Governance Related Challenges in the Operation of Mobile Telecommunication Industry in Bangladesh

Abstract

The mobile telecommunication Industry in Bangladesh is conquered by only four players: Grameenphone, Banglalink, Robi Axiata and finally the state-owned company Teletalk. The oligopolistic nature of this industry in Bangladesh offers a fascinating prospect to study. Bangladesh positioned 5th in Asia Pacific Region and 8th globally in terms of market size for the inimitable mobile subscriber. The mobile telecommunication industry contributed GDP is 1.8% of the country through their voice call and internet. The mobile telecommunication industry is in gush for the increasing demand of smartphone as time progress. This industry is also contributing 30% job opportunities in the country. The aim of this paper is to highlight the main governance related challenges being faced by the companies operating in this industry. The data were mainly collected by captivating interviews with the company CEO, Company Secretary, Internal Audit Head, External Audit, Independent Directors and BTRC Chairman. Also, some secondary data were collected from company websites, annual reports, other related publicly available documents. The pragmatic evidence discovered area specific governance challenges such as lack of formal training for the board members, absence of cyber security introduction, no presence of institute directors of Bangladesh, lack of in-house program, absence of robust succession planning, lack of formal compliance and ethics programs in-house and industry level etc. Also, the various sub-committees (i.e. audit committee, nomination committee, remuneration committee etc.) were found ineffective to some extent. The study proposed some recommendations to overcome these lacking. The findings to the study are expected to have significant policy implication in reforming the corporate governance regulations in Bangladesh and Mobile Telecommunication industry in particular.