Académique Documents
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3, 2017 231
Muslima Zahan
School of Business and Economics,
North South University Dhaka, Bangladesh
Fax: +880-2-55668202
Email: muslima.zahan@northsouth.edu
1 Introduction
most preferable place to start business and that is why Dhaka is now a name of challenges
and competitions. This is a very common scenario in Dhaka city that people are selling
various products and offering services on the roadside or at foot-path. But the reality is
not so colourful. The bureaucratic and legal hurdles to start up an entrepreneur must
overcome in order to start a new small business in Bangladesh, along with their
associated time and set-up costs in Bangladesh. It examines the procedures, time and cost
involved, also facing day to day problems to sustain in the market.
But these barriers cannot stop to grow up various small businesses; basically the
scenario in small business is booming every day. The meaning of a small business is a
business entity independently owned, small in size but has a solid profit margin.
According to the Paul Ryan the 54th speaker of US, behind every small business, theres
a story worth knowing. All the corner shops in our towns and cities, the restaurants,
cleaners, gyms, hair salons, hardware stores these didnt come out of nowhere.
It is seen that small businesses such as a whole host of street vendors, hawkers,
mobile banking agents, mobile recharge centre and sales people are on the streets of the
capital Dhaka with everything from fresh fruits to dried fish on offer.
1.2 Hypothesis
The small business is profitable enough for short term but in the long run they are not
sustainable. Since in Bangladesh there is a high rate of unemployment problem, one
expects that people are more concentrating on small business. In case of money transfer
business, this is to assume that there exists a competitive advantage of location. Also,
most money transfer business lack license but somehow they are able to run the business.
2 Literature review
Small business can be defined as privately owned and operated business with relatively
small turnover and staff numbers, typically seen as constituting part of a specific
commercial or economic sector. From the context of Bangladesh, small industry means
an industrial establishment or unit which is run mainly by hired labor and not using
mechanical motive power but does not normally employ more than 50 workers and
whose land, building and machinery does not exceed Tk.150,00,000 in value in either
case (E.Pakistan Small Industries Corporation Act of 1957). According to Lighthelm
(2007) small business served as convenience shops primarily for the lower income
234 M. Zahan
Smart Card Alliances (2008) which are a contactless mobile payment services
mentioned in their research report that the mobile payment services have four types of
alterative mobile payment billing models. They are operator centric model, Bank centric
model, peer to peer model and collaboration model. Operator centric model is only
supported to those phones which supports near field communication. Through this the bill
can be added with the wireless bill of the customers. Three parties are included in this
process; the mobile operator, the customer and the merchant. In this process the merchant
become affected but he has to invest in a regular basis. It is convenient to the customers
but they face the security risk. In the bank centric process the bank takes all the
responsibility for paying the bill. This has some constraints. Every bank does not have
these services. The customer has to be registered by the selected bank. Peer to peer model
is the process where the customers or the merchants do not need any wireless network.
This is a recent service for both the customers and the merchants. In this process the
customer contacts a merchant and told them to transfer money and bank accepts all the
liabilities for sending this money to the receiver. And finally the collaboration model
which includes the third party among bank, merchant and the customer. This is the fastest
among all the models.
A report made by Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA,
2011) explains that mobile now a day is not only a mobile anymore. Mobile is now a day
is itself a wallet. Mobile is now a day is the medium of transaction between the
merchants and the users. People use mobile payment for doing both buying their
necessary goods and point of purchases. Though this service is making our life smoother
but in the other hand they are creating risk too. As many parties are being added here the
process is getting complicated and here, there is a great possibility that the information
can be leaked or a persons money can be robbed.
Kirui et al. (2012) have stated in their research report that this process is really helpful
for different sectors. Agriculture and household works are getting many advantages from
this service. As this is cost effective the small businesses are getting an awesome service
from these services. People do not need to carry money with them rather they can open
up an account and get service from it. This is an easiest way to not get robbed while
travelling.
According to the white paper of Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial
Telecommunication (S.W.I.F.T., 2012), mobile banking is now a day is not only
maintained by bank but they are now also maintained by different mobile companies.
They are helping to build M-commerce. This process is helping the people such a way
that the bank is coming to them. Withdrawing money from ATM booths is safe but the
ATM booths are not available in every area. But the mobile is available to each and every
area including the remote area. They are safe and easy to conduct.
The literature in the earlier part of the study deals with small business, street business
and technology that are used to transfer money. Some parts have discussed very little
about the mobile banking or mobile recharge business. But nobody has discussed about
the sustainability or profitability of these businesses though they are increasing in metro
cities like Dhaka. So, this study focuses on the sustainability issues of rapidly growing
money transfer business.
236 M. Zahan
3.1.3 Respondents
The respondents in this research are different area from Dhaka only. The respondents are
randomly selected from Dhanmondi, Gulshan, Baridhara, Bashundhara and Nikunja.
These places are chosen because of the availability of shops that provides mobile banking
and flexi-load (recharge) facilities that is relevant to the study and also it fits the time
frame and resources of the researchers. Fifty randomly sampled respondents have been
asked by the researchers for approval and to answer the questionnaire.
3.2 Questionnaire
The questionnaire requires information about the core business, costing, earnings and
sustainability of that business. It also has questions related to the competitive advantage,
problems faced by the businesses and potential threats that may work as barriers for
money transfer business. Moreover, questions about license or legal document for the
business, no. of employees etc. are also presented in the questionnaire.
The questionnaire is analysed into different sections. Core business, legal status, start-up
cost, ownership structure, profit margin, overall cost and social money, threat of business,
extent of rivalry, competitive advantage and customer satisfaction aspect are asked and
analysed herewith.
The economic sustainability of small business 237
So, among the 70% of the owner, most of them are doing business beside the road. For
that reason they did not get any license from the government. Government are losing
good portion of money for that reason. Rest of them are licensed because they either in
the residential or they have other business with mobile money transfer business.
238 M. Zahan
has license they always feel safe comparing road-side or street-shops. And the street-shop
businessmen have to give money both to the local goons and also to the police. The road
side shops are not sustainable because of the frequent location change; a shop which is
set up at Bashundhara area one day will be seen in another area on the other day because
of the police raid.
Figure 4 Profit/savings
Correlations
Business
continuation for a Legal documents
longer time period
Business Pearson correlation 1 .009
continuation for a Sig. (two-tailed) .952
longer time period
N 50 50
Legal documents Pearson correlation .009 1
Sig. (two-tailed) .952
N 50 50
Correlations
Business
continuation for a Savings
longer time period
Business Pearson correlation 1 .058
continuation Sig. (two-tailed) .687
for a longer
time period Sum of squares and cross-products 12.420 1.060
Covariance .253 .022
N 50 50
Legal Pearson correlation .058 1
documents Sig. (two-tailed) .687
Sum of squares and cross-products 1.060 26.580
Covariance .022 .542
N 50 50
242 M. Zahan
The present study was conducted only on some specific locations situated in Dhaka city
with a small sample-size of respondents selected through convenience sampling. Some
respondents are unwilling to provide data or information. Despite of these restraints, the
level best effort was made to make the research more enlightening and fascinating one. In
view of limitations of the study mentioned, a further study can be conducted on a larger
number of small businesses situated in the capital city, divisional cities and district towns
of Bangladesh.
6 Recommendation
The study recommends some actions and policy for the mobile-banking and mobile
money-transfer business. The recommendation is given below.
Firstly, the recommendation goes towards the small business must get a license.
Because, the businessmen who does not have a license always harassed by the police
or the local goons. They have to give them extra money for doing business in some
areas. On the other hand the businessmen who have a license they do not need to
give extra money to the local goons or the local police having secured business there.
And that also increases the extent of sustainability. A business is sustainable when
the businessmen can run the business for a long time. So, mobile-banking must have
a license.
Secondly, if someone has a preferred area to run a business they should set up a shop
there. So, when they have license and also have a preferred place (fixed shop) to do
business then they can easily set up a store at their preferred place. This will make
their business sustainable because of the environmental issue. This location
advantage will make their business sustainable.
Thirdly, when they are able to keep a shop they should hire more people as assistant.
Because when the businessmen has all kind of services but customers are coming to
them and waiting in a queue makes the customer leave the shop and go to the
substitute shops. And if a business starts to lose its customer then there will be less
possibility of becoming sustainable.
Fourthly, the businessmen should be consistent what services they are providing to
their customers. There should not be a time when a customer needs a service and
they are unable to do it. For example, if a customer wants to transfer money via
Bkash the businessmen should not say about the run out of credit. They should keep
all kinds of services related to mobile money transfer in their shops so that they are
reliable at providing the services.
Finally, mobile money transfer services which is a small business and as a small
businessmen the owner simply cannot do a lots of social activity. But they have their
way to do it through creating job. They can hire people which will reduce the
unemployment problem. In this way they can achieve social sustainability too.
The economic sustainability of small business 243
7 Conclusions
Banking is more fundamental than I realized. There have been attempts: the
microfinance groups, co-operatives, but the transaction fees have always been too high.
Until we get those services down with very low fees onto the cell phone in digital mode
then banking will always be for those who are better off. Gates said in conversation with
Bloomberg. Bill Gates thinks (about one of the operator bKash) Bangladeshi upstart
could revolutionise banking for the poor, reported Bloomberg Television (Youtube,
2016). Bloombergs Erik Schatzker sat down with Bill Gates and traveled to Bangladesh
to see how bKash, invested in by the Gates foundation, is transforming finance. If Gates
Foundation invests to some projects, that must carry significant value. This business have
a solid profit margin. The start-up cost is very low and it needs very few fixed cost and
last but not least, it has a huge demand so that these businesses are growing as like a
bunch of mushrooms.
So, the mobile banking money transfer is potential but it requires sustainability to
endure and survive in a supportive environment. In terms of business, sustainability
management as discussed earlier is about incorporating social, economic and
environmental factors into business decisions. It involves placing an emphasis on future;
long term goals for any business rather than focusing on short term profits. After the
analysis, one may think that Mobile money-transfer business is highly profitable but it
will not be sustainable in the long run. According to our hypothesis it is accepted.
Because most of the business surveyed do not have any legal documents. If they get the
license business will exist legally. It will help them to be sustainable in the long run and
government also will be benefited by tax.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Azhar, Samina, Shafayet, and Shagor for their overall contribution to this
study.
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