The future of the digital age

Childhood and educationWell, I am actually from Jhalokahi, a district under Barisal Division. I was, however, born and raised in a beautiful urban area called Bhola, the largest island of Bangladesh. I can still remember the first day of school, 15th Jan 1991. It was a government primary school and I was always accompanied by elder brothers and sisters. In those days, parents only went to school for major occasions, like results, annual sports day or any other important issue. Like most other school going kids of the time, I wanted to be Macgyver or Captain Planet. Back then, life was full of dreams.Background and hardshipsMy childhood was excellent but as I was from a typical middle class family, we had to wait a lot before getting what we desired. So, the basic thing I was taught was to be patient and put in all efforts to attain something lucrative. It is my rule of thumb and I follow it whenever I want to achieve anything. I could go on, but the point is that life is a balancing act. We must adapt ourselves to the to be on top of any situation.What captured your interest in this sector? I must say, I did not deliberately approach the digital arena. I started my career at a software firm. I was one of the youngest lads to join that firm with a marketing degree. My role in that company was to sell digital or .com property, readymade software/solutions, customised software or even ad space on websites. Worked there for more than two years and the experience was great. After that I joined PRAN RFL Group in the Brand management department- my dream job- on 20^th Jan 2011. There I was the second private university graduate to have gotten that opportunity. My reporting boss was a nightmare for me; he was very rude, straightforward and a perfectionist. But the best part of him was his knowledge on brand management, analyzing data and dominating the sales force. He was the best at what he did and I adapted to his style. My portfolio included chips, fried ethnic snacks, chanachur, nuts and fried dal, etc. The history of brand penetration on digital media in Bangladesh does not go too far. It started towards the end of 2008, in a very small scale mostly by the telecommunication companies followed by FMCGs in 2011. In 2012, we opened a Facebook page for one of the chips brands named ‘Tom Tom Cracker’. That was the 2^nd Facebook page of PRAN RFL Group. 1^st one was Mr. Mango. Opening that Facebook page was like an eye opener for me. We could even get feedback where our products have zero/less availability. That was the starting point of my journey into the digital arena. After that I experimented with various digital media services which paid off.What makes you so comfortable in such a dynamic work line?Digital media is always evolving and it is said that every six months it just changes its skin. You have to work sensible and confidently. So to work competently one must always put themselves in a learning mood. I believe we need to learn even while we are sleeping. As a developing country, we lack the resources to do basic research at times so we need to always be on our toes. Therefore, a professional approach will help you cope up with the changes and work in such a dynamic environment.Describe your role as the head of digital media of PRAN RFL Group.The beauty of PRAN RFL Group is, it dares to challenge any one, whether it is an international FMCG or local. The core driving brief of this company is to do your job today better than yesterday, set personal examples. This message is conveyed to every single member of this group. All our stakeholders are following this as well. When I was shifted from brand management to lead the digital media team I was assigned only one member by the management. As this media is new and I had some training and some practical experiences while managing my brands in digital arena, I started looking for people who have the mentality to live in the digital arena. From then the team is now a 19 members gang. We manage almost 75 social media pages and 30 YouTube channels in more than 15 different countries. PRAN RFL Group is exporting its products to more than 130 countries and there are some countries where digital media is the only media that can be used to communicate with the target audience efficiently. So, working in digital media of PRAN RFL Group feels like whole world is your workplace.Where have you worked before you joined PRAN RFL? How do you manage so many brands in so many countries?Well, currently we are hiring agencies on a retainer basis and we just manage them. In Bangladesh we are working with 15 different agencies and 15 more agencies working for us to manager our export penetration till now. We have an agency for Gulf, India, Nepal, Africa and even Palestine to manage our brands over there. This is for social media, mainly Facebook. But for other digital media tools, our team directly manages.Where do you think the digital sector in Bangladesh is headed?Well this is a very simple question to answer. I believe sooner or later digital will be the only media to communicate with the TG for managing brands with a very customised message. The community will be more dependent on this media for accomplishing their daily activities. The whole world is converting to digital and Bangladesh should not be an exception. How we adopt and adjust ourselves with this change will set how we benefit from it.Which trends do corporations/business need to keep an eye out for?For any business, I feel that data is king and digital media can give you access to accommodate lots of data at minimum effort. Now the business should consider implementing this media into their business process to get desired results. It should not be confined to only communicating with the community but also for proper business automation, data mining and converting data into information. It will be the key differential factor to keep their position well ahead of competitors.What motivates you to push yourself further?I love to share knowledge with others. So, I occasionally appear as a guest lecturer in different universities and IBA is one of my favorite places to share my latest thoughts. To know the latest changes in this media, I love attending training sessions at least once a month. Finally, I want to leave behind a better world, at least my surrounding world. So, whenever I get the chance to do anything to for my society, I love to participate there.What is your suggestion for digital marketing start ups?Look, the word ‘start up’ sounds very cool and glamorous. But most of the startups cannot be sustained in the long run. So, I want to redefine the term as ‘sustainable start up’. I feel this generation is very talented at multitasking. To do well as a digital marketing agency, a few basic qualities that the team should have are patience, passion, being open to learn new things, value and respect for others opinion and finally, an ability to listen. An online business would need at least three years to reach its breakeven point and to remain patient till then is the only formula to do well.In a single sentence, what do you personally wish to achieve or look forward to in this sector? This is very overwhelming to say the least, but I want to be someone who adds value to my organisation, peers, and to everyone around me and finally, I wish to work for the government to contribute to policy making, because I believe the government should create a pathway to follow. Although the government has already initiated lots of activities which helped this sector to grow, I believe sky is the limit; certain things just need to be synchronised to get the optimum benefit.