Bangladesh Brand Forum opens Knowledge Center

Bangladesh Brand Forum has recently launched a Knowledge Center with a view to 'advancing the knowledge with the assistance of vast resources of business wisdom'. Read here to know more.

In first impression, I am full of hope that this initiative will work towards showcasing, documenting, archiving valuable business knowledge generated everyday in the growing business sectors of Bangladesh. Its high time that we start celebrating our business heroes, our budding business leaders and start branding ourselves first. To that respect, Bangladesh Brand Forum's Knowledge Center seems to be a good step in the right direction. I am sure knowledge exists not only in the corporate dominated urban settings in Bangladeshi businesses, but it also exists in the rural areas of the country where majority of the Small and Medium Enterprises operate. So an effort to bring this knowledge in a central repository for use by other businesses is no wonder a commendable initiative.

However, like all other things in life, first thing I did when I learnt about this project, was to Google it. That led me to the third party newspapers website from where you get the news report on this. To know more, I thought to check out the Bangladesh Brand Forum's website and experienced 'mild disappointment' with the state of the site there. In my opinion, its equally important to brand this initiative (and the BBF) through strong web presence, which should include interactive and active social media presence too (so that foreign audience know about it too). I could not find any information on latest activities, even information on latest issue of the magazine on the website. A topic for the owners to look into with utmost urgency.

Coming back to the 'Knowledge Center', I think it would be better if we could find out who all are the target audience of this initiative is and how they can participate. Do they need to pay any membership fee to become a member? What facilities will they avail? Also, the vast majority of emails I receive in this blog's email account concern with queries from job seekers, who are frantically looking for employment opportunities in Bangladeshi companies (even in this blog). Not to mention a good number of students who are even looking for part time work opportunities are also there. Will this Knowledge Center somehow cater to unemployed youth, women, students who might be looking for jobs? Or this will be just another 'blue collar' initiative only to cater to the 'corporate elites' of Bangladeshi business domain? Knowledge should be made available to all, in some form or the other, to all who might use it to advance their situation. The ability to pay/subscribe better not be a deciding factor in the long run to make this venture acceptable and popular across all strata of the business audience (students, job-seekers, executives, managers etc.)

Then I am keen to know if this Center will somehow encourage, help entrepreneurs or not? I myself am a private sector employee and have nothing against salaried employment/employees. But I have a special 'Respect Center' in my heart for entrepreneurs, business innovators, leaders. Bangladesh Brand Forum itself being one of this type, might do a great service to those who might be thinking of setting up some sort of a business in Bangladesh, but just don't know how to. BBF's elite panel of business think-tanks might provide valuable guidance and directions to budding business buddies of Bangladesh to help them set up their tiny money making ventures. What do you think?

While its important that we educate our executives the importance of branding, we also should take into account informing those who are in rural settings. So will this Center, in near future, make its service accessible, available to people who live outside Dhaka? Will there be material available in Bangla too? These are perhaps some of the key aspects the drivers of this initiative might consider, incase they already haven't.

Finally, knowledge is multi-directional, where Bangladeshis working abroad might also feed into this process with their ideas, expertise, experience etc. So does the Knowledge Center take into account 'importing knowledge' from Bangladeshi workers abroad?

Well, even if the answer to a lot of these questions is 'no', it does not mean that the initiative is short-sighted in any ways. Rather I am very optimistic that if nurtured well, this might very well turn out to be a center of excellence for Bangladeshi best business practices, case studies, general knowledge etc. So good luck with this.

Lets not bite the dust

Of the many things we have been trying to promote through this blog's platform, business journalism and contemporary business literature on Bangladeshi companies are one of them. We have blogged about the nascent business journalism industry in Bangladesh, hoping to see more vibrant activities and popularity of those initiatives. Bangladesh Brand Forum is perhaps one of them about which we have been very positive and hopeful. The magazine seemed to have taken off with much fanfare, media coverage and gaudy display of think-tanks and movers and shakers during various summits and conferences. The content of the magazine, the approach, the objectives, all seem to have been heading for the right direction until this September perhaps, when my repeated visits to the neighborhood newsstand started turning out to be unworthy, as the magazine has disappeared from those newsstands and according to my hawker, from the market too. He claimed that the magazine did not hit the stands since September. Now this is not good news and I sincerely hope this is temporary. I wonder what is holding back the magazine which seemed so full of potential, it had great names and perhaps great minds in its board, great contacts, great adverts and above all, great content. We are convinced that entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs are bound to be hit by dust and rust, that is a natural phenomenon, but biting the dust in an entrepreneurial venture never tastes sweet. We hope Bangladesh Brand Forum does not have to bite the bitter dust and continues emboldening the brand Bangladesh.

Changing the landscape of Bangladeshi business journalism

I wonder if you have noticed the recent change in the business journalism horizon of Bangladesh. Amidst a plethora of newspapers and magazines (both Bangla and English) and TV programs, a few who are trying to make a mark in business journalism in those domains are respectively the Daily Star, a newly launched monthly business magazine called Bangladesh Brand Forum and Ekushey TV’s ‘Ekushey Business’ program.

The Daily Star has increased its business page from 2 to 4 with renewed focus on various business issues of the country. Although its pretty early to comment, the Star seems to have the capacity and the brand name to nurture star business feature writers. Their recent e-version of the newspaper also appears to be a right step in the right direction, alluring more international internet audience to log on to their website for latest news and views from Bangladesh. What remains to be seen is how analytical the articles will be, other than posting only news or news-like stories, it is very important to provide a critical insight to business issues. Who knows Star might come up with a business blog in near future to stir up more interaction among topics and its readers.

P2P connections take you far and there is no branding better than self-branding. Although I personally always shied away from that, and thus find myself idling away writing in this blog, there are people who branded themselves as ‘gewrews’ in their respective fields and gave the world a larger than life impression about their expertise. Its also a good idea to keep a good relation with your past teachers….who are good teachers and especially business teachers who are adept in applying the business theories to real life and to themselves. Something similar came into realization when Bangladesh Brand Forum launched recently a brand new business magazine by the same name. Their ‘expert’ panel not only flaunts the name of the very best in the industry (like Kotler and Quelch) but also puts into limelight some ‘desi’ versions of Porters and Kotlers and Druckers mainly comprising of a few far-sighted IBA teachers, equally (if not more) far-sighted IBA graduates, and well established (perhaps IBA alumnus) business executives in the leading MNCs of Bangladesh. Their appearance in the business journalism horizon of the country surely spells doomsday for early starters like Executive Times and Economic Review who always lacked glamour and glitz. On the contrary, Bangladesh Brand Forum kicked off in style and glamour when they arranged a series of leadership forums by inviting famous foreign business leaders and arranged high-priced closed-door sessions in five star hotels in the country. That also got very good response from the business wanna-bees and wanna-babes who didn’t let go the opportunity to brush some shoulder with the movers and shakers of business literature and practices. All this, did give a good start and a certain element of class to the newly born business magazine. Let us wish the venture a success and a lot of fan following in the business community of Bangladesh.

Last but not the least is the advent of the business program in Ekushey Television called Ekushey Business. They have started providing live coverage of the stock prices directly from the exchanges. They are also arranging talkshows on contemporary business issues with different business personalities of the country. Its high time that ETV comes up with its own website so it can start streaming its programs over the internet for an interested non-resident Bangladeshi audience.