VGSoM recently had the privilege of hosting Mr. Sachin Kapoor, Business Head, LinkedIn India for a guest lecture. Having more than 15 years of work experience at leading Corporate & MNCs like Yahoo, Tech Mahindra, Bharti Airtel, Samsung and LinkedIn, Mr. Kapoor brought across a vast knowledge base to share with the batch.
The session started with a spree of questions for students related to their profiles on the platform enquiring from the nature of profiles to what kind of contributions they had made so far through their profiles on the platform. Negating the label of social media platform for LinkedIn, Mr. Kapoor emphasised on it being an exclusive data company with over 90% of recruiters registered for prospective candidates. At the same time, he listed the
must-haves for a LinkedIn profile and explained their importance. Talking about the new products launched and acquisitions made, Mr. Kapoor described how various important decisions have impacted the business for LinkedIn so far. Several questions followed the first half and students were enthralled by the speaker.
In the second half of the session, new age deals for data were talked about. Various important decisions shaping Indian digital economy as it is today such as Bharti’s outsourcing in 2002, first of its kind, the launch of Dhirubhai Ambani Pioneer Offer (DAPO) by Reliance Infocomm slashing the telecom services’ tariff and many others were talked about. Mr. Kapoor stressed upon the fact that, one should bet on a defensive strategy in challenging times to stay afloat.
The dynamic change in one decade from oil polarized economy to digital dominance, Mr. Kapoor chose to paraphrase the headline from The Economist “Data is the new oil”. With this new oil, new refineries and safety mechanisms need to be established. Privacy being the primary concern, Indian supreme court is negotiating on the terms to be followed. The shift from national identity to an online identity matching the current paradigm deals with huge chunks of data registering more meaningful information. He exemplified this impact through Cambridge Analytica’s work in the Brexit and Mr. Donald Trump’s campaign.
Talking about the abundance of dynamic data and agile environment, Mr. Kapoor threw light upon the need to collaborate and realize various alliances to uplift the new digital economy. Further, keeping in line all the business strategies and models, various checks which shall be taken care of were talked about likes of which are, Terms and termination, warranties and disclaimers, the geographic limitations etc.
The session ended with a Q&A round and was filled with extensive questions to which Mr. Sachin Kapoor gladly offered insights and registered new curiosities and interests in the students.