Customer-Driven Marketing Strategy

On

Ms. Mehnaaz Samantha Kamal

Lecturer
Department of Marketing & International Business

Submitted By
Name ID

Dipta Chowdhury 181 195 1630

Md. Jawad Masroor 181 233 4030

Farhat Maisha Roopkotha 181 158 3630

Naima Hussain Afsana 152 032 4630

Muhammad Abdullah Al Fahim 142 020 8030

 Letter of Transmittal
31 August 2018

Ms. Mehnaaz Samantha Kamal

Lecturer, Department of Marketing

North South University

Subject: Submission of final report on Banglalink.

Dear Ma’am,

We have done our report on Bangalink as you instructed us to do so. It is a privilege to have the
chance of preparing the project on Banglalink which helped us to know about the company more
and to learn the marketing strategies they are using to serve their market. In this report, we have
included all the necessary information, you have instructed us to provide which includes stp,
marketing mix, product/market expansion grid, swot analysis etc. This project was really
challenging and fun to work on.

In the end, we would like to add that without your help and guidance it wouldn’t be possible. We
put our best efforts and followed the structure you have provided us.

Sincerely Yours,

Naima Hussain Afsana 152 032 4630

Farhat Maisha Roopkotha 181 158 3630

Dipta Chowdhury 181 195 1630

Md. Jawad Masroor 181 233 4030

Muhammad Abdullah Al Fahim 142 020 8030

 Acknowledgment
The success and final outcome of this project needed loads of steering and help from many of us
and that I am very privileged to possess got this right along the completion of my project. All
that I actually have done is just because of such direction and help and that I wouldn't forget to
convey them.

I respect and convey Ms. Mehnaaz Samantha Kamal for her valuable suggestions and guidelines
regarding this report which made things much easier for us. I’m very appreciative to her for
providing such a pleasant support and steering, though she had a busy schedule managing the
academic affairs.

I am very thankful to my groupmates who contributed their effort and time for this report. I
would not forget to recollect Naima, Farhat, Jawad and Dipto for their encouragement and
additional over for their timely support and contribution until the completion of our project work.

I am appreciative to and lucky enough to urge constant encouragement, support, and steering
from all my groupmates and teacher that helped us a lot in finishing our project work.

Muhammad Abdullah Al Fahim

On behalf of

Group Banglalink
 Executive Summary
This report was undertaken by us as a requirement of MKT202– Introduction to Marketing. It
reflects the overall scenario of Banglalink as a telecom giant of Bangladesh and marketing
activities related to Banglalink as an organization. There were set guidelines to answer and
according to the publicly available information, relation to the theories we have been taught at
class, and our best judgment towards the understanding of introduction to Marketing, we have
decorated our report. Banglalink, as a conglomerate telecom giant is a single business entity
which is really thriving in under its broad product portfolio; there is voice call, data bundle, SMS
bundle and many other product categories like phone call rate packages, postpaid and prepaid
roaming facility and so on. Banglalink is trying to reach the current market leader position
securing the highest portion of new subscribers in the existing mobile operator market.
Banglalink is planning to enhance its market share by twofold within 2019, and according to this
target, they are expanding.

In this report, we talked about how Banglalink is segmenting its customers, what type of
targeting strategy they are using, what sort of value they are providing to their customers. We
also went through its competitor analysis by which we analyzed the whole market dynamics.
From the discussion of the marketing mix, we got to know about its packages, the price range,
and its geographical coverage. From its promotional activities, it is clear that Banglalink is trying
to capture the highly competitive telco market by providing low call rates, freebies and free data
and other promotional offers. Form internal analysis we found out its strengths and weaknesses,
which helped us to predict its business growth. From the external analysis, we saw some future
threats and opportunities, which helped us to draw a conclusion about Banglalink’s future
possibilities.
 Table of Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1
Company Background ........................................................................................................................... 1
Purpose of the Study .............................................................................................................................. 2
Segmentation Analysis .................................................................................................................. 2
Segmentation........................................................................................................................................... 2
Targeting.................................................................................................................................................. 3
Value Proposition ................................................................................................................................... 3
Marketing Mix .............................................................................................................................. 4
Product ..................................................................................................................................................... 4
Pricing ...................................................................................................................................................... 7
Place ......................................................................................................................................................... 7
Promotion ................................................................................................................................................ 7
Strategy Analysis ........................................................................................................................... 9
Major Competitors ................................................................................................................................. 9
Direct Competitors ................................................................................................................................. 9
Indirect Competitors ............................................................................................................................ 10
SWOT Analysis .................................................................................................................................... 10
Product/Market Expansion Grid ......................................................................................................... 12
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 13
Introduction
Company Background

Banglalink was launched in 2005, and over a decade their number of subscribers has increased to
more than 30 million. Banglalink was the medium in making mobile telephone affordable for
consumers in Bangladesh. Banglalink’s mission was to bring mobile phones to the masses, and
this mission was the foundation of Banglalink’s strategy which led them to achieve their initial
success. Banglalink is fueled with strong core values such as Customer-obsessed,
Entrepreneurial, Innovative, Collaborative & Truthful, with these values, Banglalink is now
focusing towards building a true digital Bangladesh by moving away from a traditional mobile
operator company to a tech company.

Banglalink’s core focus is customer experience, and for that reason, digitalization has become a
necessity in order to update the way customers engage, communicate, operate both internally and
externally, and offer services from the traditional way of business to Digital/Online. Banglalink’s
goal is to let its customers get the best out of the digital future and create a true digital ecosystem
by providing products that suit the demands of customers.

The growth of Banglalink over the years has been fueled with innovative products and services
targeting different market segments while improving the network quality has caused Banglalink
to grow. Banglalink’s Headquarter is the first certified Green Office by World Wide Fund for
Nature (WWF) in Bangladesh. The company to some extent has formed a flat organization.
Telecom Ventures Ltd. which is a 100% owned subsidiary of Global Telecom Holding entirely
owns Banglalink Digital Communications Limited.

51.9% shares of global telecom holding are owned by Veon following a business combination in
April 2011, between VEON ltd. Wind telecom. Veon is a global provider of connectivity listed
by NASDAQ and Euronext Amsterdam. Veon currently serves over 235 million customers, and
its ambition is to lead the personal internet revolution for its current customers and many others
in the years to come. Veon offers its services to Russia, Italy, Algeria, Pakistan, Uzbekistan,
Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Georgia, and Laos under
the brand names “Beeline”, “Kyivstar”, “WIND”, “Jazz”, “Banglalink”, and “Djezzy”.

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Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this report is to know about the Banglalink’s overall strategy to attain a customer,
what sort of marketing strategy they use, how they run their promotional activities, who are their
competitors and how they predict risk associated with their business. We used different tools like
swot, Ansoff matrix for deep insights about Banglalink.

Segmentation Analysis

Segmentation

Banglalink has already established its reputation as a low-cost telecommunication service to the
general mass. They already have a huge client base which is around 3.2 crores and still growing.
To get a precise idea and to understand its huge customer base, we went through a segmentation
process to pinpoint its actual customers. Through our segmentation analysis, we identified what
sort of customers they are serving.

Demographic Segmentation: To understand more Age 14 to 65+

about customer dynamics of Banglalink we went Gender Male and Female
through the most important elements of Religion All
demographic segmentation like age, gender, Income 8000 to1,20,000+
religion, income, and education from which we Education All
pointed out the actual age of their customers starting Occupation All
from age 14 to 65 years old.

Geographic Segmentation: Banglalink is providing service throughout the country, so it is

providing its service almost in all the urban, suburban and rural areas.

Psychographic Segmentation: Through psychographic segmentation analysis we identified the

attitude, values, and interest of our customers towards the brand. From this analysis, we found
out the customer perceive Banglalink as low-cost network service provider. Since they are
targeting people of all the classes, from that we came to a conclusion that the consumer base

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follows different lifestyles because of the class variance and have a different attitude towards the
brand.

Behavioral Segmentation: Behavioral segmentation helped us a lot to create the consumer

profile of Banglalink. Since Banglalink is a service oriented company, so to understand
customer’s behavioral patterns, this segmentation is really important. User rate, user status, user
loyalty are the key patterns by which we analyzed their customer behavior.

Occasion: Banglalink provides different promotional offers on various occasions for their
customers. Eid offers, Boishaki offers etc. are among those.

Usage Rate: How frequently the customers are availing offers, which packages they are using,
the rate of their usage, depending on all these information Banglalink provide promotional offers
to their customers.

Loyalty: For loyal customers, Banglalink has these special packages and they offer different call
rates.

Targeting

Banglalink is using mass marketing, also known as an undifferentiated marketing strategy,

involves the entire market as their target market in which they are operating in. It ignores
segmentation and targets a homogeneous group and provides a general offer and marketing mix
to everyone in the industry.

The communication strategy of mass marketing is less personal and its objective is to reach as
much audience as it can. So the mediums are basically television, radio, and print media. The
overall success of this strategy depends on the reach and marketing tactics.

Value Proposition

Banglalink was launched in 2005 with a simple mission “Bringing mobile telephony to the
masses” which led to their initial success.

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Their strategy from the beginning was to make mobile phones an affordable option for the
consumers in Bangladesh. The value proposition strategy of Banglalink is its low call rates and
attractive offers compared to those of their competitors. Banglalink offers one of the cheapest
prepaid plans in our country. They also had the slogan “Ek Desh, Ek Rate” which means one
country, one rate. They use product based positioning strategy. They also promote an
entrepreneurial mindset trough their brand activities. Banglalink Ennovator, Next Tuber are their
trademark shows by which they promote entrepreneurial ideas and help individuals with funds

Banglalink uses both above the line and below the line advertising strategy. For above the line,
they use TV advertisement, magazines, and newspaper. For below the line advertisement, they
use SMS, website advertising, and direct marketing. Banglalink has already established itself as a
low-cost service provider in the market. They have many different packages to offer to their
customers, all these packages are priced differently to make it affordable for a wider range of
people. For example, they offer 40 minutes talk time (any operator), 25 SMS, 25 MB internet for
Tk.24 only with a validity of 3 days. At the same time, anther package of theirs includes 212
minutes talk time (any operator), 200 SMS and 200 MB internet for Tk.123 with a validity of 30
days. That’s the extent to which their packages vary, thus making it available and affordable for
a larger group of people.

Marketing Mix

Product

Product/Packages of Banglalink: Banglalink offers different types of offer and customer

oriented packages. They are:

 Pre-paid
 Post-paid
 Pro-paid

Pre-paid: Pre-paid connection of Banglalink allows you to talk with your connections based on
the amount you put in your account. You have to recharge amount if you run out of mobile

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balance. Under this pre-paid system Banglalink offers variety of packages. We are going to
discuss some of the most used packages of Banglalink.

Banglalink “Desh Ek Rate Darun”: Banglalink “Desh ek rate darun” is the default package for
all the new connections. This package has a call rate which is only 22 paisa/10 seconds only for
any local voice calls.

Package Highlights (Source: Banglalink Desh Ek Rate Darun, 2018)

The tariff plan is with a flat rate of 22 paisa/10 seconds to all local connections. They are giving
10-second pulse in the connection. The free migration number to get this package is
*999*1*146#. All prepaid customer of this product can migrate to other packages. (Banglalink
Desh Ek Rate Darun, 2018)

Tariff Plan of “Desh Ek Rate Darun”

Call type Time window Paisa/10 second pulse

Banglalink-Banglalink 24 hours 22

Banglalink-Other Operator 24 hours 22

SMS Type Time window Paisa/SMS

All local SMS 24 hours 50

Source: Banglalink Desh Ek Rate Darun, (2018)

Post-paid: Post-paid connections are for those who want uninterrupted service. Post-paid offer
packages which have remarkably low call rates. Billing system allows customers to talk with any
interruption. A customer can pay his/her bills on a monthly basis.

Banglalink Inspire

Inspire package offers new features of the post-paid user with low rates and a lot of FNF
numbers and other promotional offers and service facilities.

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Package Highlights (Banglalink Inspire, 2018.)

New users of this package will get 300 SMS/month to any other call operator, 100 MB/month
internet. This package will also provide 3 months free Amar tune subscription and news
subscription.

Tariff Plan of Banglalink Inspire

Tariff/min (tk.)
Call Type
10 PM - 4 PM 4 PM - 10 PM
FNF call rate (any net) 54p 54p
Call rate (BL-BL) 99p 1.23tk
Call rate (BL-Others) 99p 1.23tk
CUG professional / Supplementary 54p 54p
Source: Banglalink Inspire, (2018)

Pro-paid: Pro-paid targets new professionals. It provides value for money service with internet
bundles, the partnership offers and pay as you go rate to make peoples life convenient. (Pro-paid
333, 2018)

Pro-paid 333 and Pro-paid 222 are similar kinds of packages of Banglalink which target
customers are new executives, business professionals, entrepreneurs.

Package Highlights (Source: Pro-paid 333, 2018.)

 Daily Data Delight: Offers free internet with pro-paid bundles. This package is usable
from 12 am to 10 am.
 Career Partnership: The user of the package will get 20% off in bd jobs training.
 Lifestyle Partnership: User of this connection get a 10% discount at Daraz.com.
 Music Solution: User will get free 30 days music subscription in the first 30 days.
 Flat PAYG Rate

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Pricing

Price Penetration Strategy

Banglalink uses price penetration strategy which aims to attract customer by lowering the price
of the service. Banglalink already established itself as a low-cost mobile service operator. This
pricing strategy draws customers’ attentions and triggers other customers who use a similar type
of product or service. They made a huge impact with this pricing strategy in the market when
they emerged as a mobile operator in Bangladesh. While it took the business pioneer over six
years to achieve its initial million subscribers, Banglalink came to in this figure just in just 12
months, with a yearly development rate of 2825% (2005) in the business.

Place

Banglalink is presently in operation in 64 districts and 447 thanas of Bangladesh. It is covering

most the geo-graphic locations of our country. Still, it's increasing its network to hide additional
thanas. Banglalink is making an attempt to enhance its service through uninterrupted mobile
service system in each region to satisfy their client base.

Promotion

To create a clear and distinctive image into the general mass’s minds Banglalink has taken an
integrated communication strategy in which they are doing 360-degree marketing activities.
Their promotional activities are visible in almost all promotional mediums. Banglalink has taken
its promotional activities into three lines.

 Above the Line (ATL)

 Below the Line (BTL)
 Through the :Line (TTL)

ATL Promotion: ATL activities are those kind of promotional activities which actually run on
the mass media like television, newspaper, magazines, billboards, sponsored events. Banglalink
is running their promotional activities in all of these mediums.

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Television Advertisement: Television is the most watched medium in our country. By placing
advertising in this medium Banglalink is getting maximum exposure from the customers as well
as from the leads. Banglalink put a great emphasis on television commercials. They always try to
convey a meaningful message and also their product’s call to action from their advisements.

Billboards: Billboards are the visual

representation of products, offers, and service.
Banglalink placed its billboards in the busiest
areas of our country to get maximum attention
from the customers. They are covering almost
all the important places in our country with
their billboard advertising to get maximum
exposure from the customers.

Newspapers: Newspaper is one of the powerful tools of promotion to reach the mass people.
Providing print advertisements in daily newspapers like Prothom Alo, Bangladesh Protidin,
Kaaler Kontho, and Daily Star help them to get maximum reach of their promotional offers.

Event Sponsorship

Banglalink has also sponsored events to promote their brand name and to increase the reputation
among their customers.

 Ennovators
 Next Tuber
 Sponsoring Concerts
 Drama Sponsorship

BTL Activities: Promotional activities which are targeted to focus groups like posters, websites,
direct marketing are known as BTL activities. Besides the mass media activities, Banglalink also
focuses on these activities.

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Through the Line Activities: In this era of digital marketing, Banglalink is most visible in
social media like Facebook, You tube. You can see their advertisements in these mediums which
actually show their promotional activities are in all the mediums of advertising.

Strategy Analysis

Major Competitors
Telecommunication industry of Bangladesh is highly competitive because there are relatively
few competitors in the industry so customer’s switching options are limited.

Players like Grameenphone, Robi Axiata and Airtel are fighting head in head to acquire the huge
potential customer base. But Banglalink has the upper hand and already acquired a subsequent
customer’s base by its low call rates promotional offers and service. But recent induction of
Government rules and regulation made the competition even tougher than before. Side by side
there are also threats from indirect competitors like WhatsApp, Messenger, and Viber who are
offering free call services which is why consumers are shifting their concerns to these mobile
applications which are causing more harm to the telecommunication industry.

Direct Competitors
Grameenphone

Grameenphone is the first provider for Bangladeshi

telecommunication service which is now nearly covering 99%
network coverage of total Bangladeshi area. Since this is the
first telecommunication provider of our country so it has
already created a brand reputation among the customers for
what it is really hard for a new brand to create a good customer value in the market. With more
than 70 million subscribers and more than half market share Grameenphone is now leading the
market.

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Robi Axiata/Airtel

Robi emerged as the second mobile service provider in Bangladesh after

Grameenphone. Before merging with Airtel, Banglalink was the market
challenger of Grameenphone. After the merger happened in 2016 with Airtel,
Robi axiata Limited became the second leading telecommunication brand in
Bangladesh. Now it has nearly 42 million subscribers with 68 billion revenue
also. As a market challenger, Robi is giving tough competition to Banglalink.

Indirect Competitors

Nowadays people are more getting used to with free calls and messages applications. And these
applications are indirect competitors of Banglalink. Apps like Viber, Messenger, and WhatsApp
etc. are providing free calls and messages to their users, that’s why these apps are big threats for
Banglalink. If people are able to call and message to their favorite free, they will avoid the
telecommunication. That’s why these apps are indirect competitors beside direct competitors.

SWOT Analysis

The term SWOT refers to Strengths(S), Weaknesses(W), Opportunities(O), Threats(T) of a

business organization. The strengths and weaknesses are the internal capabilities, positive
situational factors, and the internal limitations of a company. Whereas the opportunities and
threats include the external environment of the company. Veon made a huge investment in the
telecommunication service of Banglalink, which is a huge advantage for their future approach.
On the other hand, weaknesses like poor 3g internet service or poor customer service can affect

10
their market shares when they have competitors like Grameenphone and Robi Axiata Ltd. and
that is a threat to Banglalink.

Strengths: Strength is an internal factor of SWOT, which includes capabilities and positive
situational factors that may help the company serve its customers, and achieve its objectives.
Bangalink’s great strength is their brand name itself. Over the years Banglalink has created great
consumer value and is considered as a reliable brand by the people. In addition to that, their low
call rates and offers are creating a positive impact on the customers.

Weaknesses: Weakness is the other internal factor of a company which includes internal
limitations and negative situational factors that may interfere with the company’s performance.
The telecommunication industry is extremely competitive causes Banglalink to face certain
challenges as well. Due to Banglalink’s weak network coverage and poor geographical coverage,
people are getting more interested in other operators. Weaknesses such as poor 3g and 4g speed
and poor customer service are also creating a negative impact on the company’s overall
performance.

Opportunities: It is an external factor of a company. Opportunities are favorable factors or

trends in the external environment that the company may be able to exploit to its advantage.
Banglalink is still not the number one telecommunication service provider of Bangladesh, but it
has the potentiality to be number one. Proper utilization of its opportunities can make Banglalink
the number one telecom organization in Bangladesh. Opportunities like new digitization policy
from the government and investment support from the mother company, increasing mobile
internet user can create a strong position for Banglalink.
Threats: The other external factor of a company is threats. The threats are what challenges the
company’s performance. Threats like government legislation, new rules are impacting the
company. As there are only a few telecommunication companies in Bangladesh, a price war
among the brands exists, and Banglalink is getting a tough competition from Grameenphone and
Robi. There are also applications such as Messenger, Viber, Whatsapp etc. which allow the users
to make free calls and messages online, and that’s why these applications are also considered as
threats for Banglalink, but an indirect one.

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Product/Market Expansion Grid

The Product Market Expansion Grid, also known as the Ansoff matrix, is a business analysis tool
by which a company determines the growth of the business strategies by analyzing the
relationship between new and existing products, new and existing markets, and the measure the
possible risk associated with each relationship. This matrix helps growth objectives through the
introduction of existing or new products, in existing or new markets.

We use this matrix so that companies can plot new and existing products and markets and the
risk associated with each corresponding strategy with their position on the grid. Strategy
development with existing products and markets has low risk but with new product and market
the risk increases.

So, for better analysis, we went through this matrix to understand Banglalink’s current market
dynamics. Ansoff matrix has four different strategies which predict the possibilities risk or growth of the
new or existing products and markets. These are:

 Market Penetration Strategy

 Market Development Strategy
 Product Development Strategy
 Diversification Strategy

Market Penetration Strategy: Banglalink has its service in 64 districts and 447 thanas. They
have a customer base of around 32.61 million, and they are serving them with their existing
packages and exciting promotional offers.

Market Development Strategy: The hill areas of Bangladesh which are Rangamati,
Khagrachori, Bandarban are still an untapped market for telecommunication companies. Robi is
the only network coverage provider in those areas. So Banglalink has this opportunity to acquire
new customers by developing its market with their service.

Product Development Strategy: Banglalink recently launched new service packages which are
Pro-paid 222 and 333 for their existing consumers and also a new generation of business

12
professionals in which they are providing value for money service with exiting promotional
offers (Propaid 333, 2018).

Diversification Strategy: Banglalink has plans to become a tech company in recent future.

Conclusion

Telecommunication industry is developing at a great pace nowadays. While it took the business
pioneer over six years to achieve its initial million subscribers, Banglalink came to in this figure
just in just 12 months, with a yearly development rate of 2825% (2005) in the business. In this
way, plainly Banglalink is the fastest developing industry of the nation. In a country, where the
mobile communication rate is beneath 2%, the best key move for any operator is focused on
extending its customer base. For this, packages, for example, Banglalink's dispatch offer and its
latest tariff plans are perfect, since, like most developing markets, Bangladesh is also a pre-paid
package driven nation. Most of the customers are using pre-paid service. So, as a mobile service
operator, Banglalink is on the right track.

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Banglalink Inspire. (2018). Banglalinknet. [Online]. [31 August 2018].

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