On the 6th of February, 2019, the students of the Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur had the privilege of hosting Mr Salil Kumar, Head – Business Intelligence, Analytics and CRM at Reliance Mutual Fund for a Guest Lecture on “The right way to pursue data analytics as a profession”. A distinguished alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Mr Kumar has a rich experience of spearheading innovation for over 12 years.
Starting his session with the priceless advise of ‘Always keep learning if you want to avoid getting obsolete,’ Mr Kumar shared his experience of embracing innovation for improving business in the various organizations that he has worked for in his career. He urged the audience to try and do things differently in their daily activities. According to him, we should not shy away from making mistakes in our lives, but we should always remember those mistakes and learn from them as well.
Data scientists, said Mr Kumar, need to learn how to engage stakeholders, develop a management perspective and articulate their findings in the best manner possible. It is imperative to polish one’s communication skills to be successful in data analytics, otherwise one cannot sell his/her views and findings internally. Mr Kumar also suggested the students of VGSoM to regularly read about the latest developments in analytics through various online reports.
Mr Kumar also shared some useful insights on Mutual Funds while answering the queries of the inquisitive learners in the audience. His views on long-term and short-term investments, the role of fund managers and blending finance, analytics and CRM to achieve best results were highly educative.
By suggesting that the future managers should adopt the culture of whichever organizations they work in, Mr Kumar concluded his interactive session from which the audience took back a great deal of learning.