Is Bangladesh ready for the digital future?

Imagine feeling hungry, but you don’t have any food at home. You can order food from Food panda or order groceries from Chaldal.com. This was not even imaginable ten years back. Thanks to digitalization and the rise of such e-commerce, everything is possible with a few clicks!
The term ‘digital Bangladesh’ is a familiar concept for all of us living in Bangladesh. Everyone is familiar with this term, from a primary school student of Dhaka city to a child from a rural area. We have heard and read about it a lot, be it on the TV, radio, newspaper, or even our textbook. How many of you have memorized an essay entitled “Digital Bangladesh” in your school? I bet the answer is many.
However, by constantly hearing or reading something every other day, we tend to ignore its impact. For example, most of us use Wifi these days, whenever the network connection becomes poor, we get furious, right? But do you remember the time when we used a “modem” for using the internet? Or the time when load-shedding was a common thing and the struggles associated with those nightmarish hours? I hope now you realize how digitalization is making our life easier and better.

Digitalization has impacted not only on technology enhancement but also the socio-economic development of our country. Even during the covid-19 pandemic, everything developed rapidly.

Working from home, online shopping, paying bills, everything has become a lot easier now. Look at all the e-commerce that’s expanding! But if we compare ourselves with other developed countries using AI, robots, faster internet speed, we still have a long way to go. Now the question arises, is Bangladesh ready for the digital future?

Organizational structure & challenges

The organizational structures and challenges play an essential role in digitalizing a country. We are all aware that Bangladesh has a bureaucratic system in most private organizations, not just public ones. Even though the situation has been changing with higher exposure to technology, the speed of change is not as rapid as in many other countries. In all countries, employees traditionally resist change, but bureaucratic cultures further associate this tendency.

Whenever the discussion of digitalization comes in, change is inevitable. Hence, it challenges not just the processes but also the status quo and the layers of organizational hierarchies, which many people are not in favor of. For instance, digitalization can reduce the need for middle managers, enabling more direct communication through lesser channels. This scenario can culminate into strong organizational resistance and have to be handled with sensitivity and caution.

For instance, we can learn from The Development Bank of Singapore Limited (DBS Bank) one of the largest banks in Southeast Asia. This bank has shifted their entire organizational structure to “digital technology as an infrastructure platform for growth and to accelerate the pace for the tech savvy Asian customers”. They believe that in the future, people won’t need a bank but they will surely need banking. Hence, they merged their technology and operations into one and the team lead directly communicated with the CEO for better and faster outcomes. This also reduced the level of bureaucracy. They also designed a platform for their employees and customers to give feedback, which they discussed in their meeting to make their services better.

Now the question is, is it possible to implement this in Bangladesh? Definitely! But digitalization has to be implemented with people’s enthusiastic contribution and participation to be effective, not by forcing it on people. Also, the challenges need to be considered and handled appropriately, giving the people in an organization the time and space to adapt. People are also skeptical about shifting towards a technology-based system because of privacy and safety concerns which needs to be ensured as well.

Business nature

There are immense benefits of digital transformation to improve a service or a product. Digitalization affects the systems, workflow, and everything by bringing together data from each level of the company and making their goal effective. With the help of AI and machine learning, organizations can help a customer according to their preference, which was unimaginable in the past.
However, the companies undergoing digital transformation measure their digital initiatives’ success rate like they used to measure ROI from previous projects. ROI varies from one digital program to the other, but some benefits are always interrelated or interdependent. The benefits include increased efficiency and productivity, resiliency, resource management, better customer experience, agility, responsiveness, increased revenue, stay relevant, and many more.

Some services in Bangladesh can progress with digital transformation. For example, buying train tickets online. Though the system exists, it is somewhat faulty. It needs to be more user-friendly so that the customers don’t have to print the ticket to get on the train. Financial security has always been an issue in our country.

Though digital financial services like Bkash, Nagod, etc., are becoming popular, many people still do not completely trust the concept. Businesses should create more awareness to ensure the security of the customer and to encourage them to use more features than just “Send Money” and “Cash Out”.

Industries have an excellent opportunity for digital transformation. They can reduce the cost, produce better quality, add value and streamline processes to reduce the waste of resources. All these are possible if proper transformation takes place.
AHMED SHOYEB IQBAL