Growth always lives with challenges and risk

According to a report of Central Intelligence Agency, with an age less than 50 years and more than 43% of its population under the age of 25, Bangladesh is a young country in more ways than one, a major competitive advantage considering that more than half of its population of 160 million are in prime working ages    (15-54). Although the RMG sector remains dominant in the nation’s contribution to GDP and workforce, ICT is the new underdog that may be soon to catch up due to large foreign investments, government incentives, and favourable policies for the industry. Unlike other industries however, ICT has the potential to directly impact and transform other markets given the overreaching effects of automation, AI, big data, and advanced analytics is having in other countries throughout the world. The question for Bangladesh, however, remains not whether the country will be able to achieve its goal in 2021 of $5bn in exports which is published by The Daily Star, but the nation’s 3rd engine is IT & Digital Industry which may in the future. The economy faces challenges of infrastructure bottlenecks, insufficient power and gas supplies, bureaucratic corruption, political instability, natural calamities and a lack of skilled workers. The government promotes the Digital Bangladesh scheme as part of its efforts to develop the country's growing information technology sector.

The power of young generation & the Growth of Prospect

At first, I want to say a message to all young & upcoming champions that don’t think & say “NO JOB” or “NO opportunities” in Bangladesh this word is not applicable in next 10 years for each & every sector in this country. But it is undoubtedly a fact that perfect requirements, solid capabilities & pure value addition these three are not matched with candidates & the position. Young generation are always considering salary which is perfect but most important thing to realise that really, he/she can value add in his/her duties or own self. Otherwise they will not enjoy their task & always looking for a new opportunity where they will face the same problems. Besides a young workforce, it is estimated there are 543,000 tertiary graduates annually with 16,000 and 126,000 having IT and business-related degrees, in addition to a large freelancing community. There are also government initiatives to provide training and develop a skilled workforce for this sector.

A top-down approach for structuring the market growth model usually we adopt. Firstly, we need to identify the macro-economic and demographic factors like population growth, per capita income growth, income distribution, propensity to spend with rising income etc. Secondly, we need to understand the industry wide demand drivers e.g. interest rates, oil prices and regulatory changes etc. Lastly, we need to identify some company specific factors which can have a diametric impact on the industry. The whole process of market projections can be broken down into some key stages. Understanding a sector’s growth potential is critical to making important business decisions for entrepreneurs, executives, consultants, investment analysts and researchers. Market projections enable stakeholders to make critical investment decisions, starting from whether a company ought to enter or expand operation into a particular market, to finding possible inflection points, which would impede or accelerate future growth. Considering the paramount importance for gauging sector growth trajectory, it’s imperative to adopt a data driven approach for fostering objective decision making. Although making projections are easier said than done, adopting a structured approach towards identifying sector growth drivers, can simplify the market projection process to a large extent.

Muiz Tasnim Taqui

Associate Vice President 

Ernst & Young LLP

(Ernst & Young or simply EY, is a multinational professional services firm headquartered in London,United Kingdom. EY is one of the largest professional services firms in the world.)