Bangladesh on the right track to becoming a digital economy
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American tech huge Cisco Devices has doubled its headcount and office space in Bangladesh and opened up a depot for extra parts since it looks to expand footprint in a country steadily moving to become a digital economy.
"We firmly assume that Bangladesh is a extremely digital economy for what the federal government and the individual sector are undertaking, and we happen to be absolutely ready to be the digital spouse of preference," Sudhir Nayar, managing director for revenue for India and the Saarc at Cisco, informed The Daily Star within an interview in Dhaka last month.
Cisco has been present in Bangladesh for two years and was one of the first global It again companies that made expenditure in the country.
Today, it has a lot more than 1,000 customers found in Bangladesh and serves them through a lot more than 100 partners.
"It is the testimony to the expenditure we've done during the last 20 years. The clients and partners are our strength. As we continue steadily to grow in to the digital economy, their amounts will multiply."
Deepening digitalisation in Bangladesh provides prompted the technology service to broaden its footprint.
Bangladesh gets the ninth greatest mobile penetration on earth and the fifth most significant internet user base.
"These two are key for just about any digital acceleration because people need to be in a position to get information, if they want to learn or get or show something and small businesses have to promote their products because for everyone global market may be the market."
According to the World Economic Forum, Bangladesh will be the 24th largest economy in the world by 2030.
"Digitalisation will probably fuel the journey."
Approximately 120 ICT companies are exporting more than $1 billion worth of items to 35 countries. There are 6 lakh energetic freelancers in Bangladesh catering to the world's digital market and making $100 million worth of earnings for themselves.
"That is a humongous amount. This is very what digitalisation may bring to the united states. Bangladesh is already in the center of a big transformation. We really desire to be bridge."
Cisco has significant existence in Bangladesh: 88 per cent banks are functioning their core It all network and infrastructure on Cisco systems.
The government set up a national info centre a year or two ago in a significant stride towards building Digital Bangladesh and the centre is powered by Cisco.
Some 80 per cent of net in Bangladesh undergoes Cisco goods. Video-enabled governance is linked by the US firm.
Bangladesh may be the first country in Saarc that is implementing e-passport and Cisco can be a part of the core infrastructure.
"This is an indicator of an extremely progressive government and an evergrowing economy," Nayar said.
In Bangladesh, Cisco works together with all leading individual sector organisations. A whole lot of organisations happen to be implementing their private clouds.
Banks will be the most mature segment to adapting to IT and IT-enabled services found in the country. The government can be adopting more digital systems compared to the private sector now.
"In fact, the government is now leading the adoption of digital technology," Nayar said.
To be remembered as digitalised, every organisation, people or private, must decide which elements of their businesses they would like to digitalise.
For digitalisation, according to Nayar, three big pillars are needed: technology, process and persons and culture.
The three things should work together for those who to get a pure digital platform.
He lauded Primary Minister Sheikh Hasina's digital vision.
"It is not simple to start using digital systems. But she is applying it quite effectively to run her native governance and inaugurating a whole lot of events."
According to Nayar, when it comes to digitalisation, it is not no more than large projects, about governments or big exclusive organisations.
"Another growth in Bangladesh must result from small and moderate sectors," he stated, adding that there are six million small- and medium-sized enterprise organisations in Bangladesh.
In the last quarter, Bangladesh was the speediest growing country for Cisco in the Asia and the Pacific location, recording three times more growth than in India.
"This is not a small achievement by any stretch out of imagination. This is a high growth country for all of us," stated Nayar, who previously performed for Sunshine Microsystems, Oracle and Microsoft before becoming a member of Cisco 3 years ago.
He, however, didn't give any specific quantities on revenue and growth.
The business has continued investment in partners and students training on digital technologies.
He credited the company's continued investment, the growing number of clientele and companions, and digital drive of banks, retail corporations, hospitals and accommodations for the growth of the company.
The business has set a target to obtain five new customers every week.
"This is likewise a true exemplory case of digitalisation. Previously, we used to speak about what we can do in a month, 25 % or a year. Right now everything is about days and weeks because different companies are coming up each day."
He also discussed the big trends that are approaching in the local market.
One of these is e-commerce, which happens to be about $1.6 billion and the projection could it be would grow to $3 billion by 2023.
"This is very huge. All these require systems and the community is their market and they are not really confined to any single geography alone."
Globally, Bangladesh has always been known for apparel exports. But in 2018, the united states exported 12 professional robots to Korea.
"This is phenomenal. This is simply not something we'd have imagined possibly five years ago. The country has began to export ships and refrigerators. That is a fresh trend."
Cisco has opened a spare depot to serve Bangladeshi buyers. Earlier, these spares utilized to result from India and whatever the company did and utilized in Bangladesh took time.
Now, thousands of a large number of Cisco systems can be just one single hour aside from the neighborhood depot.
"It is one of the primary investments that we are doing here."
In Bangladesh, a lot more than 1,000 customers are employing 12,000 Cisco systems. It has committed to improving its capacity in fact it is now capable of supporting 20,000 devices.
There are 15 people working in the neighborhood office of the technology company. Besides, 30 to 40 persons make outings to Bangladesh usually from Kolkata or Delhi.
So far, Cisco has trained 38,000 learners through its program called Network Academy. It features 15 academies at various universities, providing programs on digital systems and cyber protection, among other topics.
"We are happy to support it because this is the backbone to any digital economy's growth. The college students are going to be the digital transformation agents for Bangladesh."
It is not about selling systems to consumers and growing revenue; in virtually any digital economy, the largest thing is the way the youth is normally empowered, so they include digital expertise, he added.
Option of technically trained workforce may be the major obstacle facing Bangladesh, he said.
"This is simply not only true for Bangladesh but also every developing nation. Technologies also change as well fast. We must do far more about this. It has to transformation from the institution level."
There are six million SMEs and thousands of other businesses and organisations that require to be digitalised and everyone needs trained workforce.
"If students come out with practical training and contact with digital technologies and cyber security, they would be more wanted in the market."
Digitalisation at SMEs needs to be augmented, he said.
"You have a workforce that's educated. If indeed they become tech-savvy, then it will have a enormous differentiator for any nation," said Nayar, who offers work experience spanning three years and includes a B.Tech degree in electronic devices and communications from the Regional Engineering University, Warangal in Telangana state.
Relating to Nayar, Cisco believes that when it includes a trust of just one 1,000 buyers and such a major infrastructure is being run on Cisco, it offers responsibility to stand up and commit.
"We have been present in this country for twenty years. We are incredibly proud with what the neighborhood team did and the trust that the clients have in us. Definitely, we will work, ensuring we train our staff, partners, clients and specifically the students."
Source: https://www.thedailystar.net