Internship Report at Grameenphone (Customer Experience & Online Department)

April 20

2015Prepared for:

Emran Mohammad (EMD)

Marketing and International Business, BBA program

North South University, Dhaka

Prepared by:

Sayef - Al - Nasir

ID# 111 0761 030

Submission Date:

20th April, 2015

Spring Semester

BUS: 498- Internship

Customer Centricity

Letter of Transmittal20th April, 2015

Emran Mohammad

Lecturer

Marketing and International Business, BBA program

North South University, Dhaka

Subject: Submitting the report on internship at Grameenphone (Customer Experience & Online Department).

Sir,

I am honored to present you my report based on the experience I had while doing internship at a telecom company. Which, I have done as one of our primary requirement of BUS 498 course. I am looking forward for your earnest opinion regarding this report.

I am delighted to get the opportunity to work at the commercial division of a telecom company, as it provided me to apply the academic learning in a corporation. This report is a partial reflection of my contribution to the company where I had to interact with other officials and deal with different circumstances which eventually enriched my experience. Moreover, while working as an intern I came to know more about organizational culture and corporate environment which would be really helpful to sharpening my skills and prosper in the future while setting up a career goal.

I tried my level best to fulfill the requirements of this report by engaging myself seriously and giving my best efforts to prepare the final report regarding internship experience. Working hard for this paper helped me to understand the core values of the organization and the respective department I was assigned to work, which I believe will definitely help in the future working of my life.

I will be highly inspired for your kindly acceptance of this internship report and any kind of appreciation. I will be available at any time if you want to have any further information or enquiry.

Sincerely

Sayef – Al – Nasir

ID# 111 0761 030

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Declaration Statement

Statement 1

I, Sayef – Al – Nasir, hereby declare that the effort in this report is given by me and it’s my own original work.

Statement 2

All information that has been used in this paper is the outcome of practical experience acquired from the telecom company.

Statement 3

I declare that this report has not been submitted earlier at any educational institution by any other individual.

Sayef – Al – Nasir

ID# 111 0761 030

Date: 20th April, 2015

Course Instructor: Emran Mohammad (EMD)

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Acknowledgement

First of all, I would like to thank Almighty Allah for the completion of this report. This paper

would not have been completed without His help and would not have been possible without the

help of a lot of people who made important contributions to it.

Amongst the many people I am grateful to, for making contributions to the preparation of this

paper, I would most importantly like to acknowledge the liberality and helpfulness of my course

instructor of BUS 498, Emran Mohammad (EMD). It was wonderful to be a part of his tutelage

and prepare this report for which he provided suggestions and advice whenever required.

Last but not the least, I express my gratitude to the employees (Apus & BHAIYAs) of

Grameenphone (GP House), with whom I worked with for last three months specially my

supervisor Nabila Rahman and team member Kaniz Fatema along with the recruiter of

Grameenphone Kayema ALam. It was a pleasure for me knowing such wonderful people from

whom I learned not only a lot about marketing and communication activities but also about “life”

& techniques to survive in a competitive working environment.

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Abstract

This internship report is based on observation and participation that has been done in the

organization while completing the internship. “Experience” is the controlling idea of the whole

report as there were no referenced sources to support the claims. Initially a brief overview of the

company (Grameenphone Ltd.) has been provided to attain better understanding regarding the

working environment and specific corporate culture. It was followed by the objectives that I had

to achieve while working as an intern in the company. It included the contributions and efforts

performed throughout the three months period. Then, I described the Customer Experience

Department of the company, as I was assigned to it and elaborated the workings related with this

department. Performing the activities related to Customer Centricity was the core duty of mine at

the company. It was followed by discussions regarding other widely performed activities which I

got familiar to in the era of my internship. Eventually I talked about particular encounters that I

have experienced in the three months period at office and based on that I presented my

evaluation. I highlighted the interactions that I made at the office and discussed about the

management of the customer centric culture from my perception. At the very end, I analyzed the

co-relation and probability between my pre-planned career path and the opportunity to work in

telecommunication industry theoretically. I provided my opinion about the overall internship

experience at Grameenphone Ltd. through this report and attached the submitted weekly journal

in the Annex section.

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Table of Contents

1. Company Overview...................................................................................................7

2. Assigned Responsibilities..........................................................................................10

2.1. Drive Customer Centric Culture in the Organisation.........................................................10

3. Communication Analysis...........................................................................................14

4. Unusual Corcumtences and Difficulties Encountered........................................................14

5. Self Evaluation of the Internship oppertunity..................................................................14

6. References...............................................................................................................16

7. Annex....................................................................................................................18

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Company Overview:

Grameenphone the leading telecommunications operator of Bangladesh is part of Telenor Group

which has presence in 13 markets across Europe and Asia. Telenor is emerging as one of the

fastest growing providers of mobile communications services worldwide with ownership

interests in 12 mobile operators across Europe and Asia. Telenor is organized into three business

areas; Mobile operations covering 12 countries, and Fixed-line and Broadcast services covering

the Nordic region. Grameenphone is a joint venture enterprise. Telenor holds 55.8 per cent of

Grameenphone, with Grameen Telecom Corporation owning the remaining 34.2 per cent. The

rest of the shares belong to general retail and institutional investors (Diagram attached in

Appendix). Telenor has played a pioneering role in development of cellular communications in

Bangladesh. Grameenphone started its journey with the Village Phone program: a pioneering

initiative to empower rural women of Bangladesh. The name Grameenphone translates to “Rural

phone” (Grameenphone.com, 2015).

Starting its operations on March 26, 1997, the Independence Day of Bangladesh, Grameenphone

was the first operator to introduce GSM Technology in this country. Since its inception

Grameenphone has built the largest cellular network in the country with over 8500 base stations.

Presently, nearly 99 percent of the country's population is within the coverage area of the

Grameenphone network. Grameenphone has always been a pioneer in introducing new products

and services in the local telecom market. Grameenphone was also the first telecommunication

operator in Bangladesh to introduce the pre-paid service in September 1999. It established the

first 24-hour Call Center, introduced value-added services such as VMS, SMS, fax and data

transmission services, international roaming service, WAP, SMS-based push-pull services,

EDGE, personal ring back tone and many other products and services. In October 2013 the

company launched 3G services commercially. The entire Grameenphone network is

3G/EDGE/GPRS enabled, allowing access to high-speed Internet and data services from

anywhere within the coverage area. There are currently over 7 million 3G/EDGE/GPRS users in

the Grameenphone network. Today, Grameenphone is the leading and largest

telecommunications service provider in Bangladesh with more than 50 million subscribers as of

October 14, 2014 (Grameenphone.com, 2015).

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Mission, Vision, and Values:

At Grameenphone the international shareholder brings technological and business management

expertise while the local shareholder provides a presence throughout Bangladesh and a deep

understanding of its economy. Both are dedicated to Bangladesh and its struggle for economic

progress and have a deep commitment to Grameenphone and its mission to provide affordable

telephony to the entire population of Bangladesh. Grameenphone promises to bring the best of

communication technologies so that one can go beyond (Grameenphone.com, 2015).

Mission:

Leading the industry and exceed customer expectations by providing the best wireless services,

making life and business easier

Vision:

We exist to help our customers get the full benefit of communications services in their daily

lives. We want to make it easy for customers to get what they want, when they want it. We're

here to help.

Values:

Make It Easy

Keep Promises

Be Inspiring

Be Respectful

Brand promise:

Go Beyond

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Corporate Governance and Company Structure:

In the fast-paced world of telecommunications, vibrant and dynamic Corporate Governance

practices are an essential ingredient to success. Grameenphone believes in the continued

improvement of corporate governance. This in turn has led the Company to commit considerable

resources and implement internationally accepted Corporate Standards in its day-to-day

operations. Being a public limited company, the Board of Directors of Grameenphone have a

pivotal role to play in meeting all stakeholders’ interests. The Board of Directors and the

Management Team of Grameenphone are committed to maintaining effective Corporate

Governance through a culture of accountability, transparency, well-understood policies and

procedures. The Board of Directors and the Management Team also persevere to maintain

compliance of all laws of Bangladesh and all internally documented regulations, policies and

procedures. Grameenphone is a truly transparent company that operates at the highest levels of

integrity and accountability on a global standard. Different Organograms related to

grameenphone are presented in the Annex.

Corporate Responsibility in Grameenphone

Grameenphone’s Corporate Responsibility is manifested through the implementation of their

vision and values in all spheres of the company and its value chain. At Grameenphone they live

by the saying “Development is a journey, not a destination.” Their work is not just about

ensuring connectivity; it is about connecting with people and building a relationship based on

trust with their subscribers, business partners, employees, shareholders as well as the wider

community. Grameenphone believes that good development is good business. While maintaining

their business focus, taking the nation forward remains their top priority. Thus their relationship

with Bangladesh is built on a partnership which strives to achieve common economic and social

goals. At Grameenphone Corporate Responsibility (CR) is a complementary combination of

responsible business practices and corporate behavior and externally focused initiatives to create

shared value for the society and the company. In other words, GP’s “responsibility” includes

both compliance with international and national standards and obligations and stakeholder’s

expectations on GP’s role in the community. As such, corporate responsibility can be said to

span the whole of an organization’s business activities (Grameenphone.com, 2015).

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Assigned Responsibilities

I was a part of the Customer Experience and Online Commercial department under the

Commercial Division. As it was under commercial division my initial expectation was to learn

something that deals with the customers. Being a part of this highly purposeful department, I

was expecting to learn something which would be very helpful for me as I intend to create a

career path in commercial sector. In the process of completion of my internship, I was not at all

disappointed as I was satisfied with the work I learned and the tasks I performed in the assigned

department by the supervision of my supervisor and other coworkers of the team.

Drive customer centric culture in the organization:

Customer centric culture in an organization simply means creating a positive consumer

experience at the point of sale and post sale. A customer centric approach can add value to a

company by enabling it to differentiate itself from competitors who do not offers the same

experience (businessDictionary.com, 2015). A telecommunication company provides service to

their customers. This brings the customers satisfaction at the heart of a company. If the

customers are not satisfied and the customers do not get any proper idea about the service a

company is providing than it gets tough to operate in a competitive market. In order to drive a

customer centric culture in an organization using customer data to better understand and segment

customer base is very important for the top management. In the recent past the scenario was like,

only the customer service department was responsible to provide service to the customers and the

top management used to decide what service can be provided through their own ability. This

does not reflect the customer centric culture and to change this culture few initiatives were taken

which includes introduction of Customer Listening Centre for the top management and Customer

first App to provide better insights to the top management about what problems their customers

go through in their everyday life.

This has been described to present the importance of Customer Centric Culture in a company and

the role of top management and their understanding about the customers to drive a customer

centric culture.

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Engage employees to align & embed customer centricity message in employee minds

(Customer Listening Centre) :

Customer Experience department mainly works to drive customer centric culture in the

organization. In order to do that one of the initiative was to deploy a Customer Listening Centre

for the employees. Where the employees can listen different complains and observations from

their customers. Everyday almost millions of customer quarries and complains are recorded in

the company servers which are dealt by the customer managers. On the other hand it is the

product, business intelligence and other department employees who work for providing a better

service and greater experience to their customers. So they are also needed to have idea what they

should do for providing better service from getting insight by listening to these customer quarries

and complains.

Customer Listening Centre is operated in two phases. First phase includes a three step process.

First step includes the collection of data from the mother source. In the second step these data are

sorted out in different category like Voice, Campaign, Internet, and Value Added Service. In

order to do this one needs to have clear idea about these categories for sorting. Finally, these data

are uploaded in the desired destination for the employees to listen.

Second phase deals with motivating the employees on listening what their consumers want to say

and based on that encouraging the responsible employees to take action.

I participated in all the actions described above and based on my academic learning, data

processing and sorting is a part of marketing research and providing employees insights through

creating awareness about something is a kind of marketing of a product or service. In other

words it can be described as branding. So these were the two learning’s for me while initiating

these two phases of the Customer Listening Centre.

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Engage employees to align & embed customer centricity message in employee minds

(Customer First App) :

Customer First App is an application built for the employees to use and provide service to their

friends and family and as well as customers if possible through this application. This application

can be used through smart phones and smart devices. It contains all the necessary information

about the different products and services provided by the company. This application also

includes two segments namely, customer survey and customer complaints log which helps the

employees to get feedback from their friends, family, and customers regarding their product and

service and which ultimately helps the employees to work for the improvement of product or

service based on the customer feedback. Alongside this an employee can also listen to their

friends, family, and customer face to face and take note or make complain to the responsible

person to take action for anything related to product, service or the company.

Customer First App is a third party application maintained by the company employees. It needs

continues communication with the vendor and it also needs continues flow of information among

these two parties. Alongside that to maintain an application by a department a proper

documentation needs to be done on that application.

I participated both on the documentation process and vendor management and based on my

academic learning, managing vendors or clients is a part of client management which requires

managerial knowledge.

Simplification of Net Promoter Score Questionnaire :

Net Promoter Score is used to determine the performance of a company. If the score is positively

high that means the company is performing well and vise versa. Net promoter score is

determined through customer survey. This process is going on for last few years but to drive a

more customer centric culture the questions asked to the consumers were needed to be more

simple and precise. This helps the consumers to provide a feedback about the company and also

helps them to give an idea to the employees about what kind of product or service they want.

Throughout the simplification process different sets of questionnaire were proposed by the team

members and they were tested also. The test was done in both the manners face to face and over

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phone to see the pattern of response from the customers. Based on the response, an analysis was

done by every employee responsible to conduct the process.

I participated in all the steeps including making questionnaire, face to face survey, over phone

survey, and data analysis. Based on my academic learning, communicating with the consumers

and pursuing them for something falls under the business communication process and the

analytical part falls under the statistical process. This statistical knowledge was gained through

the course done on statistics.

Distribution process of Annual Profit Sharing:

This was a weeklong project work for me for the People and Organization department. So it was

a kind of out of the box learning for me. Here I participated as a volunteer as requested by the

department to help out the employees. In this project my duty was to check and correct

confidential information about employees and check disbursement. This was some out of the box

learning for me. Throughout the time period of working in this project I learned how to manage

personal feelings and opinion while working in a professional level and alongside that I also

learned how to deal with employees when they are in different mood of mind. This also helped

me learning the operational perspective of the task where I need to be more careful and how to

help others and make someone comfortable in the workplace.

Closed Feedback Loop Analysis:

Closed feedback loop analysis is an analysis based on the customers feedback on the service

provided. This analysis is done based on two circles named inner and outer circle respectively.

This is one of the highest level works of the department done by the specialist and senior

specialist along with the department head and I had the chance to work with them in these. I had

to attend few training program to learn about few basic things about how and based on what

these analysis are done.

This was the learning I was craving for from the very beginning of my internship period. This

analysis took test of my different skills like expertise in Excel worksheet, critical thinking,

interpretation ability, presentation ability and lastly it was a test about how quick learner I am.

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Communicational Analysis:

Communicating with the employees and my supervisor at Grameenphone was easy. At the day

of orientation I was briefed about how to address the seniors and coworkers. English was the

preferred language for communication. Initially I was communicating with my superior and

other coworkers through English language and addressing them as Bhaia/Apu, because I was

informed that the organizational culture do not support that much formality in the workplace

compare to other MNCs’. So, I had to adept with that approach, because I was used to addressing

as Sir/Madam. The working environment was really comfortable, and I think to some extent

scope of informality is also essential for a corporation.

Unusual Circumstances/Difficulties Encountered:

Perception regarding the definition of “unusual” may vary from person to person, based on my

experience at office I didn’t face significant encounters that I could complain about. There were

some minor things that I faced at the beginning weeks was shift of department in a temporary

basis was something that made me worried about my learning’s but which eventually ended up

to be a good learning for me. Apart from that loosing the laptop and facing the compliance

department was a bit hassle as I never faced such kind of situation. So I was little bit confused

about those, but eventually I came out good and performed all of them without showing any

uncomforting behavior.

Self Evaluation of the “Internship” Opportunity:

Some people have their career plan set and some do not. So long before starting my internship I

had my career plan set, the internship opportunity at a multinational company like

Grameenphone just gave a more specific purpose to that. Being marketing major along with

accounting & finance, it was a great opportunity for me to have an intern in a telecom company.

As my career plan was aligned with what I was doing in the company throughout the internship

period it had no change in my career plans instead it made me realize how badly I want to belong

to the corporate world. I experienced a pleasing three months period at this telecom company,

and I would like to keep on the track that I have planned a lot before.

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My expectation regarding the organization where I would do internship was that, it will have a

healthy working environment and I will be able to interact with skillful professional related to

that industry without any hesitation. To the best possible extent I had what I expected and

enjoyed the whole period working with my superiors. As I had the opportunity to do intern in a

MNC like Grameenphone which is one of the top three MNC’s in Bangladesh, I am satisfied of

what I have experienced, learned and achieved here.

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References:

Ahmed, R., Hye, F., Sakib, M., & Khamal, M. (2015). NPS Question Simplification. Email,

Dhaka.

Businessdictionary.com,. (2015). BusinessDictionary.com - Online Business Dictionary.

Retrieved 4 April 2015, from http://www.businessdictionary.com/

Fatema, K., & Das, D. Customer Listening Centre. Email, Dhaka.

grameenphone.com,. (2015). Corporate-Governance-in-Grameenphone. Retrieved 4 April 2015,

from http://www.grameenphone.com/sites/default/files/investor_relations/annual_report/

Corporate-Governance-in-Grameenphone_4.pdf

grameenphone.com,. (2015). History-and-Milestones. Retrieved 18 April 2015, from

http://www.grameenphone.com/sites/default/files/investor_relations/annual_report/History-

and-Milestones_1.pdf

grameenphone.com,. (2015). Products-and-Services. Retrieved 4 April 2015, from

http://www.grameenphone.com/sites/default/files/investor_relations/annual_report/

Products-and-Services_1.pdf

grameenphone.com,. (2015). The-Shareholders. Retrieved 4 April 2015, from

http://www.grameenphone.com/sites/default/files/investor_relations/annual_report/The-

Shareholders_4.pdf

grameenphone.com,. (2015). Vision-Mission-and-Values. Retrieved 4 April 2015, from

http://www.grameenphone.com/sites/default/files/investor_relations/annual_report/Vision-

Mission-and-Values.pdf

Grameenphone.com,. (2015). About | Grameenphone. Retrieved 7 March 2015, from

http://www.grameenphone.com/about

Grameenphone.com,. (2015). Corporate Information | Grameenphone. Retrieved 4 April 2015,

from http://www.grameenphone.com/about/corporate-information

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Grameenphone.com,. (2015). Organization Structure | Grameenphone. Retrieved 18 April 2015,

from http://www.grameenphone.com/about/corporate-information/corporate-governance/

organization-structure

Grameenphone.com,. (2015). Ownership Structure | Grameenphone. Retrieved 4 April 2015,

from http://www.grameenphone.com/about/corporate-information/ownership-structure

Haque, S. Closed Feedback Loop Analysis. PDF, Dhaka.

Hye, F., Fatema, K., & Kamal, M. (2015). Customer First App. PDF, Email, Word, Excel,

Dhaka.

Khaled, T. (2013). Drive customer centric culture in the organization. Customer Experience,

1(1).

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Annex:

The shareholding structure comprises of mainly two sponsor Shareholders namely Telenor Mobile Communications AS (55.80%) and Grameen Telecom (34.20%). The rest 10.00% shareholding includes General Public (2.81%), Foreign (3.06%) and Other Institutions (4.13%) as on 31 December 2014. Below presented diagrams shows the shareholder percentages in brief:

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Mission, Vision, and values:

(grameenphone.com, 2015)

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Products and Services provided:

(grameenphone.com, 2015)

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Customer Experience:

The below presented Organograms sequentially shows from where the Customer Experience department came from and the members of that department along with different factions of that department:

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(grameenphone.com, 2015)

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Commercial Division

Business PartnerShah Walliuzaman

Walliuzaman

Business Manager Minhaz Uddin

Ahmed

Coordination Shohana Khatun

*Business Manager will report directly to Business Finance, Finance. *Business Partner will report directly to Business Partner, P&O

Business IntelligenceEjaz Islam

Customer Experience &

OnlineNabila

Rahman (Acting)

Customer Services

Yeasir Mahmood Khan

Distribution & Retail Sales Naser Fazle

Azam

Direct Sales

Sajjad Alam

Marketing

Rajeeb Battacharjee

Product

Hasibul Haque

Allan BonkeChief Marketing

Officer

Customer Centricity

Customer Experience & Online Organograms

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Head of Customer Experience & Online

Nabila Rahman(Acting)

UsabilitySudip Kumar

(Acting)

Online Zakia Zerin

Experience Improvement &

StrategyNabila Rahman

Business Process Management &

InnovationSadique Salim

Mousumi RahmanCoordination

Rasel AhmedShamima Jesmin Ashfaq Mahmood AminAshif NewazFaruk Ahmed

Mostofa ZamanE M Moinuddin

HyderAbdullah Md. Al MotINeamul Mukit AhmedMashfiq AlamAbu Sakib Abdullah

Farhana HyeMd. Shamiul HaqueMujtanibul Ahmed SakibSami SaifHreevu Chowdhury Kaniz Fatema

Golam Muktadir Chowdhury

Kazi Sharif TusharRana Rubayet KhondakerNafeesur Md. RahmanForrukh MannanSyed Md Fuad Tanvir

Customer Centricity

Journal for the week ended 7 th February, 2015

For the purpose of achieving professional experience and organizational skill, I have started my

internship in a private telecommunication company from the 4 th of February, 2015. As this

journal will represent only the observation of the first two days at the company, I will focus on

the introductory part at office and focus on the operational activity that I have observed in these

two days.

Initially, I was attached to the Customer Experience Department which is under Commercial

Division of the company. Early in this week, at the very first day they had an orientation

program for all the interns where we were briefed about the company, their structure and work

policy. After the orientation program I was introduced with my supervisor who then introduced

me with the other members of the Communication Experience Department. Everyone was very

nice, friendly and cooperative. They had promised me to help with any sort of problem and

information during my internship period to enhance my learning about the professional

experience.

Throughout the second day of the week, I was able to communicate with some other executive

level officers from different departments and gain some basic knowledge regarding the work

place environment. I was also permitted to attain few important meetings throughout the day

where I had the chance to gain knowledge about what different tools are used in decision making

to monitor the consumer behavior in response to specific incentives or offers. For example, I

used SPSS in my educational level but there I got to experience the real life use of that alongside

other tools which I will be briefed at a later time.

The most important thing that I have monitored is the effectiveness and efficiency of the

Customer Experience Department and their dedication towards the work; probably every

institution needs this sort of commitment to be the market leader in their respective sector of

business. With a very little exposure to the communication industry, I have seen that the

“segregation of duties” are highly valued and maintained adequately by the top level

management; that is the authorization procedure followed by every single employee of the

respective department.

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Journal for the week ended 14th February, 2015

Some human natures are identical or in other words similar in every religion, culture, country, or society; we can take the hunger of learning which is same for all who wants to learn. After the end of first week and not to mention a pretty good one I was looking forward for some extensive work load along with exciting learning opportunities.

I started the week from where I ended, I submitted few meeting minutes of last week for feedback to my supervisor and the whole team I am working with. I got a good response, they were happy with my work but as I was doing it for the first time in practical/professional life I was more descriptive rather than being more specific. The same working process continued for next three days of the week.

As I mentioned earlier I was assigned to the customer experience department and this department mainly works with all the strategic and critical works related to customer satisfaction and customer retention, in other words protecting their own customer along with generating new ones. Though it sounds so simple that I was preparing meeting minutes but in reality it is actually not like that. Through this process I was getting familiarized with all the terms and tools needed to work in this department. For example, terms like Net Promoter Score (NPS), Average Revenue per Usage (ARPU), CHURN and so on.

Fourth day of the week was kind of follow up of all the information’s gathered by me and I was questioned what I was learning so I had to answer that. Beside that at the beginning of the day I was called for an interview by the People and Organization department. They took an interview of around ten minutes which was based on my educational background and past job experience; main concern of the interview was my temperament issue in different situations. 14 Interns were interviewed and among them half were selected and I was one of them. This was for a project where I will work for the next eight working days and this project includes workings like checking and correcting of confidential information about employees and check disbursement.

At the last day of the week I was assigned to coordinate an event for the customers under supervision of an executive, alongside that I was briefed and showed how to work with SFTP, which stands for SSH File Transfer Protocol, or Secure File Transfer Protocol, is a separate protocol packaged with SSH that works in a similar way over a secure connection.

While attending the office environment on a daily basis, I found out that no matter what is the situation and how much pressure is there everyone tries to help out each other and they like to work as a team. Though my supervisor who just joined this department and has a huge load of work, she is trying to help me out in every possible situation. With this kind of friendly environment and working opportunities I am looking forward for the next week where I am promised to be introduced with a new dimension of corporate work responsibilities.

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Journal for the week ended 21st February, 2015

The world of professions has several different dimensions, in which one have to learn a lot through various types of procedures. The subsequent week is a reflection of this concept that I experienced in my workplace; where I learned few from my own department and few from the project I was working for another department due to their shortage of manpower. I mentioned in my last journal that I was expecting a work load and my expectation became reality but the inspiring idea is that, all the official personnel was very friendly.

As I have discussed in the previous week’s journal that I was selected to work on a project of people and Organization department where my work was checking and correcting of confidential information about employees and check disbursement. This was some out of the box learning for me. Throughout the time period of working in this project I learned how to manage personal feelings and opinion while working in a professional level and alongside that I also learned how to deal with employees when they are in different mood of mind. At the beginning of the week, I was only playing the role of an assistant of a permanent employee but as time passed by I was the one looking after the whole process without the help of any superior though I made some mistakes at the beginning but I was carefully corrected.

When I was performing this task, I was initially nervous and made some mistakes, moreover I was at one point demoralized thinking that this kind of learning adds no value to my professional level but I was wrong which I figured out with time, the reason behind this realization is that maybe I will face such situation in the future as an employee instead of being an intern. As according to my supervisor that was natural for an intern. But as I said earlier, my supervisor and the other personnel were very kind to help me out to understand the importance of this kind of learning. So, when I think what I learned in this week, I found out that, firstly I learned the operational perspective of the task where I need to be more careful. Secondly, I learned how to help others and make someone comfortable in the workplace.

During the week, I noted few unwanted things about a very little number of employees and that is no matter how hard you try how much effort you give they will never appreciate that or nor show minimum respect. So, there were some sweet and bitter experiences for me in the workplace throughout the week.

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Journal for the week ended 28 th February, 2015

The corporate world posses challenging working environment which is difficult for a personnel to cope with it and being an intern it was even more testing for me. The overall workload of this week was a lot heavier than the previous ones. I was assigned to two different projects at the beginning of the week. One is called Customer Listening Centre and another one is Customer First App, both focuses on customer centricity; means working for making ways to provide better service to the customers.

As I discussed in the previous week’s journal that I worked for People and Organization department for a week so it was kind of new beginning for me in my own department. At the very first day of the week one of my team member from Customer Experience and Online Commercial briefed me about the Customer Listening Centre and what are the workings included in this project along with making me understand why the company has taken this initiative. This listening centre is a kind of booth where the employees comes and listen to their customer complains about the service provided by them and take actions based on that. My job here is to make strategies on how to motivate the employees to frequently come in the booth and listen to the customer’s pain points. Beside that tracking the data uploading procedure in that booth, analyzing employees’ feedback on what they want to go closer to the customers so that they can relate the customers need with the product or service they want to give to their customers and managing those.

Every day, thousands of complains comes from the customers end about different issues, some of which are solved immediately and some of which are remain under processing. Keeping this scenario in mind another issue stands side by side which is top managements involvement in solving these issues. Top management is hardly aware of the whole scenario. Here comes the role of Customer First App. The company is trying to build an Application useable on mobile devices which will be only used by the permanent employees of the company. Main purpose of this Customer First App is making employees see and feel the scenario from a customer perspective about the company’s product and service. My work here at the initial level is to maintain the documentation process and deciding on what contents should be included in that application; in other words to come up with a strategy which will force the employees to use that Application.

Another thing that needs to be mentioned is that, both the projects are very sensitive and needs to be launched at a very strict timeline as the company needs to convince their customers that they are actually working for the best interest of the customers. Each and every employees working on these projects are giving their hundred percent as they are accountable to the CEO for the success of these projects. The reason behind this is that the CEO wants it to be simple both for the customers and the employees.

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Apart from the official job, there was an observation related to cricket at office that is no matter how much pressure is on an employee as a cricket fan each and every employee manages time to keep update about how is our National Cricket team doing in the cricket World Cup. This creates a friendly environment at the office.

Journal for the week ended 7 th March, 2015

It is needed to be mentioned that, in this particular week, I had to attend meetings like the busiest employees do, as in this week I had to work on a project which needs a lot of coordination and discussion with the team members.

In the previous week’s journal, I have mentioned that I was working on customer centricity which included working on two different projects. In this week I was assigned to one more project which includes making the communications process easier with the customers. Bangladesh is a developing country and most of the people in this country are not well educated so when it comes to communicating with the customers it becomes tough for any company whose target is the mass population.

It is normal that a telecommunication company will contact their customers over phone to provide service or to get feedback on the service they are providing but most of the cases customers do not understand what the company wants to know or what service the company wants to provide to their customers. So the whole Customer Experience team was working on making the communication process easier and simple to understand.

In our BBA program we have learnt how to pursue people in a positive and simple manner and this skill was the main strong point while working in this project. Throughout the project I had to prepare questionnaire for the customers and conduct survey. After getting the result the whole team used to sit together and decide on what we were lacking on to reach the customers and what are the ways to make the questionnaire simpler. For this I have conducted face to face survey and as well as over phone survey and it was a good experience along with learning how to deal with the customers.

The most difficult thing was that, as I am new in this corporate world and I am just learning it was getting tough for me to work on three projects at a time. There were situation where I had to look after three things altogether but this was also learning on multitasking and I kind of enjoy working like this.

One of the most interesting thing that I have faced in this week is that, we had a town hall meeting where all the employees of our department was present and I had to conduct a team building session. I was very nervous as this was my first time in a podium so big along with almost thirty professionals. I had no preparation time for this but I did that successfully, though it

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was just a team building session it was an opportunity for me to grab the attention of all the employees present there with some uniqueness. As I said in the beginning it was interesting, this is because of the observation that I had; that is no matter how good friends you are, in the corporate world everyone is the competitor even if it is your friend and the employees attitude at the prize giving ceremony of best employee of the month made that clear.

Journal for the week ended 14 th March, 2015

This week I could not realize when the week passed by in a blink of an eye. As I mentioned

earlier I was working in different projects based on customer centricity and this week all the

projects were running hand to hand. So there were a lot of works to deal with alongside attending

meetings.

As I mentioned earlier at the previous journals that I was working on customer centricity and one

of the project included making employees aware about the customers pain points through the use

of listening center, till the last week the Listening Center was operated manually by me but as it

was time consuming and very hard to keep track of the employees participation, the management

decided to make it automated, for this a tool/software was built and throughout the week I had to

run different kind of test on this and make a test script based on the results. These tests were

done to check whether the tool is properly working or not, for this I had to conduct several

meetings with the IT department and all by my own as the full responsibility was mine. This was

a great learning on vendor management.

Earlier I mentioned about the Customer First App project I was working on, till the last few

weeks there was a coworker with me helping out on this project but my supervisor decided that I

will do the work of that coworker from this week and onward along with the work I was

responsible for. She thought that I am capable enough to look after the whole process. So this

increased my responsibility for this project, previously I was only working on the information

management part but from this week I am also looking after the data entry part of this project and

which is quite a time consuming task.

In between these works I also helped out the team on Net Promoter Score (NPS) Questionnaire

simplification process. NPS has different dimension and the questionnaire was to set for these

entire dimension. As it is a month long process so this will continue for few more weeks.

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Later, this week I was also asked by my supervisor to prepare a presentation for the CMO,

CHRO, CTO, CFO based on the customer pain points, what they face and so on which will be

presented at a meeting with these top level management to let them know about and to take

initiative based on that. It felt like an honor as she trusted me and thought me capable for this

work.

I had this idea that the interns at Grameenphone are not that closely monitored by their

supervisors but I was proved wrong when my supervisor told me that she was monitoring my

each and every move and work and she also asked if I was challenged by the works till now that

I was given. I told her that I was not challenged and only then she let me prepare the

presentation.

Journal for the week ended 21 st March, 2015

The working environment at office has become really comfortable for me for past few weeks, as

I came to know all my senior officers personally and they were also very cooperative and

friendly with me. Beside this it was an eventful week for me as I had faced a lot of things this

week.

As I discussed in my previous journals I was working on different projects, so I started the week

with follow up works of those projects. Among those projects the final phase launch deadline of

Listening Center was knocking at the door. First two days of the week I was busy with final

testing of the Listening Center Tool. Tuesday was a national holiday and my first after joining as

an intern.

As I said earlier an eventful week and that started from Wednesday. I mentioned in my previous

journal that I was preparing a presentation for higher management with the help of my team

members and this was the day to get approval for that from my supervisor whether it was good

enough to present or not. Few points from my presentation were removed and few were taken

and I was happy with that. Later on this day we had a team dinner.

On my way home that night I was hijacked, I lost my official laptop and all other belongings. For

that I had to go to police station and file a General Dairy about what happened. This was the

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story of Wednesday night, I immediately informed my team members from office and asked for

suggestions about what to do as the things I lost was all official property. I took necessary steps

according to their advice. Next day when I reached office with the copy of General Diary from

the police station I was called for an interview from the compliance department. They wanted to

know what actually happened and told me not to worry about the things I lost. They were happy

that I was safe and no harm was done to me.

This event came to me as a shock and I had no idea what to do after that. My supervisor and

team members asked me to take that day off and join from Sunday. Though I did not take the

leave and stayed at office but I also did not participated at any work on Thursday. It took me a

while to digest the whole thing but accident happens and I am looking forward to a fresh start

from Sunday.

Journal for the week ended 28 th March, 2015

Fresh start that is what I thought I will be having from Sunday but instead I had a fresh new

experience on how the compliance department of any company deals with different situations. I

also learnt one thing this week that is nobody takes responsibility until and unless it is signed in a

paper work. All these were related to the incident of my loosing the laptop to some thieves. In

that case I would like to admit that I am glad that the incident occurred, though I feel sad for the

loss. I am glad because the situation had me tested things like patience and also helped to figure

out the level of trust my team members had on me along with how much value is placed in my

work.

Keeping these things aside, as I lost my laptop I was not able to work because I lost all the

necessary things need to work, with the laptop. Moreover I was not allowed to get another laptop

from the IT department as long as the case of loosing laptop was not solved. So I was kind of

workless with the pressure of proving my innocence. Well finally it was the Tuesday evening

they have come to the decision that I have nothing to do with the incident and I tried my best for

the companies’ interest and thus they provided me a new laptop and with that the workload

started again.

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Final phase of launching the Listening Centre tool is 30th March and I was left with a lot of

testing on the tool and educating my team members how to run the tool in my absence. As I

mentioned earlier working on this project needs to deal with the vendor and also needs to align

with the other department of Grameenphone which is situated in another office in Uttara, known

as Nitol Niloy Tower. I had to start my office there on Wednesday as I had to educate an

employee from that end.

As Wednesday was the last working day of the week I was sort of busy figuring out how to deal

with the lost time and ways to recover. So I was working accordingly and decided to work on

home in the holidays.

The week was a complete mess for me but it felt good figuring out that honesty and hardworking

does have a value. My team members supported me throughout the process. So for the week my

observation is, it is a nice organization to work with as long as you are doing more than

expected.

Journal for the week ended 4 th April, 2015

As I was getting to the end of my internship and this was my second last week, it was really

exciting from various perspectives of mine. First of all, I was happy as I was successful till now

to provide a satisfying performance at office and my superior along with my team members were

pleased of my work. According to few of my team members I am proactive and mature.

The job responsibilities became routine tasks for me as at the first half at office, I used to

complete task related to the projects I was assigned to, and in the second half I used to help my

team members with data sorting and analysis. One of my team members helped me out

throughout the week teaching me different techniques of Excel which I will be able to use in my

future life along with teaching me use of different tools used in the telecommunication industry.

My supervisor advised me to attend all the training session starting from this week as she wants

to involve me in few other projects which require formal training. She, not just advised me also

took the necessary steps so that I can attend those training sessions as interns are most of the time

not privileged enough to attend those training sessions. Following up this I attended one training

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session this week trains employees about how to properly communicate with consumers with a

live demonstration and the ways of conducting Net Promoter Score (NPS).

I realized that after almost two weeks struggle for the incident related to laptop losing things

were again back in track and I started to feel normal. Grameenphone celebrated their 18 th

Birthday this week so there was a festive mood throughout the week in office and I kind of

enjoyed it.

Journal for the week ended 11 th April, 2015

This was the last week of my internship period at Grameenphone. I was happy that after this

week I will be done with all the formalities related to my internship and under graduation. On the

other hand I was sad about thinking how badly I am going to miss my everyday life at

Grameenphone with my team members. This is the irony of life that nothing stays for ever so I

am preparing myself to except the situation.

As this was the last week I was handing over the tasks I was assigned to, I had to present all the

works to my team members and supervisor through a presentation. Everyone was happy with my

work. Throughout the week I had to work with a team member to hand over my task to him so I

kind of passed my last week guiding someone.

Finally, at the very last day my team members advised me about my career and discussed with

me about my future plan. They also wanted to if I was interested to work in this company at a

later time.

Overall it was a great experience at the Customer Experience and Online Commercial

department of the Grameenphone and I am looking forward to use the gained experience in my

future.

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