.

IMC PLAN
For
Teletalk Bangladesh
Limited

IMC plan for Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd 1

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A REPORT ON
IMC PLAN FOR
TELETALK BANGLADESH LIMITED

Prepared For:

Prepared By:

Stamford University Bangladesh

14th June, 2007

To

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SUBJECT: SUBMISSION OF TERM PAPER ON "IMC PLAN FOR TELETALK

BANGLADESH LIMITED".

Dear Sir,

This is a great pleasure for me to submit the term paper "IMC PLAN FOR
TELETALK BANGLADESH LIMITED" on, which is a partial requirement for
completion of the course. It is, indeed, your splendid effort to simulate a situation,
on which we are to write the term paper. I have chosen to write on "IMC PLAN
FOR TELETALK BANGLADESH LIMITED ".

I believe evaluation of any thing is not very easy. Specially, evaluation of IMC
plan, an intangible matter is, of course, a quite difficult job. This preparation of
term paper has given me the opportunity to rewind and recollect the facts and
situations of the services; to study some books and to consult with some
knowledgeable personalities. This effort obviously increased my knowledge and
experience on business in the 21st century.

Sir, I also believe, the knowledge and experience that I achieved through
preparing this paper will remain in my filter and be exploited in near future for my
own prosperity and development of our nation through my better business
activities.

We are really fortunate in getting a teacher like you, taking so much pain to teach
us and to sew maximum knowledge through examples and better and better
practices. We agree with you that the knowledge and experience gathered
through practice, troubles and hardship are perfect and remain longer in the
memory.

I sincerely hope that you will enjoy reading this term paper and can have at least
some idea regarding the plan approaches adopted in my current services. I
would be pleased and happy to clarify any part of this report whenever
necessary. I appreciate this opportunity to show my profound gratitude to you for
sparing your valuable time, guidance, constant effort and prompt attention as and
when required for accomplishing the paper.
Yours Sincerely

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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The successful accomplishment of this term paper on the "IMC PLAN FOR
TELETALK BANGLADESH LIMITED" is the outcome of the contribution of a
number of people, especially those who took the time and effort to share their
thoughts and suggestions to improve the paper. At the beginning, I would like to
pay out humble gratitude to the Almighty Allah for giving us the ability to work
hard under pressure.

I humble pay my deepest gratitude and appreciation to Md. Rajib Alom, Assistant
Professor of the Department of Marketing, Dhaka University. Without his
guidance and assistance, this paper would not have seen the light of day.

Finally, my sincere gratitude goes to all employees of marketing department and

external coordination department of Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd., my friends, and
family members for supporting me, sharing their thoughts and giving me the
moral support during the preparation of this paper.

Executive Summary

The long awaited launching of a mobile telecom network by a state-run

enterprise had finally materialized on 31 March 2005. It also fulfilled a cherished
dream of people who continuously demanded to the government for such an

IMC plan for Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd 4

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enterprise. The government started the "Mobile Telephone Project" and

Bangladesh Telegraph & Telephone Board (BTTB) was entrusted with the
responsibility for implementing the same. The Project work started in June 2004
and the network was soft launched on 29 December 2004. I am happy that BTTB
had been able to keep its promise and deliver in time.

Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd. was formed to operate the network installed by BTTB
and it has been successful in operating a standard network and give proper
service to the people of Bangladesh. Teletalk has introduced many attractive
packages and all of them have been welcomed by the market. From the very
beginning of its launching, Teletalk got huge popularity as it triggered the true
competition in the market.

People have high expectation from Teletalk. They expect continuous network
coverage all over the country, prompt customer service, and more value added
services, data services of high band-width etc. from Teletalk. Teletalk must honor
its customers by improving its services day-by-day so that people can realize that
even in a competitive scenario, the public sector organization can achieve
remarkable development if they get opportunity.

Two long year has passed since Teletalk started its commercial operation.
Considering the time of operation of other existing operators in this field, this
period might seem to be small, but considering the second year of operation of
an operator it's pretty significant a time. Probably it's the right times to asses the
achievements it has made - compare them with what it could have achieved and
also to scrutinize the opportunities and threats which are looming over.

The most remarkable success of Teletalk is the slump in Tariff Structure. As

soon as Teletalk announced its tariff the long-lasting oligopoly between other
private mobile operators were shattered. Healthy competition came into the

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mobile I market causing almost 50%, if not more, reduction in price both in terms
of SIM price and usage rate. The slump in price made mobile phone affordable
even for the low-income group of people. Using a mobile phone soon became a
necessity; it's no more a luxury.

Teletalk hasn’t done any special program regarding the promotional activities
compare to other mobile phone operator of Bangladesh. Though the company
has good image, but weak promotional activities might not present the all the
capabilities of the Teletalk mobile phone services in front of the new mobile
phone seeker or mobile switcher or even the existing customers. So promotional
activities are very important. For this reason now Teletalk has taken several
billboards and bus, car branding as a part of outdoor advertisement.

Promotional strategy of Teletalk can be defined as the sales motivation and

supervision strategy. Though, according to the marketing officials of Teletalk, the
customers are influencing the dealers to arrange more SIMs for them. Teletalk
has a great success of road show program without any advertisement and
promotion. However, there are some printed adds can be found in the
newspapers. Moreover, quite interestingly enough, Teletalk have involved some
type of promotional activities weather enormous public support towards the
Teletalk Company. They recently have launched TV commercial for the target
market and to inform and persuade the customer.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Letter of transmitter
2. Acknowledgement

3. Executive Summary ... ... ... ...

4. Introduction
4.1 TELETALK and its business analysis
4.2 Current offerings of TELETALK ... ... ... ... ... 2
4.3 TELETALK’s target to enter into PCO ( Public Call Office ) market
3. The New Proposal at a glance ... ... ... ... 2
3.1 Earning projection
3.2 Features of the proposal
4. Objectives of the proposal ... ... ... ... 3
5. Features of the proposal ... ... ... ... 4
6. Scope of the proposal ... ... ... ... 5
7. Marketing plan ... ... ... ... 7
8. SWOT analysis of this plan ... ... ... ... 16
9. Conclusion ... ... ... ... 21
10. Recommendation ... ... ... ... 21

Appendix A Bibliography ... ... ... ... ... 22

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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Submission Category wise ... ... ... ... 3

Figure 2. Allocation Category wise ... ... ... ... 4

Figure 3. SIM Distribution Plan . .. ... ... 10

Figure 4. SIM Withdrawal Rate ... ... ..

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Introduction

In less than fifteen years, mobile phones in Bangladesh have gone from being rare and
expensive pieces of equipment used by businesses to a pervasive low-cost personal item.
Now a days, mobile phones is approaching to outnumber land-line telephones, with most
adults and even school and college going young people now owning mobile phones. It is
not uncommon for young adults to simply own a mobile phone instead of a land-line for
their residence. In a developing country like Bangladesh, where there is little existing fixed-
line infrastructure, the mobile phone has become widespread. With high levels of mobile
telephone penetration, a mobile culture has evolved, where the phone becomes a key
social tool, and people rely on their mobile phone address book to keep in touch with their
friends.

Most current mobile phones connect to the network using a wireless radio wave
transmission technology. These mobile phones communicate via a cellular network of
base stations (cell sites), which is in turn linked to the conventional telephone network and
were first introduced in the early to mid 1980s (the 1G generation). Prior mobile phones
operating without a cellular network (the so-called 0G generation), such as Mobile
Telephone Service, date back to 1946. Until the mid to late 1980s, most mobile phones
were sufficiently large that they were often permanently installed in vehicles as car phones.
With the advance of miniaturization, currently the vast majority of mobile phones are
handheld.

People have high expectation from Teletalk. They expect continuous network coverage all
over the country, prompt customer service, and more value added services, data services
of high band-width etc. from Teletalk. Teletalk must honor its customers by improving its
services day-by-day so that people can realize that even in a competitive scenario, the
public sector organization can achieve remarkable development if they get opportunity.

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1.1 Origin of the Report:

As a part of MBA program at Stamford University requires prepare term paper to introduce
the students with the real life business administration. As an employee of Teletalk it is very
much easy for me to find out the real situation and existing problems. The topic was set
after discussion with the course teacher. This term paper on "IMC PLAN FOR TELETALK
BANGLADESH LIMITED" is submitted on June 14, 2007 to the course teacher of
Marketing Communication, Stamford University Bangladesh.

1.2 Objectives of the Study:

The broad objective was defined at first. This broad objective was fragmented into some
smaller, clearer, specific objectives.

A) Broad Objective:
 The broad objective of this study is to know about the IMC plan of Teletalk Bangladesh
Ltd. This report is focuses on promotional activities and sales related activities. To
identify the promotion strategy of Teletalk which will implemented by Teletalk. Before
making IMC plan we have to emphasize on the followings

 To focus on the competitive advantages enjoyed by the Teletalk over its competitors.

 To understand the need gap of mobile services in different regions of Bangladesh.

 To know subscribers’ perception of the current mobile services offered by existing

providers in Bangladesh

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B) Specific objectives:

To Inform
• Launching a new Teletalk product and package
• Informing the market of a price change
• Suggesting new uses for our product & services.
• Describing Teletalk available services.
• Building Teletalk Company image.

To Persuade
• Building Teletalk brand preferences
• Persuading customers to purchase Teletalk now
• Encouraging to switch to our brand
• Changing customer's perception of product attributes.

To Remind
• Reminding customers where to buy Teletalk
• Keeping us in customer's minds during off season
• Maintaining top-of-mind awareness.

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Branding & Action Plan :

Media Action Plan

For each Product Package & launching new Product &

Services.
Press Media • 6 insertions in Bangla dailies & 4 insertions in English
dailies.
• Ad. Color: Black & White; Size: 40 cil.-inches.

Electronic Media
TV Commercial (TVC)
• On Air: July 2007; Duration : 1.20 sec & 50 sec.
• Show Time: Fixed Prime Time (FPT) Specially night
news and sports time.
• Channel Selection: BTV, Channel i, ATN, Ntv, Ekhushay
TV

• Billboard: 100 no. billboard for Dhaka, Ctg, Sylhet,

Rajshahi, Khulna and Barisal for other new cities
• Plastic Display: 10 no. for Domestic & International
Outdoor Media Airport for international roaming.
• Neo Sign: 5 Neon signs for Dhaka & Ctg.
• Outlet Sign: 500 no. pre-paid box sign for every dealer &
outlet.

• Brochures, leaflets and user guide for Corporate, VASs

& package details.
POP Media • Banner, Flag lines, bunting, posters for new package &
VASs.

• International Event - Sports/Seminar//Workshop//Summit

Event Mgt. • Available Trade Show & Exhibition.
• Organize road show program as a part of door to door
sales program.

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1.3 Methodology:
At first I collect the primary and secondary data from various source of information. These
data will be following by several steps in given below:

a) Questionnaire survey: I survey on subscribers and retailers and business market. My

sample size is 40. But I consider the best 30 samples for implementing the information. It
helps me to collect the information about the IMC Plan of Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd. and the
market position of the company.

b) Interview collection from Management: I cover up the face-to-face and telephone

interview among the interviewee for getting the vital information.

c) Conversation to the others: I have done the conversation among each other in the
group and also discuses with my course teacher to institute the formation of report.

1.4 Secondary Study:

A monthly business magazine on Mobile phone technology named “GSM Technology”
published in the Bangladesh was extremely helpful for the study. This study could be more
informative if more issues of the magazine could be collected. The magazine focuses on
the Mobile phone technology all over the world. The prime secondary source was
“Teletalk website”, Google website, monthly magazine; some information was collected
from the Internet from various web sites.

1.10 Limitations:
Limitation, which I have faced while doing my report are discussed below:

 Since the Teletalk at its early stage in Bangladesh, not all even are well-known with
the service of the mobile company. One of the major limitations faced while

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conducting the study was to communicate with the selected respondents because
they were very busy with their regular jobs.

 As, I had more dependence on the primary sources, so there might be some level of
inaccuracy with those collected information. Though, adequate verification and
cross checking was used, to minimize the error level.

 Confidential information regarding past marketing and sales information was not
accurately obtained. Alike all other business holders also very conservative and
strict in providing those information. Still I had tried my best in obtaining that
sensitive information, as much as possible.

 Many of the analysis on the obtained data are based upon my sole interpretation.
This in result might bring some biases, as lack of knowledge and depth of
understanding might hinder me to produce an absolute authentic and meaningful
report.

 Time constraint was another limitation restricting this report from being more
detailed or analytical. The relationship managers at the operation or strategic level
of the concerned department are terrible busy with meeting their targets. So, it was
very difficult for me to get them free and obtain some practical ideas regarding their
expectation and opportunities regarding my topic.

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Literature Review:

Integrated marketing communications is the coordination and integration of all marketing

communication tools, avenues and sources within a company into seamless program
which maximizes the impact on consumers and other end users at a minimal cost. The
IMC includes all business-to-business, channel, customer, external communications and
internal communications.

Integrated marketing begins with the development of master marketing plan. The
marketing plan is the basis of the total integrated communication design. The purpose of
the plan is to achieve harmony in relaying messages to customers and other publics.
Planning also should integrate all key promotional efforts, which in turn keeps the
company's total communication in synch.

The first step is a situation analysis which is the process of examining factors from the
organization's internal and external environments. The analysis identifies external
environmentally generated marketing problems and opportunities. The second step
marketing objectives which are spelled out in the areas of sales, market share, competitive
position and desired customer actions. Based on these marketing objectives , a marketing
budget is prepared and marketing strategies are finalized. The marketing strategies
includes ingredients of the marketing mix plus all positioning, differentiation, and brand
strategies the firm wants to use. Marketing tactics emerge to guide the day by day steps
necessary to support marketing strategies. The final step in the marketing plan is the
evaluation of performance. These six steps are similar to those prescribed by management
strategies attempting to to integrate all company activities into one consistent effort.

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An IMC program consists of careful consideration of the company's image as well as the
buyers to be served and the markets in which they are located. Advertising programs build
on this foundation, as do the other elements of the promotional mix.

Findings of the study:

History of the Mobile phone in Bangladesh
The number of mobile phone users in Bangladesh grew by 144 per cent in 2005, to 9.4
million in December from 3.85 million a year earlier, market officials said yesterday. The
gains raised the mobile phone penetration rate among Bangladesh’s 140 million people to
6.7 per cent from 2.75 per cent. The fast-growing mobile phone market is expected to have
18 million users by next year. The business has grown day by day.

Bangladesh Telecom Limited (BTL) has obtained the license as the first company of the
country to operate cellular, paging, and other wireless communication networks in 1989
and it turned into Hutchison Bangladesh Telecom Limited and launched Bangladesh's first
cellular operation in August, 1993.
And in February 1996, HBTL was renamed Pacific Bangladesh Limited (PBTL) and
launched 'CityCell Digital' to market its cellular products.

Ending CityCell's monopoly business, TM International (Bangladesh) Limited, a joint

venture company of Telecom Malaysia Berhad and A.K. Khan & Co. Limited was
established in the year 1996 and the company launched its operation in 1997 under the
brand name 'Aktel'.

The big player GrameenPhone obtained its cellular license in November 28, 1996 and
launched its operation in March 26, 1997 and never looked back.

And after that another Malaysia-Bangladesh joint venture Sheba Telecom (Pvt) Limited
launched its operation in 1998. But failing to come of the competitive edge, Sheba
Telecom formally sold its cent percent shares to Egyptian telecom giant Orascom and

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Orascom formally launched its operation under new brand name Banglalink in February
10, 2005 and shook the market with its inaugural package.

Though the much-talked about state owned company Teletalk Bangladesh Limited (TBL),
the mobile unit of BTTB was formed on December 26, 2004 and Prime Minister Begum
Khaleda Zia inaugurated Teletalk Mobile Service on December 29, 2004, but it formally
launched its mobile telecom service on commercial basis on March 31, 2005. Recently
another GSM mobile operator Warid Telecom has launched its operation and service on
April, 2007.

4Ps’ of Teletalk:
Product

The product of the Teletalk Bangladesh ltd. is the both prepaid and post paid sim cards.
Services on the other hand, include the network coverage’s and other value added
services. In this case, the product strategy of Teletalk can be called as the values
marketing strategy. The slogan of the Teletalk is “connect always” which defines that a
customer will always be connected no matter where ever he is. More over, as a
government institution, it is quite obvious that customers are expecting Teletalk to the
cheapest among the mobile phone companies. And no wonder, Teletalk has the ability to
fulfill the needs of the customers. This value marketing strategy includes -

Quality strategy:

Teletalk is incorporated with the siemens networking technology. Now days, this German
based company is the worlds leading company regarding the technological support of the
telecommunication business. Moreover, Teletalk have been with siemens from the
beginning. Thus, Teletalk can provide desired services to the customers. Moreover, the
company is arranging meetings in every Mondays to improve the quality of the service.

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Introduction Growth Maturity decline

Teletalk
Bangladesh
Ltd

Customer service
Teletalk has 10 (Ten) customer service centre for the customer. Every day from 9 am to 8
pm the office is there to serve the customers. In compare to the other government
organizations, the customer service department is very fast. Such as, if a customer
somehow, lost his or her sim card, s/he has to write an application for a new sim, and with
in 5 minutes the customers are given a new sim, after receiving the application.

Price
Pricing strategy of Teletalk is the penetration pricing strategy, because Teletalk is a new
company but the product is not new, rather there are many established players in the
market. The low price of Teletalk is obviously in the most competitive advantages that a
company can achieve. The price of the sim is comparatively higher compare to the other
mobile companies. But the call charges are very low compare to the other service
providers. Moreover, the incoming charge is 0, means there will be no incoming charges
no matters from where the call is from.

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Promotions

Promotional strategy of Teletalk can be defined as the sales motivation and supervision
strategy. Though, according to the marketing officials of Teletalk, the customers are
influencing the dealers to arrange more sims for them. However, there are some printed
adds can be found in the newspapers. Moreover, quite interestingly enough, Teletalk
haven’t involved any type of promotional activities, because of the enormous public
support towards the Teletalk Company. They recently don’t have any plan to launch any
promotional program.

Places/Distribution
At present, Teletalk is using the direct distribution strategies for placing the Teletalk
products. For every area, there are some selected dealers, who control that particular area
in both sim selling and recharge card selling. Moreover, Teletalk sells its sims through
some banks recommended by the Teletalk company. So till now, Teletalk is maintaining
the direct distribution strategies.

Customer Focus

Around the world, telecommunications business faces constant challenges to their

business model - from the economy, competitors, and regulators. At the same time,
customers are demanding new service offerings and personalized customer care at a
competitive price. In order to meet this demand, leading providers are reevaluating their
customer relationship management strategies: the winning companies will be those that
leverage experience, technology, and best-practice processes to deliver a cost
efficient customer experience that increases customer loyalty without breaking the bottom
line.

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Competitors Analysis
At presents, there are around 6 companies that are now in the mobile phone
business. They are –
1. Grameen phone
2. Aktel
3. Bangla link
4. City cell
5. Teletalk
6. Warid Telecom
Lets take a look at the services of the Teletalk’s competitors and their service
charges.
Services Companies
Gram City cell AkTel Bangla Teletalk
een Link
Voice SMS yes yes yes yes No
SMS (Short Yes Yes yes Yes Yes
Message
Service)
Email Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Different SMS Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
services
( cricket info,
horoscope,
etc)
Bangla SMS Yes Yes Yes Yes No
International Yes No Yes Yes No
Roaming

There are also many other services, however, these are services that a
subscriber mainly looks in his or her mobile phone.

SWOT analysis of the plan

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Now let’s take a close look to the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and
threats that Teletalk has.

• A government Organization • Highly Bureaucratic organization

• Low cost Service • More time in Taking decision
• Public Support • Taxes imposed by government
• Technological support of
Siemens
• A combination energy and
experience in the work force

S W

O T • Late Decisions can

cause trouble
• No Promotional
Activities
• Increasing Marketing share
• Vulnerability on
• Public Image
Recharge card facility
• Price competitiveness of the other company
• Less number of
Employees.

CONCLUSION

Teletalk is the first government owned cellular operator in Bangladesh. Teletalk

has a goal to receive an economic return on its investments and to contribute to
the economic development of Bangladesh where telecommunications can play a

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critical role. Teletalk believes in service, a service that leads to good business
and good development. Telephony helps people work together, raising their
productivity. This gain in productivity is development, which in turn enables them
to afford a telephone service, generating a good business. Thus development
and business go together.
The main goal of Teletalk is to deliver SIM kits to the subscriber at a cheap rate
and make a competitive market . All the categories of subscribers had collected
their SIM kits through banks. This is very satisfactory of SIM collection rate.
When the Subscriber received their SIM kits, the innocent smile of them shows
recessive support to Teletalk. This is the great achievement of Teletalk.

Ours Phone, is the theme of the Teletalk mobile service. Since its launching it
has been working harder and harder to improve the service quality. Thanks to
some of the dedicating employees in Teletalk. As a government organization,
Teletalk has created new dimensions of service quality. People who believe that
government organization is place where lengthy process in every single job;
might find Teletalk a new role model for Services Company.

10. RECOMMENDATION

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There are some problems in the promotional development. I would like to

recommend some means to improve the program of promotion, sales promotion
and advertisement.

1. Teletalk should improve its service quality.

2. Need to increase more customer care centers throughout the country.

3. Need to a creative team for idea building.

4. Develop good communication with print media and visual media

5. Improve co-ordination among all the departments.

6. Employ skill manpower to run the organization successfully so that Teletalk

can compete with other mobile operators.

7. More emphasize on post paid package immediately.

Appendix A Bibliography

1. Business for the 21st Century, 2003 by Steven J Skinner, John M.

Ivancevich.

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2. Jeffrey A Timmons, New Venture Creation : Entrepreneurship in the

1990s.

3. “ Masters of Innovation,” Business Week, April 10, 1989, p.27

4. Rosenberg and Redell, Profits, p.12

5. Adapted from Kevin McLaughlin and Scott Matulis, Entrepreneur, January

1989.

6. George Matusky, “ The Competitive Edge,” Success, September 1990.

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