Feature

Telecommunication management and its golden opportunities

Nazwa Warda

Telecommunication Management is more or less a very new concept according to our societal perception, but a very booming and major sector needed for our local and Multi National Companies (MNCs) related to communication service providing segments.

Management is generally thought of as the major function of the manager such as planning, organizing, directing, controlling, delegating, developing and staffing. When all theses functions are applied to telecommunications technology and its uses, we are managing telecommunications. The task is not so easy. To do it properly it requires someone with all the skills a good manager must possess: leadership, communication, planning, and negotiation, interpersonal, conceptual, and technical skills.

There are many management positions in telecommunications with many different companies. One manager may mange a network mostly used for voice; another may manage a data network, or another may manage an Internet or intranet environment. In today's downsizing environment, a telecommunication manager finds himself or herself managing all types of system and networks. I personally think telecommunication managers can do better if they have good technical skills in the technology used to supply telecommunications services to their companies, its vendors, and to its customers. But good technical skills are not enough. They are but just a good starting point.

A Manager's Role:
Apart from the above-mentioned skills, an interpersonal ability is a major concern. Like other types of managers, they achieve their goals and aims through the efforts of others working. You can start by providing training period, and by giving guidance to their work. Nothing motivates a person more than receiving the training and also the big piece of the technical work. Treating everyone respectfully, fairly, and equitably will bring out a well-built and motivated team together. Next one should get their input on what they would like to do and the training that they would like to receive in order to achieve their aimed goals. It is also important to establish a very good rapport with the peers, customers, and vendors. It is very much easy to get their help and concern if they get to like the manager himself.

Other than interpersonal relations, a telecom manger must decide what technology and services are necessary to support the mission, goal, and target and last but not the least the 'dream 'of the organization.

Long-term, efficient plans and programs must be made for future implementation of the long awaited organization or company. These plans must also try to establish which technologies and services the company will need in the future to flourish and advance forward and the extent to which the current technologies and services must be expanded in order to provide the present facilities up to the mark.

Another big issue that comes along is that of "staffing". Staffing is important to a manager because, a manager gets his work done by directing those working under him, that is through other people. But for a very good manager staffing is pretty automatic; it happens due to maintaining good relations and communication with others and of course a good planning act as a catalyst.

Telecommunications job opportunities:
Telecommunications offers tremendous job opportunities. It is a mean of voice communication over a long distance using electrical signals - to elucidate, services provided by the local telephone companies. The telephone companies in our country and also abroad offer excellent job opportunities, with high facilities and good pay. As the telecommunication infrastructure has been replaced with state-of-the-art equipment the number of job opportunities has increased greatly. The explosion of voice communication, data communication and the Internet in the private business sector has led to an enormous growth in job opportunities in this area.

The U.S. government has funded a program even to establish an information superhighway to allow for more effective commerce through the Internet. This is called the NATIONAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE (NII). As more businesses are conducted over the internet the highways of the internet must grow in their ability to handle the increased traffic. Fortunately the fiber optics and dense wave division multiplexing technologies can provide the capacity needed for the foreseeable future. So now a days a standard company needs a presence on the internet and a necessity of a web-master to keep the web server online and to keep web page updated. Internet service providers need programmers familiar with UNIX, Microsoft NT, web-page design, etc.

In our country where major sectors are being saturated with radio and network planning (already a very narrow and specified field) it needs constant management and maintenance of the built-up projects for their performance to be enhanced and run smoothly. A telecom manager can be the best performer at that standpoint to take course of actions in that kind of a platform. Thus we can see that telecommunication and its management industry has a very bright prospect at the forefront and offers many challenging opportunities in a global viewpoint.

(The writer is a Telecommunication Engineer from Independent University, Chittagong)