S-Team Conference: A Confluence Of Thoughts And Management Practices

Covid-19 has redefined the globalized world order. Any disaster of such enormous magnitude challenges the world especially in the fields of economy, business and health science. Collective measures implemented across the industries will provide a respite to the world in a quandary. However, it all boils down to the effective management across inter-disciplinary & trans- disciplinary dimensions.

The S-team conference, Organized by SCMHRD from 17th August to 24th August 2020, with thirteen insightful sessions by various academicians and industry experts, focused on the changing paradigm of management during and after the global crisis. Twelve speakers from various industries were invited to preside over the conference. As part of the conference, second year MBA students were invited to present their research papers, the abstract submission of which started on 26th May 2020.

The pre-conference workshop held on August 17 saw P. Muragan, Assistant Professor, School of Management Studies, University of Hyderabad speak about Mediation, Moderation and Conditional Process analysis. Dr. Murugan explained in detail about mediational hypothesis specification, Mediation analysis using SPSS PROCESS Macro, Moderation hypothesis specification and Moderation analysis using SPSS PROCESS Macro.

On 18th August, Dr. Rameshwar Dubey from Doctoral School of Management, United Kingdom enlightened the attendees about the role of Big Data analytics in shaping supply chains. He stressed on the importance of learning from the disruption caused by covid-19. It was followed by a session by Dr . Prashant Shingare, Director Business Development Vertiv Energy Private Limited, on Technology Trends and Future Renewable Energy Power Electronics Market in India.

Five sessions were conducted on 19th August, which started with Dr Akhilesh Bajaj, Professor of CIS Chapman Endowed Chair of CIS, The University of Tulsa, United States speaking about Corporate Social Responsibility: A Framework. Starting with the evolution of CSR, speaker spoke about various theories in CSR and the effectiveness of CSR research and implementation in India. Next session was by Dr. Brett Tusko, President and CEO at The International Association of Innovation Professionals. He talked about the challenges being faced by various firms in the wake of pandemic and how innovation management is supporting the economic recovery. This was followed by an enriching session by Dr. Ajit Patwardan, who talked about the risk management of infrastructure projects during COVID-19 pandemic, wherein he covered topics including lifecycle risk management of infrastructure projects and managing risks of Force Majeure events. Dr. Suneel Sunamaneni, enlightened the students by providing a positive perspective at the opportunities that covid-19 brought with it, narrating stories of success by entrepreneurs during such disastrous times. The day ended with a speech by Dr. Vic Matta. He highlighted the importance of data analytics in the current scenario, which landed everyone in awe as he described its utility in various sections across a company.

20th August began with the discussion on employee engagement during times of crisis by Dr Naresh Pinsetti. The expounder elucidated the need for proper employee interaction during work from home setup. Valuable insights, techniques and activities to keep the employees engaged were provided.

The attendees were further enlightened by Dr. Sanjit Roy, about the increasing use of information technology and artificial intelligence applications in understanding and managing the businesses better.

On 21st August, further along the theme was a discussion on understanding the changes in retailing and marketing. The speaker, Dr Shaphali Gupta, started with an overview of grave disruptions, the pandemic brought with it in the shopping environment and shoppers’ expectations. The discussion aimed to identify and comprehend consumer cultures with the objectives of redefining, innovating and building consumer trust and confidence. Later, Dr Harsh Jha took a session on enhancing qualitative research in social sciences through research planning, methodology and analysis for a multitude of students who are currently doing their research.

Valedictory ceremony of the conference was conducted on 24th August. Dr Pratima Sheorey, Director, SCMHRD thanked all the esteemed speakers, faculty members for coming up with fresh thoughts and innovative ideas and making the conference extremely engaging. She also congratulated all the students on excellent paper presentations. There were 399 paper submissions by 425 authors not only from India but also from The USA and Germany, which were thoroughly scrutinised. The conference ended with the announcement of the names of people who earned the “Best Paper award” in various specializations. The award-winning papers will be published in some of the reputed SCOPUS indexed journals. The first virtual S-Team conference was a grand success and provided the attendees with great insights on the changing paradigm of management during and after the global crisis.