An Appraisal of BOC Bangladesh Limited

Abstract

BOC Bangladesh Limited registered as Bangladesh Oxygen Limited in 1973, with a turnover of about Tk. 6 million. The turnover in 2000 was about Tk. 843 million. BOC Bangladesh Limited started their operation with 3 small Oxygen plants and 3 Dissolved Acetylene plants. From inception, the Company has remained the sole supplier of Medical Oxygen in the Country. In the mid 70's a Nitrous Oxide plant was imported and installed in Dhaka to provide the nation with this vital anesthetic gas, which is still the only one in Bangladesh. Meanwhile, the welding business of the Company was also growing fast and in the early 80' s a state of the art RAM extrude was added to the production line, dramatically improving output and quality of electrodes. The Company went "public" in 1985 when the Government announced its right shares in favor of the public. A technical collaboration arrangement was made with the suppliers ESAB Group of Sweden. A distribution agreement has been signed with world class Welding Company, The Lincoln Company of USA. Bangladesh Oxygen Limited changed its name to BOC Bangladesh Limited in March 1995. The BOC Group, of which BOC Bangladesh Limited is a member, has its headquarters at Windlesham in the UK. It employs over 40,000 people and contributes to the economies of nearly 60 countries worldwide. By doing SWOT analysis, the researchers found that BOC Bangladesh Limited have some strengths, weakness, opportunity, and threats. Their main strengths are corporate image, quality of product and services, knowledge based sales and service team, confidence on the brand, stronger distribution channel, ethical and standard business practice, wide range of product, countrywide service network, free training facility and so on. However, they have some weakness too. These are higher price, knowledge gap between customer and the company, less credit, prolong waiting time for procuring the product, monopoly attitude, quality of gifts, etc. In this modem era, they have the opportunities, like corporate image for the new product line, product range, customer support cell, knowledgeable executives, welding training center's role, extension of rural electrification, technology improvement, proj ect customers and so on. Obviously there is some threat associated with their business. BOC Bangladesh Limited might have to face threats, like price increase of ships in international market, repeated accident in Chittagong, imported billet, local ingot, Thai-Aluminium and so on. To ensure the further improvement of the company recommendation part suggested some remedial measures to get rid from those problems identified in the problem identification chapter.