For the last couple of years, government has been relentlessly trying to increase the revenue from outsourcing. It staged several international events to project Bangladesh as a major outsourcing country. Bangladesh has a lot of potential in this sector. Digital Bangladesh has paved the path for it.
However, many critics view the outsourcing goals as hyperbole. The industry in general lacks uncanny frail of high-end freelancers. In 2017, Oxford Internet Institute did a survey on global online service providers. Bangladesh became second by providing 16% of the online laborers. India secured the top suppliers position by dominating the market share of software development and technology. Bangladeshi freelancers on the other hand made a stronghold in online sales and marketing. This study clearly insinuates the areas where our freelancers have comparative advantage.
But when it comes to revenues the freelancers generated every year, I have yet to see a comprehensive stat on that. There is a hush hush about it. I do not know why.
As a neutral observer I have noticed that slew of efforts have been made to tap the foreign outsourcing markets. However, at home, there are areas that have the potentials of becoming new outsourcing destinations.
Take for example our health sector. We spend lots of money in this sector to provide affordable healthcare to millions of people. Even our drugs are heavily subsidized . Our public medical facilities are far from digitalization. The health centre at upazilla levels and public hospitals everyday generate millions of handwritten prescription. Here I do not include the ones generated by private practitioners and private clinics.
Government and pharmaceutical companies have responsibilities to keep track of the patients' medical history, prescribed medicines and diseases that cause tribulations.
It will do two things: Government and policy makers will make better policies in health sector and private pharmaceutical companies will have a better understanding of drug business with the availability of the up-to-the-minute update of health data.
Digitalization of our health services could open up new alleys for our outsourcing sector. We could easily keep digital record of a physician’s prescription. Copy of the prescription can be passed to data entry operators to build a health database of the country. Anyone with knowledge of spreadsheet application and HSC equivalent Biology education can do the task. This potential operator could be equipped with a personal PC, laptop or smart phone with spreadsheet application. For the neophytes, Health Ministry or other relevant department could organize preliminary training program. The operators will get an amount for documentation of each prescription. The pecuniary earning will help students, unemployed and housewives to cover their spending.
Pharmaceutical companies could also play a pivotal role in this endeavor. They could assist the government or run a parallel initiative to digitalize the prescriptions stem forth private clinics and private practitioners.
Why does this health database matter? For many things actually. It will help the government and policy makers to make health profile of an individual and a region. Health professionals will get a deeper understanding of the diseases that crop up in a region, its severity and inter-generational affects. At the same time, production of vital medicines and its consumption could be tracked. Many of the ingredients of our medicines are imported from abroad. Recent data could help government to check the subsidy and to review its decision on imposing duty.
For private pharmaceutical companies, this health database will give an inkling towards the demand and supply of prescribed drugs, consumers preferences, productions costs and areas to focus on.
Apart from digitalization of the prescription, the health database may also subsume information on public and private health facilities dotted across the country, their operational and maintenance cost, stockpiling of drugs , service providers’ and service recipients’ records.
This army of data entry operators is available. They could be recruited individually or in a group. At prefatory stage when they will be primping themselves for this kind of task they may require trainers’ assistance. Given the minimal knowledge requirement, this creation of a health database will create decent employment at the Mofussil cities and villages throughout the year. And the update will go on every day, which means throughout the year the service of the operators will be needed.
Another sector that can also contribute to the budding outsourcing sector is the Ministry of Home Affairs . The police stations all across the country generate thousand of General Diary every day. If the Ministry outsources the task of digital documentation of General Diary, then another window will be opened for freelancers.
Similarly, there are many secretarial jobs that require extensive documentation at the bureaucracy and in many other public and private organizations. This could easily pass down to freelancers.
In a world when everything is metric, proponents of Digital Bangladesh have their hearts in the right place but the head is off somewhere in the cloud. Till now, they obtrude their views about cutting a share in the global outsourcing market. Till now, we see all the efforts have been mobilized to materialize this goal. Meanwhile, ample opportunities lie at home that none explores before and suit better to harvest the skills of homespun IT savvy population. Growing dependence of our outsourcing sector on local sectors will obviate the uncertainties of freelancers.
However, many critics view the outsourcing goals as hyperbole. The industry in general lacks uncanny frail of high-end freelancers. In 2017, Oxford Internet Institute did a survey on global online service providers. Bangladesh became second by providing 16% of the online laborers. India secured the top suppliers position by dominating the market share of software development and technology. Bangladeshi freelancers on the other hand made a stronghold in online sales and marketing. This study clearly insinuates the areas where our freelancers have comparative advantage.
But when it comes to revenues the freelancers generated every year, I have yet to see a comprehensive stat on that. There is a hush hush about it. I do not know why.
As a neutral observer I have noticed that slew of efforts have been made to tap the foreign outsourcing markets. However, at home, there are areas that have the potentials of becoming new outsourcing destinations.
Take for example our health sector. We spend lots of money in this sector to provide affordable healthcare to millions of people. Even our drugs are heavily subsidized . Our public medical facilities are far from digitalization. The health centre at upazilla levels and public hospitals everyday generate millions of handwritten prescription. Here I do not include the ones generated by private practitioners and private clinics.
Government and pharmaceutical companies have responsibilities to keep track of the patients' medical history, prescribed medicines and diseases that cause tribulations.
It will do two things: Government and policy makers will make better policies in health sector and private pharmaceutical companies will have a better understanding of drug business with the availability of the up-to-the-minute update of health data.
Digitalization of our health services could open up new alleys for our outsourcing sector. We could easily keep digital record of a physician’s prescription. Copy of the prescription can be passed to data entry operators to build a health database of the country. Anyone with knowledge of spreadsheet application and HSC equivalent Biology education can do the task. This potential operator could be equipped with a personal PC, laptop or smart phone with spreadsheet application. For the neophytes, Health Ministry or other relevant department could organize preliminary training program. The operators will get an amount for documentation of each prescription. The pecuniary earning will help students, unemployed and housewives to cover their spending.
Pharmaceutical companies could also play a pivotal role in this endeavor. They could assist the government or run a parallel initiative to digitalize the prescriptions stem forth private clinics and private practitioners.
Why does this health database matter? For many things actually. It will help the government and policy makers to make health profile of an individual and a region. Health professionals will get a deeper understanding of the diseases that crop up in a region, its severity and inter-generational affects. At the same time, production of vital medicines and its consumption could be tracked. Many of the ingredients of our medicines are imported from abroad. Recent data could help government to check the subsidy and to review its decision on imposing duty.
For private pharmaceutical companies, this health database will give an inkling towards the demand and supply of prescribed drugs, consumers preferences, productions costs and areas to focus on.
Apart from digitalization of the prescription, the health database may also subsume information on public and private health facilities dotted across the country, their operational and maintenance cost, stockpiling of drugs , service providers’ and service recipients’ records.
This army of data entry operators is available. They could be recruited individually or in a group. At prefatory stage when they will be primping themselves for this kind of task they may require trainers’ assistance. Given the minimal knowledge requirement, this creation of a health database will create decent employment at the Mofussil cities and villages throughout the year. And the update will go on every day, which means throughout the year the service of the operators will be needed.
Another sector that can also contribute to the budding outsourcing sector is the Ministry of Home Affairs . The police stations all across the country generate thousand of General Diary every day. If the Ministry outsources the task of digital documentation of General Diary, then another window will be opened for freelancers.
Similarly, there are many secretarial jobs that require extensive documentation at the bureaucracy and in many other public and private organizations. This could easily pass down to freelancers.
In a world when everything is metric, proponents of Digital Bangladesh have their hearts in the right place but the head is off somewhere in the cloud. Till now, they obtrude their views about cutting a share in the global outsourcing market. Till now, we see all the efforts have been mobilized to materialize this goal. Meanwhile, ample opportunities lie at home that none explores before and suit better to harvest the skills of homespun IT savvy population. Growing dependence of our outsourcing sector on local sectors will obviate the uncertainties of freelancers.
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