Submitted To

Ms. Rahnuma Sanjana

Lecturer,
Department of Management [SBE],
North South University.

Submitted By
Name ID
Akibul Bari 1430884030
Alvi Ahmed 1530752030
Irman Sazzad 1520778030
Jarin Tasnim Raka 1420711020
Mohammed Naimul Hoque 1520640631
Sanjida Afroz Mithila 1520676631
1
April 15, 2018

Ms. Rahnuma Sanjana,

Lecturer,

Department of Management [SBE],

North South University.

Dear Ma’am,

We submit herewith out project report namely “Business Communications in Abul Khair Steel”
which you asked for as part of our course requirement. In this report, we have compiled all the
relevant information that we gathered throughout our research process and arranged them
according to the specific criterion.

The research that we conducted have enlighten us regarding many communication issues of
different industries in our country and the countries outside and we have received an invaluable
experience during the process of conducting our project. We are sure that this unique knowledge
and experience will help us immensely in our future endeavors.

Lastly, we want to thank you personally for you have given us such an outstanding opportunity to
learn from such practical experiences and helped us throughout the entire research process. We
had an exciting time working for the project and we have tried our level best to make this time
worthwhile. We hope you would like our project and provide us with further insights regarding
how we could make such projects even better.

Sincerely,

Irman Sazzad, Alvi Ahmed, Mohammed Naimul Hoque, Sanjida Afroz Mithila, Jarin Tasnim
Raka, and Akibul Bari.

2
 Executive Summary

This report talks about the internal and external communication system of Abul Khair Steel, one
of the leading steel brands in the country. The report briefly discusses about the supply and the
production process for the company and also its domestic and foreign customers. It also talks about
the areas the research has been conducted on along with its methodology and sources. The report
then talks about the overall communication system inside the organization and reflects on different
compartments of the networking mediums thoroughly while also bringing forth the importance of
having solutions to the cross cultural and linguistic barriers the companies are facing worldwide
because of mass globalization and how AKS deals with it. Then the report goes to focus on the
existing communicative limitations the firm is facing in its mundane operations and the impacts
these are having on the fundamental well-beings of the organization. Subsequently, the report also
states some probable solutions to such problems and summarizes how these changes might help
the company overcome its potential collapse in distant future. Lastly, the report delicately reminds
the audience of the importance of business communication in all firms throughout the globe and
how it might prove to be the most important feature in a company’s ultimate prosperity or downfall
story.

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 Table of Contents

Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 5
Organizational overview ……………………………………………………………………….….. 6
Area of research ……………..……………………………………………………………………. 8
Purpose statement …………………………………………………………………………….…… 8
Research Methodology …………………………………………………………………………… 8
Primary Research …………………………………………………………………………………. 8
Secondary Research ………………………………………………………………………………. 9
Communication with stakeholders ………………………………………………………………… 9
Internal communication …………………………………………………………………………… 10
External Communication ………………………………………………………………………….. 13
External Communication Issues …………………………………………………………………… 17
Internal Communication Issues ………………………………………………................................. 17
Recommendation …………………………………………………………………………………… 19
Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………………… 22
Reference ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 23

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Introduction
Communication is often defined as a two-route process of attaining common understanding, in
which members exchange data, news, thoughts and sentiments as well as create and
share meanings. As humans, it is important to exchange ideas, knowledge, information and
feelings with each other to belong to a prosperous society. In business, the importance of
communication is even more. The idea of business started with the practice of Barter economy a
long time ago where people started to exchange goods with each other to attain a better well-being
for all the parties involved in the society. Without communication, this historical business event
wouldn’t take place and the world would probably had to wait a several hundred more years to see
any progress in its economic well-being. So, it’s safe to say that communication is one of the most
vital elements to conduct any business.

Nowadays, with globalization at its peak, people from different countries, cultures, languages,
ethnicities, religions, perceptions, ideas and backgrounds come together and involve in business
activities all throughout the world. This has enhanced the significance and necessity of having a
strong communication system in and around the business firms more than ever. However, it is
unfortunate to see that this is also the most neglected part in majority of the organizations. When
the business is running great, it is almost impossible to notice any communication gaps. When the
business goes through a rough situation, the questions of underperformance, efficiencies,
production and sales strategies are usually brought forward, not the communication problems.
Most of the senior executives think that they have it all figured out how to communicate with the
company’s stakeholders, which is wrong since it’s a spontaneous process. It requires one to adjust
to certain situations measuring certain problems and not the other way around. Most of the
employees who realize this problem don’t bring the issue forward for some of them fear for their
jobs and some just don’t care. Therefore, gaps in communication system is an ever-present
phenomenon in organizations throughout the entire world.

Today, we’ll look into the communication system and the related issues of Abul Khair Steel, a
prominent business entity of the country. We’ll try to thoroughly discuss their communication
networks, look for the gaps and analyze them to come forth with probable solutions based on our
knowledge on the subject matter.

5
Organizational Overview
Abul Khair Group, one of the main aggregates of Bangladesh, began its excursion as a tobacco
showcasing organization in 1953 as a Cottage Industry (Bidi). It is one of the country’s leading
conglomerates with separate ventures in Steel, Cement, Ready-Mix Concrete, Marbles, Sanitary
Ware, Consumer Goods, Baby Food, Tobacco, Match, Shipping and Real-Estate industries.
Among them, AKS or Abul Khair Steel is functioning as the most successful business unit for the
multi-dimensional entity for a decade now in the national and international market. According to
sources, Abul Khair Steel is the largest multi-diversified steel manufacturing unit in the entire
South-East Asia and it is the Industry leader in the construction steel industry of the country.

In flat steel category, Abul Khair Steel started as a single manufacturing unit of Corrugated
Galvanized Steel Sheets in 1993 at Madambibirhat, Chittagong which now has three different flat
steel products, namely ‘Goru Marka Dhew Tin’, ‘Cow Brand Color Coated Steel’ & ‘Zinkalum’
with a production capacity of over 750000 MTPA. At long Steel, AKS is the largest steel facility
in Bangladesh, capable of producing 1.4 MTPA since 2009. While their plant is equipped with the
modernized TMT technology, the company has also installed the country’s first & only Electric
Arc Furnace (EAF) in 2015 at Shitalpur, Sitakund, Chittagong. The facility enabled the firm to
ensure 100% refinement of steel, casting them into billets and rolling the billets to high quality
finished products. In addition, the company has four distinct CR (Cold Rolled) and HR (Hot
Rolled) Coil factories where the production capacity of steel is the highest in GCI (Corrugated
Galvanized Iron) industry which give them an upper hand in sustainable business in the medium
run over its competitors.

Most of the raw materials for production for AKS comes from abroad. The company collects the
raw materials for HR Coils from Japan, China, Taiwan & India specifically. JSW, Jindal Steel &
Power Limited, Nippon Steel, and Sumitomo Metal Corporation, which is the 2nd largest steel
producers in the world, are some of their primary suppliers for other sort of raw materials.
Although these are the only known suppliers for the firm, the CEO of AKS, Mr. V.R. Sharma

6
maintains secrecy what other supplier groups are involved in the firm’s production process and
how they communicate with these invaluable external stakeholders.

AKS has six supply chain drivers in operation. Those are facility, Inventory, Transportation,
Pricing, Information, and Sourcing. It has 18 warehouses nationwide where they can store around
10 lac tons of finished products and an additional 10 warehouses for storage of raw materials. For
the transportation system, AKS uses its own logistics and also some 3rd party transporters
according to the needs. For the pricing purposes, it uses an ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)
software named oracle.

Since it’s one of the leading steel industries in this region of the world, it’s very fare to guess that
they would an important role in the exports sector for the country. Initially, AKS entered the
international market by providing supplies in the Seven Sister States of North-East India namely
Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. Later on, they
expanded their exports to other parts of India and eventually began to export to other neighboring
countries such as Nepal, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. However, they made their big breaks
only pretty recently when they started exporting their products to the other continents of the world
like Europe and Africa.

Although they are very much invested in the foreign trade sector, they are far from being a serious
threat in the international market yet. Perhaps that’s the next big thing they would be looking for
in the upcoming years, but they do have plenty of competition available within the country as far
as the local steel industry is concerned. With RSRM and Anwar Ispat being two of their largest
competitors in the market, only BSRM seems to be the potential threat for the industry leaders,
who may be able to dethrone them from that spot in near future. When it comes to domestic market,
the key to success is all about the price advantages, capitals, and production capacities. While AKS

7
is leading the industry with an average production of 100,000 metric tons of rods per month
currently, it seems that BSRM is catching them up fast as we write this report.

Areas of research
Our main objective of from this research is to find out the fundamental communication system and
its limitations, if any, for Abul Khair Steel according to the level of communication (External and
Internal), nature of communication (Formal and Informal) and types of communication problems.
We would try to construct a bridge between the popular theoretical communication ideas with how
the employers of AKS view it from their convictions and how it all works out for the company.
We would also bring forth the flaws in the communication system of the AKS, if any, and try to
come up with some empirical recommendations to overcome those.

Purpose Statement
We want to know the basic communication system of Abul Khair Steel, what problems they
encounter regarding it and analyze their shortcomings to provide possible recommendations.

Research Methodology
This part of our report talks about the measures and mediums we have undertaken to find the
valuable information regarding Abul Khair Steel to analyze their business communication system
and draw pragmatic conclusions based on the data.

Primary Research
For our primary research, we have conducted numerous interview sessions with one of the
Marketing Executives of AKS, Mr. Minhazul Alam and the Executive Customer Service officer,
Mr. Muhammad Zakaria who have helped us with many important information regarding the
company. We have also arranged interview with Mr. Forhad, one of the company’s Territory Sales
8
Officer who has helped us with various company reports in his territory which helped us get a
better understanding of the company’s standpoint in the local market. All our communications
with them have been through Face to Face interview sessions, over cellphones and via E-mails.

Secondary Research
For our Secondary Research, we have used the company’s official website on internet and also the
websites of the company’s other branches of business. Furthermore, we have went through the
voluntary reports, journals and newspaper articles regarding Abul Khair Steel across the internet
to find additional information with reference to the company and the steel industry in general of
the country. We have also used our library resources, online resources like MyAthens, project
MUSE and JSTOR to gather information and have a better knowledge of the overall steel industry
of Bangladesh. Moreover, we have utilized the slides provided to us in the classroom and the
related text books consulted for our course.

Communication with Stakeholders

Communication plays a paramount role in the business process for in its limitations, no superior-
subordinate relationship will flourish. It is the transfer of information between two or more parties,
which can take place, with or without the use of words. Sometimes these communications are
formal in nature, sometimes they are more casual. These communications can come in several
kinds which play their parts to the success and prosperity of the enterprise. However, we are
interested to divide this communication process under one specific criteria only – Forms of
Stakeholders. When internal stakeholders, such as managers and employees within an
organization, communicates with each other in verbal or documented form and share files and
other company related papers and information, it’s called the Internal Communication. On the
other hand, when communications take place with stakeholders outside an organization, it’s called
the External Communication. We’ll now look into the Internal and External Communication
systems of Abul Khair Steel.

9
Internal Communication
Internal communication takes place across all levels and organizational units of an organization.
Organizations employ a broad range of internal communication strategies, including vertical,
horizontal, formal, and informal communication. It is the primary form of communication that
ensures if a firm will bloom in a combined effort of all its employees or it will lose its way into
the darkness without proper coordination and transparency. While big companies all around the
world talk big and take pride in their revenue margins, very few of the managers and owners of
these firms actually realize the significance of internal communications among their employees.
In extremes, this results in many sorts of rebellions inside the company or sometimes inspires the
workers to form labor unions with workers from different firms which causes all the associated
firms to lose their places in the market over the longer term. An improper internal communication
system can also lead to other harmful outcomes like higher employee turnovers, higher production
system loss and repetition of mundane works inside the company. It opens scopes for confusion,
internal vendetta among employees and mistrust among all parties. But on the positive side, a good
internal communication system can improve employee productivity, reduce employee turnover
and see the company shine over the years in the spirit of togetherness.

Now before we look into the situation in AKS, we need to take a quick glance at their basic
hierarchy of management.

10
 Chief Executive
Officer (CEO)

Manager,
Manager, Manager, Sales Manager, Manager,
Human
Accounting and Marketing Manufacturing Purchasing
Resources

Divisional Employee
Accounting Senior Sales Production Deputy
Marketing Relations
Analyst Executive Manager Manager
Officer Manager

Senoir
Accounting Production
Marketing Sales Executive HRIS Manager Senior Buyers
Clerk Supervisors
Executive

Marketing District Sales Production Staffing Assistant

Executive Coordinator Workers Manager Buyers

Customer
Service Territory Sales
Support Stuff
Officer
Executive

From this hierarchy, it is clearly visible that the company practices a long line of pecking order
which is both complex and in order. The company basically practices a up to bottom strategy while
communicating with each other. In simpler terms, the decision makers of the company remain on
the upper part of the pyramid while in the lower part remains the field level and junior office
workers who don’t make the calls. Their job is to ensure the execution of the decisions taken by
the upper panel. Every employee reports directly to his immediate superior or the other superiors
in case of specific requirement. That’s how the tree of ranking works in AKS.

For overall internal communication process, the company uses certain tools.

Cellphone and Documents: The primary mediums of communication among the employees are
the cellphones, the written documents and official papers. They talk and text each other over
cellphones very frequently from one place to another. There are specific reports and documents

11
that they transfer and submit to each other on mundane to weekly to monthly and even on yearly
basis that contains details of their office works. Sometimes these reports are sent to the houses of
the concerned managers through postal services depending on the importance of the papers.
Sometimes, this is done to keep several copies of important documents, sometimes it’s done to
keep proof of certain progress. There is also frequent use of telephone inside the factories, storage
facilities, company offices, local depots and field distributors’ offices in AKS. There are also
intercom facilities inside all the corporate offices and some other interlinked networking facilities,
such as private radio link, inside the headquarter of the company. Only the executive level
employees have access to these privileges according to their ranks and necessities.

E-mail: This is the 2nd most frequent medium of communication in Abul Khair Steel right after
cellphones. This is the communication medium that all the company’s employees use to send files,
information, data, reports and announcements. The company requires all its employees from field
level to the very top to use mails to share the company’s information with each other directly. The
reports often come with CC and it helps the firm to maintain all its data with backups.

Notice Board: There are a number of notice boards inside the corporate and factory buildings of
the company. These notice boards are used to primarily announce meetings, work schedules and
other changes of plans in the company’s mundane activities. There are numerous notice boards in
multiple floors of its corporate buildings.

Meetings: No company in the world runs without meetings and AKS is no different. However,
the noteworthy matter in the case of AKS is that, it’s one of their business strengths. The company
arranges combined and separate meetings among its field workers, distributors, stockholders,
officer level employees, managers, owners, suppliers, other stakeholders, and production workers.
The corporate meetings take place at least once in every month and the meetings with its workers
take place at least once in every three months. Sometimes the employees come up with innovative
ideas for the firm, sometimes they discuss to conclude a chapter, sometimes they resolve problems
and sometimes they find out more potential problems for the company in these meetings. The
company also provides several training sessions for all its employees from all the sectors so that
12
each of the employees have a very clear objective and ideas about how the company’s business is
running. For example, their sales executives and workers are sent to their factories occasionally to
give them ideas about how the goods they are selling are produced and in the same fashion, their
production labors are sent to fields to give them a better understanding how their hard works in
the factory is running the wheels for the firm. Their senior executives and sales experts from all
around the world come every now and then to give them ideas how to recover from different
problems and gives them a number of strategies how they could grasp the market. The company
also arranges motivational sessions and recreational sessions for its workers every now and then
to make them more open towards each other and perhaps work together with more drive to
contribute to the further success for the company. It’s important to note that the company also
arranges some personal meetings between the CEO and its managers time to time keep track of
the progress, discuss certain strategies and make important decisions. Video conferences are also
very commonly practiced in these meetings.

External Communication
While internal communications are specifically for employees and management, external
communications focus on spreading news and information about the corporation to the public,
customers, and company stakeholders. External communication is an important part of an overall
business plan since its directly associated with profits and promotion of the company. So, it is
important not only to maintain a good relationship with the external audiences but also to share
the company information with them in an efficient way. Although many companies consider sales
as the most important measure of business success, public perception about the companies is just
as important to the organization's well-being in the long run. External communication is what
primarily shapes and defines a corporation's image to the community, clients, and potential
investors. External communications let the public know about the company workplace,
philanthropic and environmental efforts, and other image-related activities, all of which serve to
strengthen the public relations efforts of a company. At times, lack of proper external
communication can lead an entity towards potential business failures. On the brighter side, a strong
external communication system can turn out to be the principal strength for a firm if practiced
carefully.
13
Abul Khair Steel uses a number of tools in the external communication system as well to ensure
the support and accolades of their existing stakeholders while channeling to spread out to the new
ones.

Suppliers: Since some of the suppliers of Abul Khair Steel are very renowned all throughout the
globe and the company intentionally maintains secrecy in revealing all their suppliers, it is safe to
say that they are doing an eminent job in preserving good communication with their suppliers.
Since they are working with some of the leading steel suppliers of the world competing with the
global market, they seek help from several international intermediaries to ensure that the supply
process and the good relationship among all the parties remain unharmed. The company uses
email, video conferences and paper documents to operate the communication with its suppliers.

Distributors: AKS distribute their final products through distributors, retailers and local shops.
Retailers collect product from distributors and then local shops collect product from retailers and
finally they sell it to customer. The distribution process starts from the production warehouses in
Chittagong where the final finished goods are kept initially after production. The distributors then
distribute these goods to the company’s 18 depots countrywide and the retailers collect these goods
from these depots. Local shops then collect the goods from the retailers and they are the one who
actually make the sale to the final customers. However, this is the general process of local
distribution for smaller and mundane orders. A huge portions of Abul Khair Steel’s customers are
real estate companies, property developers and building conductors who order in a mass amount
from the company every now and then. For these group of customers, the company mostly uses
3rd party vans and trucks to send the goods from their depots to the construction sites and for that
reason, the company also maintains a good relationship with all its 3rd party distributors and such
important loyal customers. Talking over cellphone and email are the company’s most common
practices to keep connected with such individuals and parties.

Recruitment: One of the more important event where the company directly comes in contact with
the people outside is through the recruitment process. There are different recruitment processes for
Lower level, Executive level, and Managerial level employees. Recruitment criteria, requirements,
and also the positioning of the recruited employees vary from department to department, different
14
levels of hierarchy and according to different necessities. The company publishes newspaper
advertisements and also publishes job circulars on online job websites and other job-related
magazines and blogs. The applicants are provided with opportunities to contact the company
directly on phone and through emails. The details of the interviews and the results are provided to
the applicants personally through emails and the selected individuals are trained under personal
observations of the senior employees in their first 3 months of the job.

Corporate Social Responsibility: Another form of external communication for the firm is
through its CSR sector. Abul Khair Steel is one of the biggest tax payers in Bangladesh and is
contributing in economic, social and human resource development of the country. The Company
supports charitable programs that improve living conditions of the citizens of the country and also
gives donations to the farming communities. They contribute to the education and the planning
sector of the country which is parallel to many of the UN millennium development goals. The
principal owners of the company were among some of the founding fathers of North South
University and some of them are still members of the institution’s Board of Trustee. Apart from
these, the company provides school and college scholarships to children and awards to women
who have faced personal adversity and shown exceptional courage, strengths, compassion and
leadership in communities in which the company operates. Abul Khair Steel also ensures a
pollution free production process for the company which is important for the environmental well-
being of the country. The company ensures a steady reduction in the energy and resource
consumption by increasing the efficiency of resource use, reducing waste, and encouraging
resource recovery and recycling. These noble activities contribute to build goodwill for the
company towards all its external stakeholders.

Customers: Abul Khair Steel publishes annual reports, magazines, newsletters, newspaper articles
etc. to let their customers and other stakeholders know about their current position in the market,
their upcoming plans and their past achievements. The use television commercials, billboards,
newspaper advertisements to advertise their products to their existing and potential customers.
Some of their TVCs are choreographed by the leading directors and producers of the country to
attract customers towards their products. They have several series of TVCs for different products

15
and product lines which are famous among the general public all throughout the country. The
customers can also visit their official website online and find their contact and other business
information directly from there. The customers are provided with options to make direct calls to
the company and also send mails for any responses. There is also a blank message section for
general people if anyone wants to ask them any specific question. They can send messages to the
company directly mentioning their name and email address and the company responses to their
messages via mails. The company also has a very frequently operative Facebook page where the
social media users can check their business activities, achievements and news on a regular basis.
They can also ask for inquiries there and contact through the messenger section. Additionally,
Abul Khair Steels arranges public seminars time to time to maintain a healthy relationship with all
its stakeholders.

Events: In correspondence with these above-mentioned events, Abul Khair Steel also encourages
its stakeholders’ participation to the company through various cultural and local endeavors. The
company has arranged the Bengal Classical Musical Festival in 2017 and experienced a mass
response to their event from all sorts of people of the locality. AKS also gives away mugs,
calendars, T-shirts and other forms of gifts to its loyal customers, retailers, distributors and the
local shops. It helps them to maintain a positive relationship to all level of its stakeholders over its
medium run. Plus, the company arranges ‘Mistry Programs’ annually for the workers who install
tin sheds to the houses of its customers and ‘Halkhata Programs’ for different parties involved in
the company’s business including some its competitors.

Apart from the internal and external communication mediums, there is another important
communication challenge that is experienced by the company on a regular basis. This challenge is
the language barriers that the company experiences in different part of its operations. Since the
field workers of the company mostly aren’t very comfortable in English, so they use frequent
Bengali while communicating with the clients and the officers. Bengali is also the general language
that is used in the offices of Abul Khair Steels. However, in the factories, there are a number of
translators who are capable to talk between Bangla and other languages like English, Hindi,
Japanese and Mandarin for most of the engineers of the facilities are from Japan, China and India

16
while almost all the factory workers are Bangladeshi. Another situation where they have language
conflicts is while dealing with foreign suppliers and customers. But they have customer managers
and supply chain executives who are well capable to talk in both frequent English and Bengali and
they deal with such situations with quite comfort and ease.

External Communication Issues

Client Complains: There have been cases where clients complained of having one problem but
experts from AKS have found other problems after inspecting or examining the products. There
were instances of where problem was actually different from what the client said.

Van Guarantee: Clients usually have a “van guarantee” of 10 lakhs which is an insurance against
the products especially steel rods. However, often they want surplus of goods which crosses the
“Van Guarantee Limit” which makes the trade risky since steel rods are very expensive. Moreover,
clients have problems realizing that they have already used up their van guarantee in a previous
order. They need to pay the money before they can order again.

Payment Issues: Another conflict with clients is that clients want to pay AKS after they get paid,
maybe at the closing of the year. But AKS’s policy is to collect the money at the end of each
month.

Competitive Disadvantage: AKS decided not to print calendars this year which according to
some field employees, might dilute the brand image and brand presence of AKS compared to its
rivals such as BSRM, KSRM etc.

Internal Communication Issues

Communication Gap: Office staffs usually do not contact with clients, information passes from
office staffs to field officers and the field officers disseminate this information to the clients which
17
includes licensed distributors and retailers of Abul Khair Steel. So, there is a chance of
communication gap. Text messages in English are usually used to communicate, so problems in
understanding the meaning of the text occurs. Since the Field officers do not call back and check
with the office staffs about the text messages every time a communication issue occurs.

Decision Conflicts: AKS gifts retailers AKS mugs, Calendars and other common gifts. In this
internal conflict the Brand Director of marketing department face conflicts of interest with
communication or sales department on the number of mugs and other gifts to be distributed
between the retailers and distributers. The number of clients fluctuate year to year and so does the
number of gifts. Clashes between the departments ranges from producing the number of gifts and
what type and number of gifts to be distributed between distributers and retailers of different areas.

For example, as mentioned earlier, AKS did not print any calendar this year since people at the top
management think it is an unnecessary expense but staffs who actually deal with retailers think
this is important because the calendar is used throughout the year and helps in boosting the brand
image. BSRM and RSRM, the company’s biggest local competitors, give extra gifts and allocates
more money to keep retailers happy but not AKS. Here, staffs who deal with retailers have a
conflict with the marketing department since they want more money to be allocated for gifts and
other incentives.

It is believed by some of their employees that the executives don’t really rely on the thoughts and
market evaluations of the field workers since those workers are less educated, less qualified and
often part timers. Which is why the managers don’t count on their words seriously while making
organizational decisions. This leads to such communication problems which might prove to be
very detrimental in the future days for the company if not handled carefully.

Field Coverage: Another Internal conflict of AKS is that the Marketing department gets
information from one executive covering a big area lacking proper field coverage about increase
in retailers. Filed staffs should be heard more often since they have better understanding of the
retailers which many employees firmly believe would allow the management to reduce friction

18
between the departments and smoothly allow the employees to carry out tasks.

Lack of Creative Solutions: In case of confusions staff contact office directly and check the
“Ledger book” or “Report book” to clear out any confusions and get instructions on what and how
to eliminate communication problems.

Recommendations
One of the complains that we have come across is that clients would mention a specific problem
and when the expert will inspect the problem, it would seem that the problem is completely
something else to that the client has mentioned. To tackle this issue AKS should implement a
robust and well-trained customer service department.

The customer service representative should be clear when they are noting down the problem and
be precise with ample details. Additionally, AKS could also print out detailed guidelines and
manuals where possible to further help the clients. This will ensure that there are no more
discrepancies between the clients complain and that the expert expected.

Additionally, AKS faces problems with insurance regarding the van guarantee. Where the clients
insure against maybe 10 lakhs but will ship more then the insured amount. To tackle this, we
recommend AKS to implement an online record against the amount of good being transported.
Also have an online tracking system that will track the cargo in real time for added security.

Another common problem that arises with the clients regarding payment of the goods and services
is that clients want to pay for the purchased goods of AKS after they themselves have gotten
money, which is most often at the end of the year. One of the simplest ways to avoid this is to
make clear contracts with the clients detailing the due date of payment and also making the
payment as easy for the client as possible.

The client can pay 30/40 percent of the total cost upfront and the rest can be paid later. This way
AKS will have some money to sustain upon rather than having no cash to run operations. Creating
better incentives for the client to pay early will also help, such as providing a small discount.
19
The clients are also sometimes hesitant to accept the van insurance. The possible fix for this is to
be able to persuade the clients and present to them in a way that highlights the benefits of both
parties. As this is the policy of AKS to safeguard themselves from unpredictable situations and
also not to create unnecessary burden for the clients.

A very common internal communication problem AKS faces is that the office staffs won’t
communicate with the clients but rather talk with the field officer. This can be easily eliminated
by eliminating a middle man of communication where there is no need for it. Language barrier
also exists where some employees are not that comfortable with English being spoken while
communicating. To tackle this Bengali can be used where possible and meanwhile language
training can be provided.

There is a clear discrepancy between departments and a lack of understanding and communication
between upper management and lower management. Also, executives don’t have the proper insight
and hands on knowledge that a field officer might have, yet the field officer’s inputs are often
ignored.

For example, sometime the marketing department would get a lead from an executive regarding a
large area of lacking proper field coverage and about increasing the retailers. The field executive’s
inputs are sometimes ignored about how to proceed regarding this topic. Causing the field
executive to feel not well respected or acknowledged. Secondly sometimes branding and
promotional issues can cause miscommunication between departments. Where the sales team
might feel that more can be done to promote our brand but the marketing team feels enough is
being done. Specially comparing to rival companies some employees feel that AKS should be
doing more for promoting the company and brand image. This would make it easier for the sales
team to achieve sales targets.

This issue of inter-departmental communication gap is a big bottleneck to the smooth flow of
communication that might slow down and possibly halt the business process. The solution to this
could be that first and foremost, the department managers should create rapport and be in close
contact with other related departments to ensure no details is missed. Hearing out employees and
managers at every level and taking their ideas into consideration and their experience and
knowledge so that no one feels left out and unheard is also a step in the right direction.

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AKS can leverage modern database technologies and IT solutions to create a centralized database
and cloud computing software. They use this as a repository of all data related to the business and
statistical analysis of demand, markets, marketing campaign records. So that everyone can access
the data from different departments and work on the data that is relevant. Eliminating the gaps
between departments.

Thus, installing an integrated seamless communication system built to cater to all sorts of
communication issues that AKS is facing is likely to reduce communications problems of AKS
and benefit them by allowing a competitive edge over its rivals.

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Conclusion
Abul Khair Steel is leading the steel industry for a while now and with the current resources,
contacts and revenues, they look very comfortable going into their future ventures. With the
intensive communication-networks the company has established and ensured in and around the
country, Business Communication does seem to be one of the company’s strengths in the
competitive local market. However, it’s important to review that although they take business
communications very seriously into their strategic decision-making process, they are missing out
some important aspects of this where they blindly ignore the market evaluations made by the field
workers. Since all the companies are in a never-ending competition to the top all around the planet,
the only way a company may outrun another in the long run is by exploiting another firm’s
weakness. Firms like BSRM and RSRM are already taking advantage of the shortcomings of AKS
in the fields and if they don’t sort out their limitations with immediate actions, the day would be
inevitable when they would eventually fall behind. So, it’s important that Abul Khair Steel learns
from its mistakes, rectifies its communication gaps and ensures a sustainable growth for the
company in all of its upcoming days.

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References

Abul khair Steel.(n.d.). Retrieved from https://wyomingmemory.org/free-

essays/abul-khair-steel-242/

ABUL KHAIR STEEL.(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.abulkhairsteel.com/

ABUL KHAIR STEEL PRODUCTS LIMITED.(n.d.).Retrieved from

http://www.greenindustryplatform.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Abul-Khair-
Company-case-study.pdf

Steel Industry in Bangladesh. (n.d.). Retrieved from

http://events.steelmintgroup.com/global-graphite-electrode-conference-
2018/bangladesh-steel-industry-an-overview/

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Appendix
AKS Questionnaire:

1. Who supplies the Rod? Is there a 3rd party involved?

2. Aks has depot in Munshiganj which covers Narayanganj, Dhaka, Gazipur and Munshiganj.
Communication mishaps or misunderstanding during pressure or crunch time.
3. Political unrest = Barriers in roads and transport system.
4. Accidents or medical emergencies at workplace especially at factories?
5. What does Aks do to avoid miscommunication and confusion in their communication
process?
6. Communication gap with foreign investors?
7. Factory level- Cross cultural conflicts or communication problem with foreign staffs?
8. How are misconducts or crimes in workplace handled?
9. Conflicts with labor unions?
10. Do NGO’s and other entities pressurize AKS to follow safety regulations? How does AKS
handle them?
11. Pollution from factories harm the environment? How AKS deals with NGO’s, pressure
groups, and media?
12. How does AKS deal with negative publicity or news from media?
13. Cases of previous communication mishaps?
14. Plans for improving communication and avoiding confusions?
15. Plans to integrate with technology in the future?
16. Who are AKS’s suppliers and competitors and how does the company communicate with
them?

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