ConneXions 2014, IIM Ahmedabad's Annual Knowledge Summit, Inaugurated Today
ConneXions 2014, IIM Ahmedabad's annual knowledge summit, was inaugurated today. The summit, which is in its 5th year, is being organized by students of PGPX, the 1 year full time MBA programme for experienced professionals. The central theme of the summit this year is "Resurgent India: Tapping Infinite Potential". Mr. Bharat Joshi, the British Deputy Commissioner was the chief guest at the event. Also present were the Secretary of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council Dr. Alok Sheel, Deputy Managing Director of State Bank of India Mr. B.V. Chaubal, Chairperson of the PGPX programme Anurag Agarwal and senior IIMA professors Shailesh Gandhi and G. Raghuram.
Speaking at the event, Mr. Bharat Joshi spoke about the significance of good relations between India and the UK and said that the world needs India to succeed. Dr. Sheel spoke about history and how India and China had been the leading economies in the world till the industrial revolution happened. He said that economy is embedded in society and that the real wealth of a country rests with its people. Talking about financial inclusion, Mr. Chaubal said that stable prosperity is when the society as a whole prospers.
The first of the day's three panel discussions was focused on the theme "New Age Banking". The panel comprised Mr. Aalok Gupta, Country Head Retail Banking and Risk Management at Yes Bank and an IIMA alumnus, Mr. Tamal Bandyopadhyay, Deputy Managing Editor of Mint and an advisor to Bandhan Financial Services, Mr. Surinder Chawla, Head of Branch Banking at Ratnakar Bank and Mr. Sunil Pant, former Chief General Manager of State Bank of India. The panellists discussed various topics from financial inclusion and the "Jan Dhan Yojana" to the need for brick and mortar branches and the importance of mobile banking. Professor Charan Singh, RBI Chair Professor of Economics Social Sciences at IIM Bangalore moderated the panel discussion.
The second discussion of the day saw Mr. Anirudha Keskar, VP Procurement and Supply Chain at Bluestar India Ltd., Mr. Sudhir Gupta, Executive VP of Supply Chain Management at Tata Autocomp Systems Ltd., Mr. Sandeep Dandekar, VP Procurement and Asset Management at Netmagic Solutions and Mr. Chaitanya Prabhu, Director Strategy and Operations at Deloitte speak on the topic "Integrating India into the Global Supply Chain". The panellists said that India needs to address issues such as congestion at ports, poor railroad connectivity and complex taxation and stressed on the importance of growing the manufacturing sector in India. Professor G. Raghuram acted as the moderator for this discussion.
Mr. Devendra Chawla, CEO of Food Bazaar, Mr. Himanshu Chakrawarty, CEO of The Mobile Store, Mr. Navneet Kapoor, President and Managing Director of Target India and Mr. Ravi Vora, Senior VP of Marketing at Flipkart made up the panel for the third and last discussion of the day, which focused on "Brick and Mortar vs. E-Commerce". The panellists, while noting that change is inevitable, said that retailers should look from the customer's point of view and that customers will keep buying from both online and brick and mortar stores. All the panellists agreed that customers are multi-dimensional and that the role of retailers was to serve customers the way they want to be served. Professor Prakash Bagri, visiting faculty of Strategy and Marketing at IIM Ahmedabad, was the moderator for this discussion.