monotonous.
As the company was trying to reduce the stacks of papers from the office, I was given a huge
pile of PO (Purchase Order) and was told to first look through the files and sort the necessary
papers. Then I had to arrange them in an ascending order and the put them in a file. The first
thing, I did was check all the PO numbers and see whether they are updated in the database or
not. If they are not updated, I had to update it, and then take the printout of the update
confirmation and then sort i.e. found the task quite interesting as I had full access to master
database at that time. I was told to go through the master database, learn how it works and ask
questions in case of any queries.
After the filing was done, the next task was data entry. This work was given the non-technical
team of the Procurement unit and I was told to update all the Purchase Orders (PO) in the
master database. This task was a bit different from the filing task as there were no papers
involved this time. Instead, I was given scanned copies of the Purchase Orders and was then
told to update them in the file. As I was working with a new team today, I was a bit cautious
and thus did the work slowly so that the margin of error was low. There were a total of 200
Purchase Orders and I was given a total of one week to finish the job. However, I managed to
finish the job within 3 days and after checking my work and team was very happy with my
work and took me out to lunch on the last working day of the week.
After that, came the Eid holiday. Banglalink had a really good holiday policy for its employees
and thus all of us were given a holiday of 9 days in total. The break originally was 5 days
including the weekends, but Banglalink gave everyone two extra days off and with the next
weekend combined, the total holiday turned out to be a total of 9 days.
After the Eid Holiday, I was back to work on the 12th of October. The first day after the break
was pretty relaxing and everyone was busy greeting each other and sharing their Eid
experiences. I had a good time sharing my own experiences as well. After that, all the members
of the Procurement team took a group photo and I was also in the picture. I felt good that my
team doesnt always treat me as an intern only and keep me in all their events. After all the fin
parts, It was time to get back to serious work. This time, I was told to collect an Anti-Corruption
Disclosure form from 89 of the vendors. All the Banglalink vendors are required to fill up and
sign this form as it is a part of the company policy. But there were 89 vendors, who didnt sign
the agreement papers yet. So, I was told to call each vendor individually and ask them to give
the form. I was given a deadline of two weeks for this task.
Calling the vendors was always a good learning experience now. This was the second time I
was calling the vendors after the vendor database update. I learned how to talk to vendors over
the phone and how to collect the required data from them. I had to put fear in their mind and let
them about the negative consequences that will result if they fail to submit the documents
within the given time. For instance, while collecting the anti-corruption form from the vendors,
I said that failure to give the form within the given time will result in blocking of payments
altogether as the form had something to do with the payments. The trick worked and within two
weeks I managed to collect the forms from all 89 vendors. I felt really happy and my team was
extremely pleased with my work too.
After that, the next task I had to be quite important and big for the entire Procurement Unit. The
Direct Procurement team was planning to make a new model for the power connection vendors.
Power connection vendors are those who worked with Banglalink regarding the power
connection of network towers in both green field and roof top sites. The Procurement unit
purchased the equipment sang give them to the vendors for their work. There are over 100
equipments the procurement unit buys for the network towers. I was given two huge MS-excel
file consisting of more than 1000 entries each regarding the power works. The file was called
the Scope of Work (SoW).I was told to go through the files and group the works and then find
the vendors who did the work for the tasks. As the team was running out of time, I was given
only two days to complete the work. This seemed extremely difficult as I had to go through
each entries individually and then match them with the vendors.
As I didnt have much time, I had to plan my tasks carefully so that I dont have troubles with
the time. As there were two files, where one of them had the work details and the other one had
the vendor details, I decided to combine them into one. I did this by using VlookUp which I
learned in my Accounting Informative System class (ACT431) during my university life. By
using VlookUp, I matched the work names with the vendors and then combined both the files.
By doing this, I had one excel file consisting of the work done and the vendors who did them.
My work became a whole lot easier that way. After that, I used filtering to match the entries and
then group them. Through the use of filtering and Vlookup, my task became so easy that I was
able to finish it within 1 working day. My supervisor was bit surprised at this and was quite sure
that I made mistakes, so he checked out immediately and was totally surprised to see that the
work was totally flawless. He was very happy with my work and treated me a dessert later in
the cafeteria that day.
The next work that I had to do that was very similar with my last work of grouping the
entries.Again, this time I was given an MS-Excel file of more 1000 entries and was told to
categorize them into different groups.However, there were no vendors this time, but there were
many duplicate entries in the file. As I didnt know how to identify duplicates using Ms-Excel,
Nazir bhaiya taught me how to identify them.t was pretty easy, there is a separate command in
MS-Excel and I just had to click that button to highlight the duplicate values and by using
another command, I could easily delete the duplicate entries.However, the task werent as easy
as I thought it was. Identifying the duplicated werent easy at all because the commands I used
only identify duplicated with the same spelling, but there were same entries with different
spellings. For Example: One of the entry was Work For GT site 1011, and another entry was
Work For GT Site no.1011.Though both entries meant the same thing and had the same
values, as the names were a bit different, The MS-Excel command wasnt entitled to identifying
these types of mistakes.Thus, I had to go through all the entries and see if there were same
entries with different spellings. I found more than 50 entries like these and had to individually
correct them and then group them. The task was turned out to be very hectic and time
consuming. I was also unhappy with how Banglalinks way of data entries. The mistakes were
really silly and quite frustrating as a small mistake may result in double entries and billing,
causing damage to the organization as a whole. More professionalism was expected while the
entries were made and it should have been properly checked before it was finalized. I told about
my unhappiness to Nazir bhaiya and he said they will look into this matter very soon and get
back to me.
One of the best part of the internship came soon after that, when I was given to work with
numbers. I love playing with numbers and I thought I was given the best job in the world. The
task was about finding the values and fixes a rate for travelling expenses.Currently, all the
vendors charge differently for travelling and Procurement team was thinking of fixing one rate
for all the vendors.However, they were having a rough time finding the exact amount. All they
had is the Kilometer (KM) wise list and they were unable to compute the single rate. I was told
to look through the files and come up with a formula. I first categorized the rated according to
Kilometers (KM), for e.g.-one rate for distance 100-200 Km and another for 200-300km and so
on. After this, I found out the total distance travelled and then put the respective rates into it and
then find the total value. My calculated values werent very different from what the vendor
gave, which suggested me that I was going the right way. I did around 20 more similar analysis
like this and then finally came up with a rate according to k.m.The formula was a great success
and Nazir bhaiya helped me co develop tithe proposed rate was then further analyzed and
scrutinized by the technical team before being put into the table for the final decision. I was
eagerly waiting for that time to arrive
Banglalink was already a good experience for me.By working here I have become more
proficient in Ms-Excel, my communication skills have improved significantly through calling
the vendors regularly, I have managed to handle my time better, multitasking to has become a
regular thing for me.My team always seem to be in a rush because of high workload and I
believe I have adjusted to their pace quite well.
Coming back to work, my next job was to call vendor meeting regarding the Power Model. As I
said earlier, Banglalink was trying to develop a new model for their power works and they have
finally come up with a plan whereby all the vendors will treated equally. As the company was
about to implement a new model, a clarification meeting needed to be called so that all the
vendors are clear of the new model and were willing to work for building the network towers.
As the number of vendors was quite high and there were shortages of large rooms, the meeting
had to be split into two days and 19 vendors will attend the meeting in one day. As the meeting
was scheduled to happen in only 1 day notice, it was difficult to convince many vendors to
come on time as there were many vendors who were located outside Dhaka. I was given the
responsibility of calling all the vendors and asking them to attend the meeting. I was also given
the authority to say that Banglalink will no longer work with the vendors who wouldnt attend
the meeting on the scheduled day. So, on Sunday, the day before the meeting, I called 19
vendors and asked them to come to the meeting. Though a few owners were hesitant to attend, I
convinced them to come and on the day of the meeting, all 19 vendors attended it.My team was
happy with my job done and I was formally introduced and thanked at the beginning of the
meeting. I felt really happy and it will definitely go down as one of the best achievements of my
internship tenure.
After two back to back meetings in two days, I was pretty exhausted. The constant high
workload was finally taking a toll on me and I was really tired. The work doesnt seem to end
here and as soon as I was done with one, I was given new asks almost instantly. There was no
scope of relaxation. I believe my team sensed my ever increasing frustration as well and thus
they took me out to a sudden lunch on a mid-week and asked me if I was having any trouble
working. I was frank enough to say what I was feeling and they made me understand their
situation. My team was running low on head count and as a result of that one person was doing
at least two persons work in my team.Thus,the pressure seemed to be high all the time. They
were apologetic as I had to work too much, but then I thought I was acting too selfish too, thus I
decided to shrug off my frustration and get back to work. I was allowed an one day leave to
freshen up myself and the break helped me a lot. From the next day, I was back to working at a
full swing.
Next thing that I did was complete my everlasting vendor list update work. This work was given
to me at the very beginning of my internship and as the internship was nearing its end, I was
nearly done with the work too. For the updates, in case the phone number was missing, I was
told to email the vendors and get the updated contact details. The idea was to get an updated
database as many vendors were complaining that they dont get the email in time and many
others also complained that they do not get any phone calls from the concerned authority inside
the organization. I have been working on the updates in between other works all these week and
this week I submitted the updated file to my line manager. The updating part was never an easy
one. Vendors whose email was missing were very reluctant to give their email addresses so that
they can keep on stalling the work details. And many others were too rude to talk and said that
its none of their responsibility to send the updated email address. But even worse was in case
of missing phone numbers. Even after continual email, very few people actually replied with
their updated details and I had to run around the technical and administration department
collecting numbers of as many vendors I cant the middle of the week, I submitted my work.
Out of 287 vendors, I managed to update the details of 230 vendors, but the details of the
remaining 57 vendors couldnt be updated. I highlighted the missing part of those 57 vendors
and asked my line manager to take a sterner step so that they update the necessary
details.However, my line manager didnt seem to be fully happy with my work as he expected
the full list to be updated. I explained my situation and said that I gave my best efforts to collect
all of them, but he didnt seem to care much. He just didnt seem interested and said he will talk
to me later. I felt really bad than despite giving my best effort and a long time behind this work,
I wasnt really appreciated. My morale went really low and I didnt get much motivation for
other works at that time.
Just as I wasnt having the worst time of my internship, came the rotation program. The rotation
program was designed to give all the interns a better view of the organization. During the
rotation program, the interns were sent to different departments and learn how they work. It was
scheduled to last two weeks. It was a free ride for the interns as during then, we didnt need to
report to our originally assigned department.Rather, we had to go to a new department and
observe how they work. We were also allowed to leave early during our rotation program, so it
was more like a holiday for all the interns. During the first week, I was transferred to the
Customer Care Department (CCD).The CCD department had several units and we were made to
visit these departments. At first, I travelled to the ICON department and saw what they had to
offer and how they work to keep their special customers happy. It was a good learning
experience for me.Next, I travelled to the Credit Risk Management (CRM).I was particularly
keen on the CRM department as I though this department only exists in banks. I learned that the
work of the department was to ensure payment from their postpaid customers and how they
mitigate their losses in case a customer doesnt pay the due amount. Several small steps are
taken to ensure that the payment in received in time and even after repetitive recquests, if a
customer doesnt make the payment, a police case is lodged. After the CRM, I travelled to the
care line department. It was mainly the call center of Banglalink, situated right beside the
headquarters in Gulshan-1.I sat beside a customer care representative and listened to his phone
calls throughout the day. I really dint enjoy it and one point I was really bored as this section
had little learning to offer. After that, I travelled to their Gulshan 2 care center and saw in
person how the executives deal with their customers. It wasnt a good experience either and I
was allowed to leave early for that day as I had some personal work.
In my second week of rotation, I travelled to the SME sales department and trade marketing
department. Both of the units were relatively new and thus they didnt have much service to
offer as yet. The SME sales targeted small companies with less than 15 customers and they
were focused on attracting as many customers as they could. Banglalink had the second largest
SME services among the telecommunication company while GrameenPhone was the first. The
trade marketing sector wasnt very big either and included services like Mobile top-ups and Ebills. They were mainly focused on the new generation services like doing tickets over the
phones-payment etc. The concerned official said that Banglalink is still developing new ways in
improving these services and they are still a long way behind the competitors in this sector.
After the rotation program, I entered into my last week of internship in Baglalink.The last week
was extremely hectic as everyone on my team decided to finish the sportive pending work
within this week. I really didnt have a break at all in my last week. At first, I was told to scan
the vendor enlistment forms. There were 99 new vendors from the Procurement Unit in the year
2014 and I was made to scan all of these. Each form consisted of 40 pages and I had a torrid
time scanning those files. Pages got stuck in between during scanning and thus I had scan a
single file multiple times to ensure that all the scanning was done properly. I was told to finish
the scanning within two days only and this immense workload resulted me in taking a lunch
break of 20 minutes each for these two days.However, I was able to finish the work within the
given time and thus my line manager was again happy with my work.Next, I had to send e-mail
to 38 power vendors regarding some documents. Thats where I made the biggest howler of my
internship period. As the files were confidential, I was told to Blind Carbon Copy (Bcc) the
senders. But instead of doing Bccing just entered all the e-mail addresses in the two area and
sent it to the vendors.Now, as a result of my mistake, all the vendors will be able to see whom I
mailed to and the reply mail too will be generated to everyone. My line manager was terribly
disappointed with me and was so upset that he didnt even talk to me that day. I really felt
ashamed of myself and though I let my line managers trust down. The damage control was
eventually done, and Nazir bhaiya, my supervisor instantly sent a new mail with the Bcc and
asked the vendors to reply to this mail instead. I was relieved when I saw all the vendors
replying to the second mail instead of the first mail. This work eventually turned out to be my
last work for my team and on Sunday the 14th Decemeber, I was formally given a farewell by
my team through a lunch treat.
On my last day, I had to complete a few other exit formalities and I was done with all those by
lunch. I felt really bad leaving the team that I worked with for the last three months. Though
there were rough times, I enjoyed working there and it was a really good learning experience for
media learned a lot about MS-Excel and my communication skill have substantially improved
throughout the last three months. My team, on the final day appreciated me for all the work that
I did and said that I was the best intern they had ever. I felt really happy and was totally
overwhelmed by those pampering words. I left the office after lunch and felt quite emty.It felt
as if was leaving my soul behind. I really liked working here and I will definitely miss the
organization.
Findings and Recommendations

Decision making is centralized: For Foreign Procurement every time it needs to take approval
from head of department which is sometimes time consuming. If head of authority sends an
authorized signatory to Banglalink to deal with foreign procurement, would make the process
faster.
Availability of more file cabinets: Due to shortages of file cabinets, sometimes it was very
difficult to file up the POs (Purchase Orders) and trace them back in organized manner.
Introducing more space or shelves can reduce the time taken to find the single PO among the
stacks of files.
Manual signing process: The whole process of raising PR (Purchase Reacquisitions) till PO
deliver to the vendor is very time consuming as it needs to go through a long hierarchy of
signing process. By introducing ORACLE Finance PR Module the whole process of signing
can be completed efficiently.
For instance, each task would be completed much faster if user department sends the PR using
the automation process and forwards to procurement. Likewise procurement, after issuance of
PO would send that to respective departments through a centralize system (Accounts, Budget,
Head of user department and CFO) for their approval. Each department will have access to this
centralize system and thus get the notification of receiving PO. After getting approval from
concerned signatory, the PO will be forwarded to the next approval level automatically. This
will speed up the whole process of PO delivery using less manpower. I believe in-house
software developer from IT department would able to develop the system.
Lack of Manpower: Procurement team needs to hire more people if automation is not
implemented in order to meet up huge workload.
Expectation V/S Reality

At the beginning of my internship program, I thought that I had to sit in a cubicle all day and
had to work and work only without any fun times whatsoever. My expectation dealt a big blow
at the very first day of my office. It was an open office concept with cubicles designed in such a
way whereby the privacy was well maintained as well the as the closeness between the
colleagues are taken care of. I had ample free time as well, after lunch, we usually headed out to
have desserts and tea and thus my reality was totally different from my expectation of a very
official environment.
Another expectation that I had as an intern was that I will only be doing clerical works like
photocopying, scanning and filing. Though my work had considerable amount of these works, I
felt that my voice was heard and people took me more seriously than I thought they would. My
work on the vendor meeting was very much appreciated by all and they even gave me a formal
acknowledgement at the beginning of each meeting.
I never thought that during my internship tenure, I will be able to interact with any of the C
level executives. But not only I saw them, I got multiple opportunities to talk to them and
during the end I got to attend the farewell of our CEO too.
Finally, I never thought I will miss the office after the internship except for the free food but
now that it is over, I know that the organizational culture and the colleagues are the people I
will be missing the most.
Redefining the career plan

Before getting into Banglalink I was very relaxed with my career and to be honest I was not that
serious about it. Now that I was exposed at a competitive environment I realized that if I dont
work on my skills and take challenges I will fall behind. Now a days I try to work on my weak
points and work out of my comfort zone so that I can turn into versatile personality.
Redoing the Internship

If I had to redo this internship, I would try to know more about this organization. I would also
try to overcome the mistakes I made while working with my team members. My first priority
this time would have been on verbal communication that is because my supervisor told me that
I talk very less with my colleges and this is a big drawback about me. He said that in corporate
world you have to be very noticeable and for that you have to talk a lot. Carrying an intelligent
conversation in your work place is very important.
Conclusion
Telecom industry in Bangladesh is now working on to be differentiated among users mind.
They introduced a new culture to be followed by the younger citizens of our country. Its called
mobile mania. The importance and necessity of this commodity has vast spread into the
majority of the population.
Regarding my days spent at Banglalink, I gathered knowledge that is going to help me in
building my career in future. Workings in the procurement department of Banglalink, has
enriched my knowledge about different terms and instruments that are essential for local and
foreign procurement. Observing the processes through which the procurement department runs,
I have suggested some alternative ways in my report that needs to be observed by the
experienced eye and can be implement in the existing process or by expanding the current
process into new one.
Nowadays, worldwide companies are successfully realizing benefits from their procurement
initiatives and are viewing procurement as an integral part of their overall corporate strategy.
They no longer perceive procurement as a cost center, but rather as a strategic lever for
improving profits or funding new initiatives. Efficient and effective procurement translates any
investment into substantial profit.
Appendix
Journal-1(21.09.2014)
Tasks Performed This Week
This week was the first week of my 12 weeks of internship.On 15th September,all the new
interns including me attended orientation program organized to complete the joining process
into Banglalink.It was a day full of formalities and getting introduced to the corporate world.
During the program, the human resource team briefed us on Banglalink organization as a whole
and the internship work schedule.
I was assigned to the procurement sub-unit of Banglalinks supply chain unit, under finance
department. My line manager was procurement units General Manager, Mr. Saud Al-Faisal. At
the first day of joining, i.e on the 16th September, he introduced me to all the Banglalink staffs
who were working in the supply chain department. I met with the full procurement team,
specially the direct procurement team with whom I will work the most over the next 3 months.
Learning and Achievements
As this was the first week, I didnt have much of actual work but rather I got introduced to the
whole system of supply chain if Banglalink.The supply chain department of Banglalink is
divided into five primary sub-units; Contract Management, Strategy & Operations, Warehouse,
Procurement and Logistics.The Procurement unit which is my designated unit is further
segmented into two parts: Direct Procurement and Indirect Procurement. Direct Procurement is
associated with the purchase of network towers mainly whereas the indirect unit is concerned
with billboards, catering services etc.
The Direct Procurement unit is comprised of 6 employees with one reporting manager and the
Indirect Procurement is comprised of 7 employees with one reporting manager. The main task
of both the units is to purchase the equipment necessary for the organization. To do this, the
department that is in need of the equipment first send a request to the procurement unit in the
form of the purchase request (PR) or request for proposal (RFP).
The procurement unit then sends the RFP to suppliers through e-mail and asks for quotations.
After that, they make a comparative statement based on the quotation and technical feedback.
After the quotation process is done, negotiation with the suppliers begins and after that
evaluation of the financial statements is done based on the negotiation.
The final decision is made on the basis of technical and financial corporation from the
comparative statement. The purchase request is approved through a flow named Q-Flow by
sending Bill of Order (BOQ) and Scope of Work (SOW).
Throughout the week, I was told to get familiar with the above process and I was shown a demo
of how things are actually purchased in Banglalink.
Observations/ Reflections
As it was my first week, I tried to talk less and observe more so that I soak into their system in a
good way. As I didnt have a computer and specific desk assigned just yet, I got to roam around
and observe the employees of the procurement team and the organization as a whole.
Throughout the week, I observed that Banglalinks corporate culture looks to make sure every
employee knows who they are working with and know them on a first name basis. They try to
make interactions between fellow employees and superiors less formal and more comfortable
by addressing them as Bhaiya and Apu, instead of Sir and Madame.
Also, both the horizontal flow of information, across different functional units, and vertical flow
of information, across different management tiers, is made less rigid since almost all employees
are familiar with both their colleagues and superiors. Furthermore, although every employee has
a cubicle assigned to them, top management, such as unit heads, is located near their immediate
sub-ordinates. They make routine rounds across their floors and check up on their employees.
Notable Incidents
There were quite few noticeable incidents throughout the week. A total of 3 interns were
assigned to supply chain unit this time and at the very first day all the interns assigned to the
supply chain were given the chance to meet and ask questions with all the heads of the units of
supply chain. Through this process, we got a more clear idea of how the supply chain works
inside Bangla link.
Another positive thing was that the Supply Chain Deputy Director, Mr. A Saboor, who oversees
the whole of supply chain operations and reports directly to the CFO, Ahmad Y. Haleem, was
also present to greet the interns and talk with us. We also had the opportunity to have lunch with
him and the employees of supply chain unit. This really motivated us and gave us a warm
welcome into the unit.
Finally, the week ended a bit early as nationwide strikes had been called by a political party on
Thursday and thus all the interns were advised not to come on the day of hartal.
Journal-2(28.09.2014)
The week started off on Monday, instead of usual Sunday as there was a nationwide strike on
that day. In the first day of the week, I was assigned my desk along with a desktop in which I
will be working in the next three months. I was also given a Banglalink e-mail address which I
will use for sending and receiving mails during my internship period. Throughout the week, I
visited the whole unit of supply chain again just so that I get more familiar with the people in
the department. The finance department consisted of a total of 143 employees and was one of
the largest and important departments of the company. The software used by Banglalink was
Oracle, and this was used to carry on all the activities regarding fianance.Though the interns
werent allowed to use Oracle independtly,I got familiar with the software with the help of a
bhaiya of the direct procurement team, who was really friendly and wanted me to learn the use
of Oracle. He promised me to give periodical training of the software so that by the time my
internship is over; I have enough information and knowledge about the software.
Throughout the week, I also made periodical follow up with the vendors of Banglalink. The
vendors are actually the suppliers who are given contracts of certain areas and sites. They also
bid for the work when a circular of new task is given. The vendors are usually selected on the
basis of lowest bid of the work that needs to be done. As I was working with the technical
procurement team this week, I got familiar with few of the vendors who are responsible for
building networking towers both in free land and on roof tops.
The finance department consists of two floors inside the head office. As mentioned earlier, this
was one of the biggest departments of the organization. The technical team of the procurement
unit plays one of the most crucial roles to expand the network capacity. This team primarily
works for the purchase of goods concerning civil construction such as equipments, towers,
generators, BTS base stations and others. Technical team mainly receives request from network
deployment for their huge procurement regarding the network expansion.
The technical team mainly receives request from four departments: Rollout, Operations and
Management, Access Network, Core Network.
I also learned about the organogram of the procurement unit. There were a total of 17 levels in
the procurement unit and a fresh graduate has to start their career from level 17.It usually takes
2-3 years for a level promotion and the scope of double promotion is also there based on the
performance.
All the quotations and new task offer is communicated through e-mail with the vendors and the
interested parties then submit a bid and then the final decision regarding the task is made on the
basis of the bid along with other technical issues.
Throughout the week, I didnt observe much new things. All the people in my team were very
friendly and they actually wanted me to learn stuffs during my internship tenure. Free teas and
coffees were available but one had to ask the clerical staffs to get the tea made. There was a
separate prayer room in which everyone can go and pray. A few people even have their lunch
there, mainly because of the time constraint and hectic work schedule.
Another important observation was the concept of multitasking. I observed that the technical
team had fewer people than they should have and thus one employee was actually responsible
for more than one team which made the task a lot hectic. Thus the employees had very little free
time and usually had to do over-time to keep up with the schedule.
Notable Incidents
On Monday, Banglalink officially celebrated their achievement of 30 million subscribers with
the internal employees. A large cake was brought to every department and the respective floor
head was given the responsibility to distribute the cake throughout the floor.Also,Bangladeshs
most celebrated cricketer Shakib Al Hasan visited each and every floor on Monday to
celebrate the milestone of reaching 30 million subscribers. We also got to take pictures with
him.
Journal-3(05.10.2014)
This was the third week of my internship. In the past two weeks, I have got familiar with the
technical terms regarding procurement and this week I finally started working. During the first
two days of the week, I was sorting out the long list of files there were pending for quite some
time. I was told to rearrange the stacks of files in a chronological order and ask questions in
case of queries. During sorting, I learned how Purchase Order (PO) is issued through Oracle and
I even got to issue one demo PO in oracle. In the latter part of the week, I was given the
responsibility of updating their vendor database. There were more than 287 vendors for the
technical department of Bangla link and I was told to update the changes in phone numbers and
e-mail addresses of all the vendors. I was given no time limit which meant I could arrange my
timings by myself and was given the full access in the database.
This week was all about learning more of the organizational culture and getting soaked in to
tithe employees in my team were very friendly and I was beginning to feel better inside the
organization.Nazir Bhaiya,who was a part of the technical procurement team was very keen to
teach me all the technical staffs regarding the technical procurement. This week he gave me a
small briefing of the four departments that the technical procurement team works with.
1)Rollout: Rollout sent Purchase Request to Technical Procurement mentioning the detailed
specifications or detailed scope of work (SOW) required for the particular site, work
completion time, proposed supplier, site location where works needed to be done etc. Upon
receiving the Purchase Request, the assigned Technical procurement team request to issue
Purchase Order.
2) Operation and maintenance (O & M): After the completion of the rollout process by the
different vendors, it is needed to maintain those BTS or MSC site to run frequently. If any kind
of restructure or equipment damages occurs then the user department sends the PR to the
Procurement. After that procurement technical team assign the vendor to solve the problem. The
following Purchase Order is issued by the O & M technical team:
Maintenance service contract (Generator, AC)
Various Materials for support operation (Cable, Connector and tools
3)Access Network: Access Network maintains network performance in terms of regulating

radio frequency, controls transmission protocol; ensure sound network quality by managing
base substation. To carry out those responsibilities they need equipments and thus place
purchase request to the procurement department.
4) Core Network: Core network teams responsibility is to maintain core network operation
through Main Switch Center (MSC), Value Added Service (VAS) and Intelligent Network (IN)
through customized software designed for the specified purpose and thus to provide those
facilities they need to procure equipments related to this responsibility.
This week, I didnt observe new things as I was more busy in the work that was assigned to
me.But one thing that caught my eye was that Bangla link had considerable paper work
whereas I thought that they were a paperless organization. I later learned that Bangla link
has already taken steps to turn into a paperless company and has already achieved certain
percentages of their target.
Notable Incidents
As the month was coming to an end, I saw a lot of auditors in the meeting room beside my
desk this week. Most of the auditors were Indian who seemed very serious about their work.
I was later told that auditors visit the company in the last week of every month to get the
latest updates about the organization. Another thing was that this was the last week before
the eid holiday so everyone seemed to be in a festive mood for the last two work days.
Everything seemed relaxed and happy during the last two days, especially Thursday.
Journal-4(12.10.2014)
On my fourth week, I was working with the non-technical sub-unit of the procurement unit. As
I was a Procurement intern, I have to work with both the technical and non-technical team. In
the first two weeks, I got familiar with the technical unit and now it was time to know more
about the non-technical unit. The non-technical unit consisted of 7 employees who were
assigned into three different groups. I worked with all three of the teams this week. I was
basically told to get rid of the paper works that has piled up for quite some time now.So,I had to
first enter the Purchase Order(PO) number and details in an excel sheet before filing up the
paper works and put them in a separate cabinet. This work was quite hectic as there were more
than 200 Purchase Orders that needed to be registered in a very short period of time. With the
Purchase Order number entries, they wouldnt have been able to release the orders to the
respective number.So, I was told to do it slowly, but correctly so that the margin of error is low.
Apart from the data entry and filing I also learned how to scan papers in a photo copier and also
registered my name in the photo-copier address book. I also called 10 vendors to ask them to
give back a certain file which they havent been giving in a long time. I was given the full
authority while calling and I also reserved the rights to cancel their payments if the miss behave
or disapproves to give that file.
As this was the first time I was working with the non-technical team, I learned what the nontechnical team of procurement actually does. They only deal with the non-technical purchases
that are required by various functional units of the organization.Purchase Requests in the nontechnical part are raised by the following units:
Marketing
Marketing department mainly deals with Public Relation (PR) & Marketing Research.
Furthermore they raise PR for contracts of Bill Boards, T.V. and Radio Advertisements
including the remuneration of models.
Sales
Sales department arranges meetings with the dealers and suppliers to fix contracts in
corporate and regional areas. The Expenditure of arranging the venues and refreshments are
send to non-technical for PO issuance.
Admin
If any branch of Banglalink is opened, its decoration, furniture, generator, UPS etc. are
purchased through procurement non-technical. Moreover, legal related activities include
defending and attempting for law suits, payment of lawyers are approved by this department.
Supply of lunch for the employees in cafeteria and other entertainments for any occasion,
Contract agreement for hiring transport, fuels etc. are approved through Procurement NonTechnical.
IT
All IT equipment like Computers (P.C or Lap Top), Printer, Toner, Scanner etc. and all
Electrical works, LAN works are purchased through procurement non-technical.
Customer Care Department (CCD)
All sorts of logistic supply for CCD, expenditure for conducting training and workshops
including participants food and training materials are raised by CCD to procurement nontechnical.
Human Resources
In providing service training to the officers and employees of Banglalink for skill
development is raised by HR department to procurement non-technical.
As I was working in the same unit for three works now, I didnt observe much of new things
this week. The non-technical team was as well behaved as the technical team and I had a fun
time working with the team.
Notable Incidents
A lot of foreign vendors visited Banglalink this week, mainly because of a big deal regarding
the installments of BTS towers in a few remote loacations.The non-technical team also had two
meetings with an Egyptian Vendor which I got to attend.
Journal-5(19.10.2014)
In my fifth week, I was back to working with the technical team again. The tasks were quite
interesting and time consuming. At the beginning part of the week, I was given a list of more
than 1000 portfolios of the work done by the technical team. I was told to group them according
to some of the headings like field work, soil testing, generator installation etc. was told to use
basic filtering and conditional formatting tools in MS-Excel. Though I knew how to use
filtering, I wasnt really aware of the conditional formatting tool.So, I asked Nazi Bhaiya, who
is the senior executive of the technical procurement team to teach me how to use the tool. He
gleefully agreed and taught me the full usage of the tool in a very short time. I learned that
through conditional formatting, we can easily categorize our entries and highlight them
according to our needs. I was also taught how to find out duplicates in a large file without the
need of going through each and every entry. After that basic training, I got back to working with
my work of categorizing the entries into groups. I was given two weeks to finish the task. The
task was quite interesting and fun. I first removed all the duplicate values in the entries before
getting into the main work. After the removal of duplicate values, there were 890 portfolios
which I needed to categorize. I took me four days to finish it and I was done well ahead of my
deadline of 2 weeks.Nazir Bhaiya was very happy with my work and appreciated me for this.
Learning and Achievement
Apart from learning how to use MS-Excel better and more efficiently, this week I also learned
about the foreign procurement team of Banglalink. The foreign procurement process was a bit
different from the usual local procurement and usually dealt with large money deals.
Banglalink procures from different international suppliers. Mainly they have four
Frame Agreement Suppliers (FAS) from whom they procure major parts for
expansion of network and thus come up with excellent service quality.
The Four suppliers are: 1) Huawei 2) Nokia Siemens Network3) Somitomo Corporation
4) Ericsson
In foreign procurement, there is very little scope of negotiating with Frame
agreement suppliers than other international suppliers like Rosenberger, Drake,
etc.
Before procuring from FAS, Banglalink needs to make an Indent for agreement
purpose.
Whether the agreement is onshore or offshore based should be clearly mentioned
on the indent. Indent is the agreement paper of procuring from frame agreement
suppliers. After preparing the indent, both parties (Buyer and Supplier) have to
sign on this agreement as it is a legal obligation for both parties. Then the indent is
send to Orascom Telecom Holdings (OTH) for approval through the software Qflow.
After the approval from OTH, PO is delivered to suppliers and suppliers then send a
Proforma Invoice (PI) to buyer (Procurement Department) for LC opening process. LC
opening is a major task for procuring internationally. Treasury and Logistics Department
facilitate this procurement process to purchase from international suppliers.
The cards punch in and punch out system was very strictly maintained inside the
organization even with the interns. A total of 9 office hours had to maintained and no
matter where we went, we were told to punch in and punch out our ID-card.The human
resource team of the unit were the most informal unit of the organization as they didnt
have a formal dress code unlike other units. All the employees here seemed qualified and
had the full knowledge of what they were doing.
Notable Incidents
Banglalink recently decided that from now on the intern salaries will be deposited in the
bank accounts. Thus all the interns were told to bring a photo ID, two passport size photos,
and a nominee photo next week as Brac Bank will be coming in the office next week to help
us open a new account. Another incident was that earlier this week, I got a call from Mr.
Kaiser Chowdhury, Senior Manager of the organization development of Human Resource
Management. He just called to follow up on how my life as an intern was going and told to
report any problems regarding the internship directly to him.
Journal-6(26.10.2014)
This was the sixth week of my internship. By now, I have already settled well and was enjoying
the atmosphere around the organization. I have managed to make good rapport with my
colleagues and things were going along pretty well. This week I learned the use of VLookup
tool in MS-Excel and also did some Purchase Order (PO) verification. I was again given a huge
list of work details at the beginning of the week and was told to match the common details
between two excel sheets. Though the task seemed very difficult and time consuming for a
while, through the use of Vlook up, things turned out to be pretty easy. I just had to match the
common files and enter the Vlook up formula to get my desired result. But, Vlook up wasnt
full proof. There were some entries for which Vlookup couldnt find the exact match and thus I
had to go through those entries individually to find the matched value. After the work of
matching through Vlook up was done, I was given another pile of Purchase Order (PO) and was
told to verify the amount in the Purchase Order (PO) by using MS-Excel. To do this, I had to
develop a formula in excel first so that as soon as I enter the values, I get the correct amount.
The formula generating didnt take much time and I finished the work assigned to me well
ahead of my deadline. My supervisor was very pleased with me and took me to a lunch for a
free treat on Thursday.

Apart from the work done this week, I also learned how exactly a Purchase Order (PO) is
issued. Generally the procurement process deals with the receipt of approved purchase request
and ends with the delivery of goods and services by issuing PO (Purchasing Order). Technical
team of procurement issue PO against PR that raise for technical purpose. The issuers of POs
are the buyers of goods and services
After the PO is created by buyer it is reviewed by the supervisor and forwarded to accounts and
budget respectively for approval. After the approval from budget the PO is returned to
procurement for next level of approvals based on PO approval hierarchy. At any stage if PO
is rejected it gets back to buyer for changes or additional information or clarification.
Following is the step-down of PO issuance process
1. Buyer creates PO and sends to supervisor.
2. Supervisor verifies and sends PO to Accounts and Budget for approval.
3. After Budget, approval from HOD of Procurement and User department is required.
4. Lastly, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) provides approval on PO
5. When PO is approved it is handed over to the supplier for delivery of items.
6. After goods are delivered supplier gets signature on delivery chalan from receiver and
submits invoice to procurement along with copy of delivery chalan and PO.
7. Requesting department sends GRS (Goods Received Sheet) to procurement to confirm
receiving of goods.
8. Procurement registers receiving of Goods in Oracle and forwards invoice to accounts
payable.
9. Accounts payable arrange payment to supplier as per payment terms in the PO. For advance
payment procurement mentions advance payment terms in PO a copy of PO is handed over to
accounts payable after approval and advance is made as per terms of PO.
The human resource (HR) was very closely associated with the non-technical team and some of
the senior HR managers makes regular visit to the team to forward their recquests.The contract
and management part of Supply Chain was the latest edition in the Banglalink organization and
they had the smallest team comprising of just 3 full-time employees.
Notable Incidents
This week,Banglalinks full time CFO Mr. Ahmed.Y.Halim came back from his month long
holiday and was greeted gleefully back by all the finance employees. I had the chance to
personally talk to him when he visited my desk and we had a general conversation and he also
took a brief and informal interview of me.
Journal-7(02.11.2014)
This week was quite hectic in terms of work. There were a lot of important and new things done
throughout the week.Bangalalink was developing a new model for their power vendors. Power
vendors are those who work with Bangalalink and take contracts from them for building a
network tower from scratch. The process is quite a lengthy one and the procedure of penalty and
reward were quite complicated and varied from vendors to vendors. This created a lot of
confusion and discrimination. So, to get rid of the unnecessary hassle, Banglalink decided to
implement a new system where by all the rewards and penalty will be same and equal for all the
power vendors. There were a total of 38 vendors who does the power works with Banglalink.
And as the company was about to implement a new model, a clarification meeting needed to be
called so that all the vendors are clear of the new model and were willing to work for building
the network towers. As the number of vendors was quite high and there were shortages of large
rooms, the meeting had to be split into two days and 19 vendors will attend the meeting in one
day. As the meeting was scheduled to happen in only 1 day notice, it was difficult to convince
many vendors to come on time as there were many vendors who were located outside Dhaka. I
was given the responsibility of calling all the vendors and asking them to attend the meeting. I
was also given the authority to say that Banglalink will no longer work with the vendors who
wouldnt attend the meeting on the scheduled day.So, on Sunday, the day before the meeting, I
called 19 vendors and asked them to come to the meeting. Though a few owners were hesitant
to attend, I convinced them to come and on the day of the meeting, all 19 vendors attended it
and my supervisors were extremely pleased with me.So, as a token of appreciation, I was given
the responsibility of arranging the next meeting which was scheduled on thurdsay.I booked the
room, checked with the securities, created the attendance sheet and took the vendors to the
meeting room on the next meeting. As a reward, I was given credit for arranging the gathering
on a speech given at the beginning of the meeting by the Technical Procurement General
Manager, Mr. Saud Al Faisal
This week, I was mostly busy with the arrangements of meeting, so I didnt get much of an
opportunity to learn new stuufs.But I learned a lot in between arranging and attending the
meeting. It was the first time that I was given such important responsibility and I was
determined not to let my line manager down. So, I was very careful while talking to the vendors
and I found out that not all the vendors are well behaved and many of them werent really
happy about the new model that was about to be implemented. This was also the first time that
vendors were calling to me asking for help regarding some issues in the new model. I also
learned how to book a meeting room when needed. The procedure wasnt really hard, I just had
to call Mr. Shahrear, who was the manager of administration and told him to book a room for
the procurement unit on a given day. He checked and available rooms and gave me a return call
specifying the rooms available. After that, I had the right to choose any of the rooms provided it
met my requirements of number of people and computers. After that, I had to send a formal
mail indicating the room number and time of the meeting and the meeting room was officially
booked in the name of the procurement unit.
During this week, I also attended meetings for the first time. I was given official invitation of
the meeting through mail which required me to give my RSVP. Through attending the meeting,
I got to learn many meeting manners and small details regarding the meeting. The meeting
wasnt as formal as I expected it to be and it wasnt that much exhaustive either. The necessary
persons explained the new model with the help of PowerPoint slides and the vendors asked
questions in case of queries. It was quite that simple. I am sure that these small meeting
manners will help me learn more about the organization.
Banglalink had considerable amount of foreign vendors in their power work. There were 4
foreign vendors who attended the meeting regarding the new power model. Two of them
were Egyptian whereas the other 2 were from China. They had a bit of a difficult time in
understanding every bits and details of the meeting as many vendors were asking
questions in Bengali and the answers too were given in Bengali. Another thing that I
observed that the meeting time was strictly followed and all the concerned persons were
never late for meetings. Lastly, I found out that even after the booking of a meeting room,
the concerned authority reserved the rights of cancelling the booking if there is a last
moment reservations but the top level officials of Banglalink.
Notable Incidents
I was quite appreciated about my work today. During the beginning speech of the second
meeting, my name was specifically mentioned and I was thanked for arranging the
meeting successfully in such a short notice. Also, this week the Deputy Head of Supply
Chain, Mr A.Saboor visited my desk to have a casual chat with me.He appreciated my
work and said he was very happy about it.He also asked me to continue giving the effort
that I was giving and wished me all the best.
Journal-8(09.11.2014)
This week was mostly about the follow ups of some previously pending work. In my third
week, I was told to update the vendor database by calling the vendors and asking for their new
phone numbers. In case the phone number was missing, I was told to email the vendors and get
the updated contact details. The idea was to get an updated database as many vendors were
complaining that they dont get the email in time and many others also complained that they do
not get any phone calls from the concerned authority inside the organization. I have been
working on the updates in between other works all these week and this week I submitted the
updated file to my line manager. The updating part was never an easy one. Vendors whose
email was missing were very reluctant to give their email addresses so that they can keep on
stalling the work details. And many others were too rude to talk and said that its none of their
responsibility to send the updated email address. But even worse was in case of missing phone
numbers. Even after continual email, very few people actually replied with their updated details
and I had to run around the technical and administration department collecting numbers of as
many vendors I cant the middle of the week, I submitted my work. Out of 287 vendors, I
managed to update the details of 230 vendors, but the details of the remaining 57 vendors
couldnt be updated. I highlighted the missing part of those 57 vendors and asked my line
manager to take a sterner step so that they update the necessary details. Apart from this work, I
was assigned another work related to vendors this week. All the vendors of Banglalink were
required to sign an anti-corruption and bribery disclosure form which stated the vendors will
abide by the government and company rules and regualtions.Though all the vendors were
required to sign the document and submit the hard copy, 98 vendors didnt yet sign the
document and passed the hard copy to the procurement unit. So I was told to call the vendors
and ask them to give the document instantly. I was given 2 weeks before updating my line
manager with the latest information.
This week, I learned the Purchase request (PR) approval process. When any department feels
the need for standard goods or services, for example, purchasing generators, fixing up lights,
Air conditioners, Servicing of PCs, organizing training or workshop, issuing of employee ID
Cards, maintenance of security systems etc., they raise Purchase Order (PR) or send Request for
Proposal (RFP) to vendors.
The process involves the following RFP activities:
1. User department source vendor for given Scope of Work (SOW).
2. Floating of RFP to potential vendors through official email. The email contains
a. Scope of Work with detail Bill of Quantity (BOQ).
b. The last date and time of submitting the RFP.
c. Vendors submit technical offer and financial offer separately in two sealed envelope or by
soft copy only to procurement department.
d. Request of acknowledgement of RFP along with proper official signature from vendor is
required.
e. In case if any vendor fails to meet the deadline of RFP submission, then the vendor
company needs to take approval from HOD (Head Of the Department) of procurement.
3. After receiving the offers (Technical and Financial) from vendors, procurement department
forward the technical offer to the requester or user department for further evaluation.
4. Whereas the financial offer from the vendor, remains with procurement and are opened in
presence of at least two members of procurement, to maintain transparency.
5. Financial offer should have following information (These information should be
communicated with the vendor before RFP float):
a. Clear Price information including VAT/TAX as per Govt. Rule
b. Delivery / work completion time
c. Validity of offer
d. Warranty terms (if applicable)
e. Payment term
6. After technical evaluation from user department, a negotiation meeting is called from
procurement either by mail or by making call. If there are more than three approved vendors,
the selection committee will choose three vendors with lowest asking price. It is mandatory that
at least two members of procurement to be present in all negotiation meeting.
7. On the basis of negotiation, a Comparative Statement (CS) is prepared mentioning the final
price of goods or services agreed upon by the company along with the approval of
corresponding line manager and HOD of procurement. CS also contains proper User evaluation
of technical documents.
The word transfer is pretty common inside the organization. The employees regularly shift
from one department to another. It is a part of the rotation process and is expected to improve
the integrity of the individual. As an intern, I too have to go under a rotation program of 2-3
weeks and the details of it are supposed to announce sometime next week.
Notable Incidents
All the employees in the procurement unit (both technical and non-technical) went to an Indian
restaurant called Angar this Tuesday to have lunch. As a part of the procurement team, I was
invited there as well. All the payment was made by Mr. Sayeed Ahmed, the General Manager of
the Procurement unit. The reason behind this outing was to get a bit of relaxation from all the
hard work and hectic work schedule. The unit was very busy for the past two weeks regarding
the new power model and other issuance of Purchase Orders (PO).Thus, the lunch was a part of
appreciation of all the hard work.
Journal-9(16.11.2014)
This week, I continued doing last weeks work. I called all the 98 vendors who didnt sign the
anti-corruption and bribery disclosure form and asked them to submit the form at the earliest
possible time. Though all the vendors were in some kind of contract with Banglalink,
surprisingly a few of the vendors disagreed to sign the form saying it was against their company
rules. I forwarded the name of those vendors to Mr. Nazirul Islam Khan, the senior executive of
the Procurement unit and asked him to take necessary actions about it.Around 50 vendors
signed the document and sent it to the Dispatch Centre at Bangla links head office. I went and
collected the forms individually for a few vendors. At the end of each day this week, I put the
newly collected forms of the day in a single file and kept an updated record of it in an MS-Excel
file. By the end of the week, I had a total of 62 contracts out of the 98 contracts that I was told
to collect. Apart from collecting those anti-corruption form, I had to arrange a meeting again
and this time the subject of the meeting was Internet Bandwidth. It was actually a pre bid
meeting where the suppliers of the bandwidth will ask questions about their queries related to
the proposed new system of internet supplier package. There were 6 vendors who were asked to
attend the meeting and all 6 of them attended the meeting on Thursday. I attended the meeting
as well and learned a few more meeting manners along with some technical details regarding
the internet packages.
As I called many vendors this week, I learned where most of the vendors where located and
how long they have been working with Banglalink.Banglalink doesnt have a general contract
with any of their vendors and all the contracts are actually made on task basis.Banglalink keeps
a database of every vendors they worked with in the past 1 year and every time a new tender
needs to be circulated, they send the mail to the every vendor who have worked with them in
the respective field in the last 1 year. Most of the vendors did multiple tasks with them and they
are grouped accordingly. Choosing a particular vendor is made through the tender bidding and
few companies with the lowest bids and good technical details get into the next part which is
further negotiation. The final vendor for a particular project is selected on both the technical and
financial details. Also this week I have learned about the new internet bandwidth package that
Bangla link was offering to its vendors. There were 6 vendors who were interested in working
with Bangla link regarding the internet supply. I learned a few technical details, like Bangla link
uses Cisco system for their internet and so on. I also learned that the new business model has a
major loophole and it in turn convers the revenue of the vendors to negative in some cases. The
issue was dealt swiftly and the business team was already working to cover up the loop hole.
This week was mostly about learning the meeting manners. I learned that the technical team
leaves the matter of new business plan regarding the internet packages to the procurement unit
who first develops the model and then puts it in to the table of a meeting.Also, I saw that during
the meeting, even if there was a disagreement between the technical and procurement team,
they keep within themselves and doesnt let the vendors get any idea of the disagreement. The
vendors who attended the meeting this week were pretty well behaved and most of them greeted
me very cordially and seemed to have the perfect knowledge about what they were doing.
Notable Incidents
This week on Wednesday while I was working with the updates of the vendor information,
suddenly Mr. Ahemd Saboor, the Deputy Director of the Supply Chain came to my desk and
asked me to follow him. I was a bit worried at first as I wasnt sure what I was called for. When
I went to this desk, he gifted me a special diary of Bangla link and said it was a token of
appreciation for all the hard and good work I have done so farcie was very happy and thanked
him for the gift. After that, we had a small informal chat about some personal stuff.
Journal-10(23.11.2014)
This was my 10th week of internship in Banglalink. This week was totally different from other
weeks as I had my rotation program scheduled. Rotation program is where all the interns of
Banglalink get transferred to other units to get a birds eye view of the entire organization. This
week, we were transferred to the CCD department which was the Customer Care Department.
At the beginning of the week, we were greeted by Ms. Shamrita Anwar, who was the head of
the Training and Development Unit of Customer Care Department (CCD) .She at first, gave us
a schedule of the weeklong rotation program in her department. The 24 interns were divided
into 4 groups of 6 people each and they will be roaming around together in all the CCD units to
get a better idea of how things inside the department works. I was in group 2 and out of 6 group
members, 3 people including me were from North South University where the others were from
Brac University. On our first day, we were told to go Medona Tower which was located in
Mohakhali.Medona Tower is the home of the 2nd largest branch of Banglalink.Before going to
Medona Tower; we were given the details of the contact person with whom we will be
communicating throughout the day. The name of the contact person was Mr. Mobydur Rahman
and he was the head of the ICON department of Banglalink.As soon as we reached there, we
were greeted gleefully by Mr. Mobydur Rahman and then after a brief introduction from both
the sides, he left was with Ms. Susan, who guided us throughout the day. She was very friendly
and knowledgeable. At first, she went through all the packages that were offered to the ICON
members. ICON members are the most premium customers of Banglalink and they get many
special privileges as a member of ICON. For a person to be an ICON member, he needs to buy
a special package from Banglalink worth a minimum of Tk. 2500 and a person must have a
safety deposit of to 2500 minimum. All the Sims of ICON was postpaid and the get many
special discounts and free offers from many outlets all over the country. For each ICON
member, there is a designated ICON Manager who takes care of all the problems of that ICON
member. ICON members were given special pampering according to the ICON team as they
were extremely special and are often the business tycoons of the country. During our visity, we
got to see how an ICON manager communicates with the ICON members over the phone. We
were also told that were significant field work involved in that sector as the ICON managers
needed to visit the ICON members from time to time. We also learned how the ICON members
can ask for their desired numbers and how the process of giving the desired numbers is started.
The unit wasnt very big and throughout the day, we got to see all the different parts of the unit.
At the end of the day, we were given an Icon pen as a gift from the ICON team. On our second
day, we visited the CRM(Credit Risk Management) sector of Banglalink.As was particularly
very interested in this visit as I never knew there was a CRM unit in a telecom company. In my
visit there, I learned that the CRM unit was divided into three parts:1)ERM(Enterprise Resource
Management) 2)NOERM and 3)SSU(Special Service Unit).Throughout our visity,we were
given briefings about how things inside CRM works.CRM team only works with the postpaid
customers of Banglalink and they try to minimize the bad debts as much as they can to do this,
several steps are taken and they informed us that the bad debt percentage amounts to 2-5 % of
the total receivables. At the beginning of the year, the higher authority puts a cap on how much
the bad debt can amount to and the team has to abide within the given limit. Throughout day,
we were given further briefings of how they work and by the end of the day; we had a good
knowledge of how CRM inside Banglalink works.
On our 3rd day, we had to go the customer care line unit of CCD.This wing was mainly the call
center where customers call and ask for solutions to their proble.This session wasnt very
long.We sat beside a customer care agent and listened to live phone calls. We listened to how a
customer agent deals with customers via phone. We learned that a customer agent has to be in
duty for 9 hours a day and though out the day, they receive hundreds of phone calls. The
interesting part was that there was a mirror in front of every customer agent and we were told
that this mirror helps them to control their temper in case a customer misbehaved with
them.Fortunately,none such incident happen when I was there listening to the phone calls. This
session ended quite early and we were allowed to go home early.
Om our 4th day, we had to go to the Gulshan 2 Sales center or more commonly known as the
Banglalink care center. This session was very short too and like the other day; we sat behind a
customer care representative and saw how they deal with live customer problems. The process
was very similar to the call center unit of Banglalink. During our visity, we got to learn how the
customer care representatives are evaluated. The day too ended a bit early and we were told to
leave at around 3.00 P.M. With this, we marked the end of the rotation program this week and
were told to wait for a mail regarding schedule of next weeks rotation program.
Journal-11(30.11.2014)
This was my 2nd last week in Banglalink. And I had my second week of rotation program this
week.So, I wasnt working in my originally assigned department again this week. This weeks
rotation program was a bit different from last weeks. I had my rotation program in two
different departments this week: in the SME sales department and in the Trade Marketing unit
of Sales Department. I had no task to do this week apart from getting familiar with the two units
that I was assigned. In my first day, I had to travel to Medona Tower, another corporate office
of Banglalink for my rotation in the SME sales department. I was greeted there by Mr.
S.M.Shahin Dualiayman, who was the head of the SME sales department of Banglalink. After
the brief introduction of each other, he took me to a conference room where he was preparing
for a presentation that he was about to give to me regarding SME sales in Banglalink.Mr.
Dualiayman was a very knowledgeable person and he knew exactly what he was doing. With
the help of some PowerPoint slides, he explained to me how SME sales work in Banglalink.
The SME sales department wasnt a very big one and it was targeted towards small companies
whose maximum number of connections were 15.So, it wasnt that big of a sector but needed
some careful handling as the sector was growing and even the Government are wanting people
to invest more in SMEs.As a result, the demand of the sector was ever-rising and so the phone
operators had a competition among themselves about who were going faster and better. As per
MR. Dualiayman s information, Banglalink is actually ahead of its competitors in terms of
SME sales and they are determined in keeping the number one position in the SME sales sector.
To continue this, the company is working really hard in finding the right packages and tariffs
for the right vendors all the time. Apart from the SME sales, he also gave me a brief idea about
how corporate sales work inside the organization. If the total number of connections are more
than 15, then it is called a corporate connection inside Banglalink.As of now, the biggest
corporate client of Banglalink is Pran-RFL, and they are also constantly negotiating with
RahimAfrooz to get their connections as well.Mr Dualiayman also said that competition in
corporate sales is even more fearsome than the competition in SME sales and a small mistake
can result a loss in corporate client. The packages and tariffs of the corporate clients are
adjusted according to the needs of individual clients and the rates are adjusted according to their
needs. After the discussion, we went to have lunch together and after that Mr. Dualiayman
introduced me to the other employees. The staffs of the SME sales department were really
friendly and I had a good time spending the second half of the day with them. My daylong
rotation in the SME sales department ended with an Ice-Cream treat from Mr. Dualiayman.
On the 2nd day of the week, I was back to the corporate headquarters where I was supposed to
work with the Trade Marketing team for the rest of the week. Trade Marketing was an unit of
Sales department and it generally includes Mobile Banking-Bills, E-Top UP and Mobile
Remittance Services. This unit wasnt a very big one but was indeed one of the most technical
unit of the company. Banglalink was very new in giving these services and thus the company
was moving slowly in these sector so that they can ensure smooth running of the available
services. The E-bill service included the payment of internet bills, Electricity and water bills
with the help of a Banglalink number. The team told me that each moth Banglalink get a
revenue of more than Tk. 16 Crore form this unit alone. The Mobile banking service was
synchronized with Dutch Bangla Bank Ltd. And person with a Banglalink connection can
handle their Dutch Bangla Account with the help of their Banglalink conncection.Other Trade
marketing services includes Purchase of Train Tickets,Bkash and others. The team was very
new and relatively small so I was done with all the introductions and know-how within one
day.Again, like the rotation program in SME sales, I had a very good time and was greeted well
by everyone in the team.
My rotation program ended on the 4th day of the week, i.e on Wednesday. I worked with the
SME sales department again for one day and on the other day I stayed in the headquarter to
work with the Trade Marketing team. I observed how they worked and found out that the work
environment across the organization was very similar and most of the people had the similar
working style and hours. It was indeed a nice experience in the rotation program and after 2
weeks of roataion, I believe now I have a better knowledge and knowhow of the organization as
a whole.
Journal-12(07.12.2014)
This week I came back to my originally assigned unit after two weeks of rotation program. This
was also my last full week as an intern in Banglalink. The week was very hectic. As the year is
about to end, auditors are coming to visit the departments soon to make their report, thus there
is last moment rush in the preraprations.The most monotonous and hectic part was finding the
documents that were originally filed and put in a shelf. As there was no digitalized record of the
files being shelved, all the necessary documents had to be searched manually and then put back
to the place again. And as an intern, I was given the job of finding files for the members of my
team. It wasnt easy at all. First of all, most of the shelves where the files were kept were locked
and keys were lost too.So, I had to contact the admin support first and request them to open the
locked shelves. The admin took their time, but when they eventually came, they were unable to
find the keys themselves.Thus, they had to make the keys first and then open it.It took
considerable amount of the already tight schedule and the Procurement unit had to pay some
extra charges as a penalty of losing the keys. Even after the locks were open, finding the files
were never easy. The shelves were categorized according to the name of the vendors but time to
time as the files were being re used, they eventually jumbled everything up.So,For Example,
when I opened the shelf of files containing Nokias record, I found out that Huaweis files were
there too. Same thing opened for other files as well.So, I had to look individually through all the
shelves to find the desired files. I was told to find 7 files that were needed for auditing. I
managed to find 5 of them and even after going through all the files all over again, I was unable
to find the other two. It was later found that the two files that were missing were reused and
never put back to their original location. Thus they were fully lost.
After the work of finding the files were done, I was given the responsibility of scanning the
record of new vendors and updating them in the archive folder. The procurement unit has more
than 200 vendors overall, and all of them needed to submit certain documents before being
officially recognized as a vendor. The documents were submitted through hard copies and the
general rule of the organization needed to keep soft copies of the documents.However,as the
team always seemed to remain busy, none really bothered to make soft copies of the documents
through scanning.But,as mentioned earlier, the year was coming to an end and auditors were
knocking on the door, everyone was trying to update their records so that the auditors do no
complain about such things.Thus,I was given the responsibility of scanning the hard copies of
the document and put them in an archive folder and update them in the official website. The
task wasnt brainstorming, but was extremely tiring. There were five types of Documents a
vendor needed to submit: Vendor Application Form, Bank Solvency Report, Declaration Form,
Trade License, TIN and VAT registration form and Non-Disclosure and Confidentiality
Agreement (NDA).I had to scan each of the documents separately, then put them in a single
folder and then put every folder in the archive file and update them in the website. On top of
that, I had to keep an Excel file containing the name of the vendors and the document submitted
to be used for future referencing. Doing this took considerable amount of time, but by the end of
the week, I was able to finish the task altogether and I managed to scan and update the files of
120 vendors. I was very well appreciated by my line manager for the work I have done and at
the end of the day, all the hard work was worth it.
Overall, this is my last journal and also was the last full week in Banglalink.As had a good time
having my first corporate exposure as a fresh business graduate and the experience here is worth
remembering. I met some really good people, especially my full team, who was really
supportive and helpful throughout the last three months.Finally; I had a really good time with
the fellow interns of my floor as well. The internship program will officially end with an exit
interview which is scheduled on the 14th of December. The final report preparation is going on
at full swing and an update about the report will be given very shortly.

Amit Sharafath Al Rahman

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Amit Sharafath Al Rahman

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Date:23.12.

Amit Sharafath Al Rahman

The Procurement Unit

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