1. Geographical & Administrative Divisions
2. Area & Population by Division
3. Economy
4. Research Facilities
5. Centers / Markets where Research is usually done
6. Field Work Timing
7. Industrial, Business to Business Research
8. Interviewing
9. SIRIUS Field Facilities
10. Analysis Department of SIRIUS
11. COSTINGS

Population of Bangladesh:

Projected Population (in million):

Area & Population by Divisions:

Major City Population :

Household and Average Household size:

Population by Age and Sex (In thousand):

All types of research are conducted including

• Consumer Research
• Sample surveys (H.H. interviews) involving multistage sampling using electoral rolls.
• Qualitative research - FGDs , in-depth interviews.
• Shop based interviews, retail audits.
• Pricing Studies
• CLTs.
• Industrial research.
• Corporate research.
• Media & Advertising Research

  [Note:

  • Population of all centers under different administrative units is available. Last census conducted in 1991. Bangladesh is due for another census in 2001. Electoral rolls at the village level are not used for sampling purposes essentially because of difficult access to the documents. Household / cluster selection is done by the natural cluster of HHs.
  • National coverage would constitute around 98% of the population. There are few areas in the South west which are difficult to access. Rest of the country is accessible by roads and few by riverine transport
  • A national coverage would imply taking into account ]

URBAN

• 4 Metro cities - Dhaka, Chittagong , Rajshahi, and Khulna and the two Divisional H.Qs. Sylhet and Barisal. These 6 centers would constitute around 70% of the market for most of the FMCG brands. Of the 6, Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet would be the important centers.
  
  
• Dhaka is the cosmopolitan center, whereas Chittagong and Khulna are the port cities. Sylhet is relatively affluent because of high remittances from NRBs.
  
  
• Other urban centers to be considered would include other Thana H.Q.s (municipal and non- municipal) towns.

RURAL

• All Unions under a Thana and under each Unions villages would constitute the rural sampling frame.

SIRIUS's Experience

• SIRIUS conducts research for British American Tobacco (BAT), one of the largest and regular client, in the following areas.
  • Brand & communication tracking among smokers, in 5 metros.
  • Annual brand health study (tobacco) in 146 centers sample size 23000.
  • Pricing research for cigarettes in 146 centers, over 18000 contacts nationally.
  • Product tests
  • Packaging tests
  • Ad Research
  • Quali Research
    
    
• SIRIUS carries out both quanti and quali research for a wide range of FMCG products including U&H, product tests, brand health & equity studies, concept tests, etc.
  
  
• For a leading pharmaceutical company, SIRIUS has been carrying out prescription audit since 1997 covering 240 markets ( urban & rural) on a monthly basis.
  
  
• In areas of social research SIRIUS has carried out both Quanti & Quali research for UNICEF, Social Marketing Company and The Asia Foundation. For Asia Foundation a large scale study has been recently completed involving coverage of 180 villages.

• As opposed to the SEC structure prevailing in India, Bangladesh is characterized by a small middle class population. HH income and therefore purchasing power disparity is wide between Dhaka, Chittagong HHs and the rest of the urban HHs. The income and SEC classification of the capital city Dhaka is appended.
  
  
• For research on FMCG brands, studies like U&H, brand health, Ad research, product test, coverage of Dhaka city corporation together with Chittagong Metro and or Sylhet MC, should be sufficient. However, for mass FMCG products a few other large and medium district headquarters should be considered. Other thana HQ, non-municipals & rural areas may be considered for products like mosquito coil, shampoo sachets etc.
  
  
• Dhaka is a expensive city. A recent study reveals that in Dhaka HHs with income of Tk.3000 / Rs.1875 / U.S.$ 55 per month would be on the poverty line. Therefore, while considering income cut off for some FMCG products we normally consider MHI of Tk.5000 +. However, one must bear in mind that this may not be true for products like mosquito coils or sachets of shampoo.
  
  
• For female respondents, female interviewers are appointed. However, in the Metro centers female interviewers are at times employed to conduct interviews with male respondents.

There are some seasonal implications to interviewing. Between July and September field movement gets a bit disrupted because of the monsoon and therefore productivity falls. While costing buffer man days has to be built in for work disruption if the team is moving outside the centers from which they have been recruited. During this period it is preferable to build in cost for additional 4/5 days in a month. It is important to note here that for any national level surveys or multi center field work SIRIUS recruits FIs & FSs from their field offices in the 5 Divisional H.Q.s.and the team moves from these stations.

While planning field work timing it is also important to bear in mind the Month of Ramadan (month of fasting) during which time it is difficult to conduct taste tests of any kind and productivity normally falls because of higher than average level of refusals and around 4 hours per day can be allocated for interviewing. No research on Cigarettes, CLTs should be planned during this period.

• Secondary information on industries / trade very weak..
• Information on registered number of outlets by type not easily available or where available may not be very reliable.
• Even where data is available it turns out to be expensive and time consuming to retrieve the information.
• Published Industry data and Export Import data except for some key industries and products or items are generally 3 to 4 years old.

Almost all interviews are conducted in Bangla. Business and corporate interviews are at times conducted in English depending on the profile of the respondents.

• Interviewers for Senior Executive /corporate interviews are expensive more so when interviews are conducted in English.
• Media Availability.
• TV, Radio, Press, Cinema, outdoors available. Cinema is not a popular medium among middle and high-income segments. Bangladesh has two TV channels, terrestrial, Bangladesh TV (BTV) which is government owned and Ekushey TV (ETV) which is in the private sector. BTV has national coverage whereas ETV, which was recently launched, has limited coverage. Cable TV penetration is quite high in the urban areas and all channels available in India are available.
• SIRIUS is the pioneer in launching syndicated media studies in Bangladesh.
• SIRIUS has carried out syndicated media studies (SMS) similar to the NRS in India. The coverage is limited to the boundaries of Dhaka city corporation. The first one was published in 1997 and the second study was carried out in 1999. Highlights of the report are:
• SIRIUS Television Rating Indicator Point (STRIP) launched in October 1997, is a panel based and provides continuous viewer ship ratings by time -slots/programs for Bangladesh Television (BTV) as well as the main satellite channels available in Bangladesh, such as ATN Bangla and Channel i., and the new terrestrial channel Ekushey TV. It is diary based and monitors viewer ship of Dhaka audience only. The current universe covered is all adults (15 years and above) living in TV owning homes.
  The information from STRIP data is used by media planners to assess TV viewing patterns as well as the major demographic, and socio-economic features of audiences for particular time slots or programs. Subscribed by the major Ad agencies and Bangla channel providers on a yearly subscription basis.
• SIRIUS Ad Audit
  Consists of a constant watch of all on-air output of BTV channel. All commercials are logged and details of each individual product/brand advertised, the transmission time and duration of each ad is recorded on specially formatted logging sheets. At present the ads are being classified into 37 product categories. The output of the audit consists of number of spots and ad spend by brands on sponsored and non sponsored programs during early and peak time. The data is provided to clients by category and by month.

• SIRIUS has one of the largest network of field operatives to cover all accessible areas through throughout the country. There are 5 field offices (Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna & Sylhet. Activities of all the centers are coordinated out of Dhaka field office.
  
  
• The field department has 12 permanent staffs, headed by the Field Operations Director, 3 Field Managers,8 Field Executives. The Senior Field executives head the field offices outside Dhaka. The Field Managers has a minimum of ten years experience in coordinating fieldwork whereas the Field Executives carries with them at least 5 years of experience.
  
  
• The agency also has a panel of field investigators (male &female) with wide range of experience located in all the Divisional H.Q.s and in some of the important Districts where survey work is often carried out. The panel comprises of ;
  

20 Field Controllers
60 Supervisors
300 + Field Investigators. (Some of the male & female Investigators are capable of carrying out DIs).

• For all multi center / national level projects the Field Executives from the out stations travel to Dhaka for briefing at the Field Head office . For complicated projects the Field Managers and Research Executives travel to the Divisional H.Qs for briefing the field team. For any national level surveys recruitment is done from the 5 field stations.
  
  
• Standard quality control norms are followed involving;

a. Mock calls & Live Interviews prior to final selection of the FS and FI
b. Day to day productivity monitoring
c. 25% to 30% check back on interviews

After field work, a report is generated by the analysis department on the quality of the fieldwork (number of back checks by the FMs,FEs, FSs, coding errors etc) and forwarded to the concerned Research Executive and the Field Operations Director.

• Following are some of the requirements of the field department.

  a. For multi center quanti projects (upto 10 centers) the field department has to be given the final questionnaire and other instruments and a lead time of 7 days in advance to organize the team.
  b. For a national survey the minimum lead-time required by field would be 20 to 25 days.

The Analysis department of SIRIUS is supported by a team of executives possessing highly developed skills in programming, software development, management and processing of all types of MR data. The core members of the team have strong statistical background and skills to analyze data for various types of projects. The team is well exposed to the Multivariate Analysis Techniques that are commonly applied to the mining of Survey Data.

Tools used by the Analysis Dept. of SIRIUS are commonly CA Clipper 5.3, MS C/C++/Visual C++ 6.0, ToolBox of Information Tools Ltd and SPSS 10.0.

The team is also capable of designing and implementation of Relational Database Management Systems using MS Access/ Oracle 8i in the Back Ends.

For jobs commissioned by IMRB offices the data processing jobs are largely carried out by SIRIUS. Data entry jobs of any volume are carried in-house under the direct supervision of an experienced team of data management coordinators.

1. Field Rates

2. Data Entry/ Editing

Tk. 3.00 / 100 characters

3. DOLLAR REMITTANCES

There are lot of restrictions on remittances. For jobs originating out of India (commissioned by IMRB or directly by client based in India) take clearance from Bombay accounts whether U.S. Dollar remittances can be made to SIRIUS for work in Bangladesh, generally IMRB receiving project payments in IRS for work in Bangladesh are not entitled to remit in U.S. Dollars. If client is based outside India, Preferably the client should remit the Bangladesh component directly to SIRIUS.

4. EXCHANGE RATES

Taka 53 = U.S.Dollar 1.00

5. SHOPPING IN DHAKA

• Unimaginable bargain price for Audio CDs.& VCDs Ranges between Tk.100 to Tk 250.
• Ceramics: Excellent designs, quality products, decision difficult choices at affordable price. Till date more than 100 cartons of table wares has been carried back home by Indian Researchers.
• Handicrafts: Visit one of the largest shopping centers for handicrafts in the sub-continent. Overwhelming choices of items to decorate places from your door steps to your bed rooms and to the envy of your guests, produced by the village people of Bangladesh with excellent touch of emotion and workmanship.
• Clothes for the young and the restless: Excellent branded clothes at prices you would never imagine to dress you for all occasion.

  Shopping Consultants:

  Arnab Mukherjee , Manager Research , SIRIUS and Sharmila Italia, PQR, IMRB, Calcutta.

  Qualified shopping advisors will take you through a shopping spree where at the end of the day you will have spent your travel back money and they will loan you with high rates of intere