During the inaugural event, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, Hon’ble Union HRD minister spoke about how India has strengthened its global presence right from Information Technology to space technology. Guillaume Sicard, President, Nissan India, in his keynote said, “The key word in India is “Synthesis” – synthesis of culture, ideas, generations and knowledge. While synthesis has defined India’s culture, heritage and art for centuries, it is also defining business environment, practices and processes.” Mr. Santosh Desai, MD & CEO, Future Brands, India highlighted how culture resonates with the mindset and behaviour of the Indian consumers. He defined culture as “a soap which rinses away the impurities resulting from daily struggle of living.” He said that Indian journey of consumption is a business innovation along the path of familiarity which would necessitate that ‘Modernizing Indianness’ and ‘Indianising Modernity’ go hand in hand.
Prof. Ashish Nanda, Director, IIM Ahmedabad gave a global perspective on Indian Management and mentioned about the greater understanding prevalent in India along with creation of knowledge in India. He spoke about an explosion of research in new areas such as Indian entrepreneurship, Governance, Family Business and Leap Frog. On the other hand, Ravi Kant, Former Vice Chairman and MD, Tata Motors, India, said, “We need to be more experimentative and look at alternate future.” Prof. Hrishikesha Krishnan, Director, IIM Indore spoke about “Building innovation capabilities in India”. Drawing references from his book “Jugaad the systematic innovation –the challenge for India”, he tried to understand why India does not quite fulfil its innovation potential and is considered a “laggard” with respect to other countries. Prof. Krishnan demonstrated the eight steps to innovation excellence from “Jugaad to Excellence” by suggesting India should go for “experimenting with low cost at high speed”.
The visit by Mr. Abhishek Bachchan, actor and sports entrepreneur, was an added attraction and it rendered a completely diverse perspective to the conference as Junior B welcomed the students to join the dynamic Indian Film Industry which has in store management challenges as in marketing of movies and the analytics that goes behind the multi crore movie projects. He enthralled the audience with his wit and humour as he spoke about the globalization of Indian movies and how he intended to take Indian sports like Kabaddi to the international level.
After a successful first year on the theme “Emerging issues in Indian management”, this year, the conference steered the path of integrating India with the outside world. It was an immense learning opportunity for the entire management fraternity and provided some food for thought for the students who have the unique privilege of taking India to the world.
This article has been published by the Media Cell of IIM Kozhikode.
For further details please contact us at media@iimk.ac.in
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