Economic Research Group (ERG)
Abu Hasnat Abdullah and Sajjad Zohir
04 July, 2020

The Economic Research Group (ERG) had undertaken a survey of enterprises in May 2020 and the findings were reported in the Financial Express on June 11. The IT firms included in that survey were found to be in e-commerce, web development and other IT services, representing non-software IT firms (NSW-IT). Subsequently, another survey was administered in June on a sample drawn from BASIS member list, all of whom are into software (SW-IT). The respondents in both the surveys were senior executives of the firms — 30 in total, 28 of which are located in Dhaka and 2 in Chittagong. Compared to the SW-IT firms, the NSW-IT firms generally use comparatively lower skill and technical expertise. As expected, the SW-IT firms are relatively more export-oriented, while the NSW-IT firms largely depend on local market.

This paper contrasts between the two groups in areas of immediate effects and coping strategies those firms adopted. Since there is a difference of one month between the two surveys, findings presented need to be interpreted accordingly (for NSW-IT, June figures are expected).

Source: http://ergonline.org/coping-with-the-pandemic-erg-follow-up-study-on-it-firms/