Two Little Business Women

It has been my habit for last two/ three years to observe people. Whenever I am idle or wait for someone or something, I observe people. I try to analyze and understand their attitude, their activities and their way of thinking. Sometime I learn new thing and sometime I smile as they have fun.

Today I was on my way to client’s office. I was standing in a line and waiting for my bus. There was a small restaurant just next to me. I was looking at the chef’s works. There was two little girl eating breakfast next to the chef. From their look it seemed they were alone. I was surprised as it is highly unusual for children to have breakfast alone in such crowded place. So I kept looking. few minutes later they finished having their breakfast. They paid for their breakfast and came out of the restaurant. They looked at the crowd and went back to the restaurant. A moments later they came out with some newspapers in their hand. They discussed something and pointed out to two different side of the crowd. Then those two girl went to the different side they pointed.

I understood that those two girls were newspaper sellers. They sell some low-end newspaper to people in the bus station area. Generally they start working early in the morning. They might have took a break for.breakfast when crowd was small. After their breakfast they saw that the station is crowded again. So they started working again. They made strategies to target different sides in order to avoid competition. I have seen young people like them normally trend to work together and try to sell newspaper at the same person. But these two girl was different. They are good business women. They choose not to compete with each other and targeted people from different area. This way they can cover large area and reach more people increasing their chances to sell more newspaper.

I was surprised watching their strategy. These two girl are small enough to miscalculate but yet they came up with good strategies. Or may be someone else show them this strategy. I don’t think these two girls are going to school but they should be. Instead of they are in newspaper business and making strategies for their business. It seems practical experience sometime teaches better than formal learning process.

For a better emplyment

When I got admitted in North South University, BBA degree used to rule the job market. Almost all companies looked for the candidates with BBA degree. But Before I could complete my BBA, job market started to shift toward MBA degree. By the time I completed my graduation, job market totally moved to MBA holders. Now companies look for candidates with MBA holders. They want MBA holders even in the lower posts where graduation is not required.

In other countries MBA is treated as a professional degree like Chartered Accountant (CA), Chartered Management Accountants (CMA) or other degrees. In those countries, number of MBA holders are very few. But in Bangladesh MBA is not a professional degree anymore. It have become an academic course as there are plenty of people with MBA degree.  Because there are lots of MBA holder in the market, BBA holders are falling behind in the job market. Therefore almost all graduates thinks of getting a MBA degree.

Till yesterday, I used to think what new qualification companies might want in their job candidates as there are lots of MBA holders. Today morning I got my answer when I saw a circular. It’s for DBA from IBA. IBA is the first institution in Bangladesh to introduce DBA. DBA means Doctor of Business Administration. It is treated as Ph.D in business sector or business study. I know soon other top universities and then other universities will start offering DBA. And lots of people will run after DBA degree in order to differentiate in job market.

Then I started to think, how long people will study to get a good job? People in our country kept studying and getting new degrees with a dream to get a good job which will give them attractive salary and attractive position. But as this type people increase every day, options increases for the employers too. They want highly qualified candidates for low positions which might not need any qualification at all. As DBA have been introduced in Bangladesh, people will start running after this degree and soon companies will make it a requirement for entry-level jobs.

I was thinking how to avoid dependence on degrees to make a livelihood. The answer I came up with was to avoid the tendency of getting a job. There will always be some new degrees. And people will run after those degrees to differentiate in the job market and get a good job. But if we don’t have any tendency to run after job, we wouldn’t have to take the hassle to achieve those higher degrees. Instead of running after jobs, people should start small businesses. They should become a small entrepreneur. If people don’t want to lead posh lifestyle, small business might be enough to make livelihood and maintain an average lifestyle. The amount of time and money people spends for getting degrees, a person might had a successful business  if those are spent for small business. If people trend to start small business, this country will have lots of small entrepreneurs and who knows, they might become giant entrepreneurs someday.

Prime Bank Limited: worst in customer service

I am a client of Prime bank Limited for a year. I didn’t want to open account in this bank however my firm pays allowance only in this bank accounts. So I had to open a salary account in this bank. However from the first day I didn’t like the service provided by the bank. Later I came to know that bank itself has some big problems. And recently I became totally pissed off towards its employees. They are the most incompetent bank employees I have seen. Even govt. banks has better employees than this bank.

I became dissatisfied with Prime bank on the day I opened my account. That’s because my first impression was negative. In all other banks, when you open a new account, they provide you a deposit book. Or at least give a book right after you are done with account opening process. But when I wanted to deposit money, they provided me a deposit slip when I asked for a deposit book. After depositing the money, I asked them again to provide me a deposit book. They replied that they don’t have any deposit book. Every time I have to come to the bank, take a deposit slip, fill it and then deposit the money. They suggested me to take several slips to fulfill my deposit book requirement. I rejected the idea and decided not to deposit any money in this bank ever. I will withdraw my monthly allowance from this bank account. And so far I’m doing that.

Few days back, I went to Prime Bank Mohammadpur branch to open up a Fixed Deposit Account for my sister. We thought it would not take more than 30 minutes to open the account if we take all supporting required. As planned we reached the bank by 10:15 am. We found that only 3/4 customer were inside the bank. I saw that there were 3 female and 1 male customer service officer waiting in customer service desk. I went there and requested for an account opening form. One of the female service officers gave me a FD opening account. I filled it up on behalf of my sister. When I submitted the form along with the documents to the officer who gave me the form. Then she checked the form and asked me whether I will pay cash, cheque or bank draft. I replied that I will pay cash for the deposit. She seemed to be unhappy. I didn’t know why and still don’t know. She gave me a cash deposit slip after writing the FD account number. I deposited the money and returned with the deposit slip for payment verification. So far it took only 10 minutes.

After I returned with deposit slip, I showed it to the customer service officer. She passed it to her colleague and went somewhere. Her colleague was handling another client. There were two other service officer but none of them took charge. We had to wait. After the second service office provided service to the other customer, she took our account opening form and deposit slip. She then requested another service officer to give her FD Receipt form. When she was writing the FD receipt, all service officer started gossiping. Let me share some of those conversation with you.

1st service office (who gave me form) to 2nd : You look beautiful in this dress.

2nd officer (who were writing FDR): oh these? I want to throw it away but I love this dress too much.

1st officer : Then don’t throw it away. But I think I should throw mine. It’s becoming tight for me.

3rd officer (3rd female officer who were standing all the time) to 1st officer: your gold finger ring is very nice. I love it. I am planning to buy one like this.

1st officer: what are you talking about? this ring is too big. I’m planning to melt it and remake a nicer one.

Then I intervened their conversation. I told then that we were in hurry. The officer who were writing FD receipt, started writing again. In the mean time another customer came in. He wanted to verify that his account is still active. The fourth and only male officer took charge of it. He struggled with computer for few minutes but couldn’t do what he was doing. Then 2nd officer took charge and let the customer know that his account was active. When the customer left, their conversation restarted.

4th officer to 2nd officer: I needs a computer. (I was thinking “why? you can’t use a computer properly.”)

2nd to 4th: You will not get in a while. I got one two years later since I joined in. Same thing will happen to you.

3rd officer: Where is our 5th officer? She went hours ago to buy baby food for her daughter.

2nd officer: what kind of people feed baby food to 1 year child. Those who feed baby food are not smart at all.

before it becomes lengthy, I intervened once again. I asked them how long it will take them. Then 2nd officer started writing again and finished it within 1 minute. She then sent it to her supervisor for approval. It took 5 minutes to get the approval signature. Finally we received the FD receipt. It took only 45 minutes to complete whole process. But if the officers were not gossiping  it could be finished within 15 to 20 minutes. Me & my sister, we both, were late for our office. We were pissed off. But still I  don’t understand how could they such gossiping in front of customer. Don’t they have any common sense? If these continues to go on, I am sure Prime bank will start loosing its customer. I suggest prime bank to be conscious about this matter.

Journey to Keshabpur

Last month I have been to Keshabpur for audit purpose. Keshabpur is an Upazila of Jessore District in the Division of Khulna, Bangladesh. Purpose of the visit was to audit a partner NGO of the client I have been auditing. Iftekher vai (my senior at AQC) and I were selected for the team. We were required to finish our assignment by 3 days.

Our journey started at early morning. I arrived at bus stand almost half an hour before the departure time. Ifti vai arrived shortly. Our bus started for the destination  at 9 am. Though it was not my first tour without my friends and family, I was excited. I was excited mostly because we didn’t know anyone where we were going. Also we had no idea how we will reach the client’s office and where we will stay. We were told to contact with the partner NGO when we reach Keshabpur.

Our Bus dropped us at Jessor. Till then journey was great. Nothing special to tell except for I slept almost whole time. Then we got into a local bus which will take us to Keshabpur directly. I don’t want to describe about the bus or its environment. But I must describe the view I enjoyed from traveling though it.

The  local bus was running through a narrow road. I was sitting just beside bus window. I was enjoying an awesome natural beauty. There were fields with different crops in both side of the road. Fields were  mostly paddy fields. However most of the fields were water-logged. It is one big problem in this area. But the view of green water logged fields were great. I could see many small hut in distance. This huts works as resting place for the farmers and provide shade when they have their lunch and shelter during rain.  It was raining just before i got down from the highway bus. The road and the surrounding was still wet.Rain drops washed away the dust and dirt of the leaves of the trees. Everything was looking green and fresh. I could resemble the view with the description of an ideal village I read in books and essays.

It was dawn when we reached Keshabpur. It took us 1 hour to reach from Jessor and 9 hours from dhaka. Ifti val called the contact person and ask for instruction about how to go to the office. We were instructed to take a man-pulled van. By the way, Rickshaw is not available in this region. Rather man-pulled van and shallow-machine van (also know as Nasimon or Karimon or Votvoti) are prevalent. we took a man-pulled van and reached the office in 10 minutes.

After the introduction with office personnel we were taken to our room. It was upstairs of the office. As we were tired of journey, we planed not to do anything. After refreshing ourselves and resting a while, we started our audit planning. We shared our audit planning with office personnel over dinner. For your information, most of the office personnel lives upstairs of the office. After dinner I called my home and let them know I arrived safely. Nothing much happened afterwards as we called it a day.

Next day was busy a day. But it started with an entertaining scene. A group of languor was roaming in the rooftop of the building next our office.I knew that Keshabpur is famous for Gray languors. I was hoping to see them but never thought to see them these closely. We spent few minutes watching them. Then we went for breakfast. Afterwards our work started and we worked till lunch. After lunch we took some rest and went out for field visit. We returned at dawn. As our time was limited and work load was huge, we decided to take all the documents to our room and work till late night. We indeed worked till late night. But could not finish our work. We finished our work next day before lunch. After lunch, we went to our room to take some rest and organize everything. We started to prepare for the exist meeting. However it took us till evening to organize to discussing points.

Before exist meeting we booked two seats for our journey to Dhaka. Though we were permitted to stay another night, we decided not to take that option. After the exist meeting, we went to our room and hurried to pack our bags. Our bus was scheduled to leave within couple of hours. After dinner ifti vai went to office manager and paid all our bills. Few minutes later we left the office for bus stand. Two officer accompanied us to the bus stand. Our bus came after 15 of the scheduled time. It was last bus to Dhaka from Keshabpur. We were tired and sleepy. I fell asleep right after I got in our bus. I don’t  remember anything what happened next except for Ifti vai telling highway police at midnight that these bags (pointing to our bags) belongs to two of us. We safely arrived at Dhaka next day. Our senior recommended us to take the day off and report to Client’s office next day. That was a great news for us because we had no energy or stamina left to attend the office.

The tour was great. I got the change to see and culture of Jessore region. Got familiar with food cooking and social behavior. I was planning to visit the place once again with my friends. But I didn’t know that I have to come to same region with in few days. But that’s another story.

Redwan

 

For better or worse

My life long dream is to be a Chartered Accountant. In order to fulfill my dream I joined A. Qasem & Co Chartered Accountants giving up the opportunity of jobs with good salaries. AQC is an affiliated CA firm with globally recognized firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC). It has been 4 months since I have joined in AQC. During these four months I spent 2 months in the firm and another 2 months in client. During these 4 months I witnessed and got different advices for and against these profession and the firm.

I was told to think carefully before I apply for registration in ICAB. Some well wishers advised me to try for RRH which is a member firm of KPMG. So I thought thoroughly and from different perspective. And then i took my final decision and that is stay in AQC and become an articled student. So today I submitted my certificates and applied for registration under AQC. I hope soon I will get the registration. I am looking forward to attend June 2013 exam.

I don’t know whether becoming articled student at AQC is a good idea or not. But I will stick to my decision. These decision might lead me to better or worse position. I certainly hope that this decision make thing worse. i will try my level best to make it better.