From owning everything to orchestrating partners
For much of their history, telecom operators in Bangladesh built and ran most of their own infrastructure. That model is giving way to one in which towers, fibre, network operations, IT support and even customer service are shared with or delivered by specialist partners. Tower sharing under BTRC licensing, managed service agreements with equipment vendors, and outsourced call centres are now common features of the sector.
The change lowers capital requirements and can improve service quality, but it also moves important activities outside the company’s direct control. The operator remains accountable to customers, the regulator and its auditors for work that is now performed by others.
Controls when work moves to third parties
When activities are outsourced, the control environment has to be redesigned rather than simply transferred. Contracts need clear service levels and audit rights, data handed to vendors needs protection, and someone in the company must review vendor performance and invoices against what was actually delivered.
Our Risk Consulting team helps organisations map which risks now sit with partners, design the oversight that boards and audit committees expect, and build risk-based internal audit coverage that reaches across organisational boundaries.
A useful starting point is a register of every material outsourced activity, showing the partner, the contract owner, the key performance measures, the data shared and the date of the last independent review. Many organisations find that this simple exercise reveals arrangements that nobody has reviewed since the contract was signed.
Cloud, data and digital channels
Technology businesses are moving workloads to cloud platforms and shifting sales, recharge and customer service to apps and digital channels. These changes alter where data is stored, who can access it, and how transactions flow into the accounts. Access management, change control and the integrity of interfaces between systems become central to reliable reporting.
Our IT Advisory team reviews IT general controls, cloud governance and data security, and helps management decide what assurance it needs over the systems it no longer runs itself.
A leaner finance function
Finance teams in the sector are automating reconciliations, consolidating shared service activities and adopting new reporting tools. This creates periods when experienced people are needed for implementation, testing or year-end work but permanent hiring is hard to justify.
Our Secondment Services provide qualified finance, payroll and tax professionals for these periods, so that core reporting continues while the new operating model is put in place. Throughout, the aim is an organisation that is lighter in assets and headcount but no weaker in control.
Related RRH services: Risk Consulting, IT Advisory and Secondment Services.