Academic institutions across Bangladesh mostly rely on books that have non-native references of business cases in undergraduate as well as post-graduate courses at universities.
To better understand Bangladesh’s business scenario, a book comprising of business case studies on local companies and their development journey has been launched recently, titled “Bangladesh Business Cases.”
Case studies on 16 different local companies have been outlined in the book for individuals aspiring to become an entrepreneur or a business leader in the corporate world.
A total of 39 faculty members from both public and private universities worked on the project.
Apart from this, 47 students and 17 industry experts also contributed to this project.
Businesses covered in the book include The Daily Star, OTT platform- Chorki, Shyamoli Paribahan, Unmad, Akash DTH, Alpha Catering Services Limited, Augmedix, The Kow Company Limited, Ek-Shop, Puli, Seva .XYZ, Star Cineplex, Lankabangla Finance Limited, BDJobs Training, Bongo, and St Joseph's School.
According to the authors of the book, despite not being addressed by academics as such, Bangladeshi conglomerates are thriving with their relentless initiatives that continue to shape Bangladesh's business environment.
Harvard business case studies or for that matter, case studies on popular businesses in countries like India, Singapore, Canada and Australia are mostly discussed in local academic institutions, despite the existence of numerous such local businesses, that give insight into the local market and how businesses operate.
In that regard, Bangladesh Business Cases contextualized some of those business stories into analytical business cases with it being the first of its kind to observe business episodes of this country through an academic lens, they also said.
“The primary purpose of writing the book was to tell the business success story of the country. Nowadays we have to depend a lot on foreign books for business studies. Does this mean that there are no business success stories in our country? Of course, there is but the stories were scattered and needed to be compiled,” Md Ridhwanul Haq, one of the authors and a professor at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) of Dhaka University, told Dhaka Tribune.
According to him, the book is primarily designed to target undergraduate business students and can be used as a reference book for courses like 'Principles of Marketing', 'Principles of Management', 'Fundamentals of Financial Marketing', 'Introduction to Business' and others.
Md Ridhwanul Haq“You learn a lot about local businesses, how they are capturing the market, what their main struggles are and how much risk they are working with. In-depth review and business models of various companies are also discussed here, and you can learn how to create and analyse a business case from this book,” a reader who had purchased the book told Dhaka Tribune.
A total of 74 business cases were considered in the initial phase.
It was then decided to work on 36 cases and a total of 16 business cases were shortlisted in the final draft, as many organizations opted out for their willingness to share company information.
Teachers including Mizanur Rahman, Shibli Rubaiyat ul Islam, Mizanur Rahman and Prof Haq worked as editors of the book.
Haq, also chief coordinator of the publication, further said that the book would help readers learn about local businesses while helping them to learn about the business model of the selected companies and understand how Bangladesh's ongoing businesses and institutions work.
This book can be a great source for those who want to know the story of the development of business organizations in Bangladesh or learn from the stories of the existing successful companies to build new ones, he said.
The book was published with the support of Bangladesh MBA Association, and currently is available on Rokomari.com.