• R K Pachauri draws attention to business opportunities in going green at MDI Gurgaon
• Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi organized its flagship 34th Annual Convention on ‘Knowledge and Innovation’
• Jaipuria Institute of Management organized 4th National Conference IIC 2009 focused on Insurance business
• Annual Human Resource Summit 2009 by IIM Lucknow Noida Campus on Current & Future State of HR: Decisions & Directions

R K Pachauri draws attention to business opportunities in going green

Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurgaon is one of the few B Schools that are talking about the increasing relevance of climate change in the business environment, and Dr R K Pachauri, Nobel Laureate and Director, TERI, resonated that thought in his valedictory address during Delphique 09, the annual national management convention of MDI Gurgaon on November 29, 2009

Delphique 09, the student research initiative spanning over three months, culminated in the two-day national management convention on the 28th and 29th November, 2009. The panels for Delphique 09 were based on the theme “Resurgence of Industries in the backdrop of Global meltdown”. The event was inaugurated by Arun Goyal, Director, Financial Intelligence Unit, India (FIU-IND) and attended by 40 eminent personalities from the industry. Nobel laureate and Director TERI, Dr R K Pachauri, and Executive Managing Director, Cushman Wakefield, Sanjay Verma, gave the valedictory address on November 29, 2009.

During the two day event, the topics for discussion included Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities, E-Entrepreneurship – The way forward, Impact of Social Cause Marketing campaigns on branding, Competing for Analytics, Youth drifting away from traditional media: How should FMCG companies respond?, Saplings of the Next Economy, The role of HR in the upturn and To survive or thrive? Gaining competitive advantage in the current economic scenario.

Some of the eminent personalities who addressed the MDI community included Dr Ravi Ajmera, CAO Deutche Bank, Manoj Piplani, MD and Site President, Citigroup, Tarun Bhagat, Marketing manager, PepsiCo, Aquil Busrai, ED-HR, IBM India Pvt Ltd, Oscar DeMello, Country Head, Hay Group, Gaurav Gupta, Director, Deloitte, Prashant Agnihotri, Head GSM/EDGE Business, Global Nokia Siemens Network and Manish Mittal, VP Professional Services, Cognizant to name a few.

The panel on Climate Change complemented Dr Pachauri’s views on the definite need for policy changes towards environmental protection and the existence of viable business opportunities in the realm of sustainable development. While the Marketing panel focused on the changing marketing climate due to the growth of new age media vehicles, the Communications panel dealt with social cause marketing and the need for Corporates to keep it on a long term perspective rather than a short term one-off activity. While the HR panel cautioned the students that the economic resurgence is yet to take place, leaving much to be done, the Entrepreneurship panel stressed on the need for business schools to nurture job creators rather than job seekers.

In his valedictory address, Dr Pachauri urged the corporates to shift from thinking about financial debt to thinking about ‘natural debt’. He felt that no business could survive in a dying society. He cited various international leaders he often spoke to and expressed the satisfaction on the importance in the realisation that has come across the world on the issue of climate change. In his view, Politics, Science and Society should work together to ensure swift and affirmative action. The success of political leaders in Australia, Japan and the US who won elections based on their stand on environmental policies indicates coming together of these three forces. In response to a question, Dr Pachauri responded that even if government enforces regulation,’corporates will always innovate’. MDI alumnus Sanjay Verma, Executive Managing Director, Cushman Wakefield spoke to the students about ‘Industrial Resurgence’ and what it meant to various stakeholders, most important of them being society. Decision-makers are unaware, negligent or unable to correlate the impact of their decisions on climate change and this impedes the implementation roadmap. He encouraged the students to be more aware and stay connected with the world around them. In this, his words echoed Dr Pachauri who felt we must all take our blinkers off.

Faculty of Management Studies, University of Delhi organized its flagship 34th Annual Convention on ‘Knowledge and Innovation’

Faculty of Management Studies, (FMS), University of Delhi organised its flagship 34th Annual Convention on Novemebr 30, 2009. The distinguished speakers for the session included Dr Dinesh Keskar, President, Boeing India and VP, Boeing International, Sanjeev Srivastava, Editor, BBC India,Salil Agrawal, Director, PwC , India, Patu Keswani, Chairman and CMD, The Lemon Tree Hotel Company, KV Sridhar, National Creative Director, Leo Burnett India, TN Thakur, CMD, PTC India, Abheek Singhi, Partner and Director, BCG, Udayan Ray, Editor, Outlook Money and Anil Kothuri, VP, CItiGroup, Arnaud Soubelet, CEO, Bharti-Alcatel JV and Rajiv Narang, CMD, Erehwon Innovation Consulting and Prof NM Anand.

The convention was divided into two sessions. The first session was based on Knowledge in Practice: Ideation and The second session was on Knovation: The Power Strategy for Indian Enterprise.

The convention started with a keynote lecture by Prof Kuriakose Mamkoottam, Dean, Faculty of Management Studies. He began by mentioning the arrival of knowledge economy and how knowledge and learning has taken centre stage. He stressed on the fact that learning must be greater than environmental changes for an organization to prosper. Laying emphasis on the innovation value system, he suggested that strategic networking is important in the present conditions. At the end of his keynote he insisted that resolving issues like poverty and hunger should be the focus of our innovations.

Dinesh Keskar started by describing ‘Leadership’ and how leadership along with innovation is a strategic imperative for growth. With the examples from the General Motors in the USA auto industry and Indian Aviation industry he explained the relevance of continuous innovation, which he termed as the incubator of continued success. He opined that strategic evaluation at all levels will drive collective growth. He also talked about Boeing International’s plans to invest about 2.3 billion dollars in India.

Shrivastava reflected upon his experiences at various levels and how innovation at the right moment helped newspapers such as TOI and TV channels such as TIMES Now (Tabloid TV). He pointed out that innovation is as important outside the corporate world as within the corporate world. TN Thakur added to the discussion by giving insights into how PTC has led the way in the power sector through continuous innovation.

Sridhar explained the importance of innovation using various technologies that have evolved through continuous effort on the part of organizations which wish to develop new technologies and evolve continuously to produce a better product. He elucidated this with Bajaj DTSi and ad and the advertisement used by Cadbury on Youtube.

Kesvani helped the students realize the use of innovation by giving examples from his own experiences as an entrepreneur. He opined that understanding the customer and their needs is an important step to identify the target and charting out the progress. He stressed on the fact that how sticking to the basics and innovating the existing model helped Lemon Tree achieve huge profits and a good start into the hotel industry.

Agrawal, focused more on the use of technical tool and benchmarks such as ‘Kaizen’, ‘Six-Sigma’ to streamline the processes in an organization and creating ample opportunity for innovation. He asked for more creativity in an organization and making people realize the there is more than one answer to each question.

The second session revolved around the concept of Knovation. The session was initiated by Professor N M Anand. He stressed on the need on Knovation, in the absence of which companies tend to fall into self centered trap and take things for granted. Ray suggested that recession was a good opportunity to let go. He suggested that the first thing to do would be to find out how things have changed and evolved.

Singhi focused on social knowledge as a key to become a leader, and placed more importance to it than academic knowledge. He said that the time requires us to think about the business as a whole. Traditional economic models sometimes does not hold true and have to be modified and changed as per the current scenario.

Narang, talked about how India should use innovation and knowledge to make breakthroughs happen. He suggested that we should be ready to combat barriers and leverage uniqueness to achieve success globally. He also talked about inclusive growth and inclusive innovation as the basic requirement for India’s prosperity and growth as an economic entity.

Kothuri gave examples of how Citibank has adopted innovation and has evolved into the current state. Experimenting and trying new things has helped Citibank to evolve into its current form. Arnaud defined innovation as new way of doing business and with the help of real life examples from his experiences stressed on the fact that the future lies in sharing innovation.

Jaipuria Institute of Management organized 4th National Conference IIC 2009 focused on Insurance business

Jaipuria Institute of Management, Lucknow (JIML) and Global Institute of Flexible System jointly organized a two- day National Conference IIC 2009 (Fourth National Conference on Interdependence, Integration & Co-Creation) in Lucknow on November 29 focused on Insurance Business at JIM campus Lucknow. Scholars and specialists from B-schools and insurance companies participated in National program IIC-2009. It started on Saturday with inaugural session and concluded today with valedictory session. The program was commenced with lightening of the lamp by Sharad Jaipuria, Chairman, Board of Directors, JIML. Prof. S. Chakraborty, Director, JIML. S.B. Mathur, Secy. Gen. Life Insurance Council, M. Ramados, CMD, Oriental Insurance Co. Ltd. Prof. S.R. Musanna, Dean, JIML. The purpose of this conference was to explore contemporary issues and business factors influencing the present state of insurance across the globe.

Jaipuria said,”The objective of the conference IIC 2009 is to promote & refine the understanding of the insurance sector and to help in making strategic business models for the development of the Insurance Sector.”

Prof Chakraborty highlighted the importance of the conference by saying that the present scenario needs people to work in an interdependent yet dependent manner. He added that the insurance sector can gain momentum by going back to the basics and trying and gaining customer confidence and trust. The key to survival depends on how the insurance companies would decide to position themselves as and when the slow down ceases. He emphasized on selective process integration.

The keynote address at the inaugural session was delivered by Mathur who shared with the audience the success of insurance business from 1991 and gave data and facts which proved that LIC was the strongest player then and held the position even now despite the entry of private players.

He further added,”The upfront Customer preferences are changing and their dependence on capital markets is losing rapidly. Customers today want guarantee of some manner in return for the risks.”

Mathur said,”Customers are now more aware and demanding and their priorities are getting specific, they are ready to take risk and give away some return if so be the demand”.

In his keynote address, Ramadoss,mentioned that the reasons behind the recent US turmoil were essentially the lack of coordination between the regulators of well developed market of the US and hence Interdependence between the regulators and the policy holders is of utmost importance. He said that an investor always thinks of what price he must pay for carrying the risk but the reluctance to carry the same always there. As a result the general insurance sector added to only 0.6 percent growth in GDP. Ramadoss opined the biggest risks can be taken only when there is capital support and proper pricing. He made a mention of fire insurance, motor insurance situation in India and commented upon the importance of the IRDA in the context of making regulations. He stressed upon the vitality of having regulation on health service providers especially in the rural market where the penetration is low. The rural sector is suffering due to high health service cost and less number of insurance cover providers.

Contributing his paper on Enterprise Risk Management Maini, said,”Successful implementation of ERM requires tailoring for the operating model of the insurer”. He explained the concept of Risk Management and elaborated on various functions which require coordination across the enterprise. He accentuated three key element of insurance: Risk, Value and Capital.

R Venugopal, Retired ED, LIC, said,”The concept of insurance being bought and not sold is obsolete. Since today customers are fast making their own intelligent choices”. Venugopal highlighted the importance of Bancassurance and gave befitting examples on how the Banks were far better than the Insurance companies when it came to customer interaction. He expressed concern over the “gaps created between Banks and customers due to the after-service problem”. While concluding his talk Venugopal suggested that since the ‘multi-channel distribution’ has come to stay and ‘Bancassurance’ will be playing a key role in it, it is better to join the banks instead of treating them as competitors.

At the National Conference, more than 15 research papers were presented by several academicians. Some of the participants included Prof Neha Rohira, Sri Ram Swaroop Memorial College of Engineering and Management, Prof. Vinod Kumar Chib, Jaipuria Institute of Management, Lucknow, Prof Anvay Bhargava, Jaipuria Institute of Management, Jaipur, Prof. Sabeeha Fatma, Amity University, Lucknow, Dr Shailesh Rastogi & Dr. Ritu Singh, Jaipuria Institute of Management, Jaipur, Rajiv Sikroria, Sujata Sinha, Parul Gupta, INC Lucknow, Dr Vandana Srivastave, SMS Lucknow, Dr. Gaurav Bisari, Integral University, Dr. Aftab Alam, Dr. Mairaj Salim, Dr. Hassan Shah, King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, and Dr. Saima Rizvi, Jaipuria Institute of Management, Lucknow.

Sandeep Asthana, MD, India Unit of RGA Reinsurance, expressed his views on the concept and importance of Re-insurance Companies while Dr. Rajesh Dalmia, Director, Risk Advisory Services, Ernst & Young talked about Product Development Cycle respectively.

At the valedictory session Kim Soon Chua, COO, Bharti-Axa General Insurance Co. Ltd. reflected on all the themes of the Conference so far and focused on how these were important for the customers. He elaborated that the companies need to be in the constant move to manage and mitigate the risks to come. Chua laid down the criteria which the customers expect from the Insurance Companies. These were namely, Availability: Anytime and Anyhow, Constant attention to their needs, Reliability & dependability. Chua concluded his views by saying that, a customer friendly approach would be beneficial in their endeavors.

Prof Chakraborty announced IIC-2010 and declared that it will be held on 6 and 7 November 2010. The focus of the Conference would be Banking Sector and its Role in the Changing Economic Scenario. The full brochure of the same was distributed to the delegates.

Annual Human Resource Summit 2009 by IIM Lucknow Noida Campus on Current and future State of HR: Decisions and Directions

As part of extended celebrations of 25th anniversary, IIM Lucknow Noida Campus organized the first Annual Human Resource Summit 2009, on November 21, 2009. The theme of the HR Summit was: Current & Future State of HR: Decisions & Directions. The event was inaugurated by the director of IIM Lucknow Dr Devi Singh.

The HR summit deliberated on developing effective strategies that are key to the success of all organizations. Students from the IPMX program at IIM Lucknow along with many industry professionals attended the summit.

The Opening Plenary session was on ‘Role of HR in Corporate Governance’. The panelists focused on leadership, code of ethics, Governance and Corporate Governance, which are matters of discussion every week, every month, at every platform and in every country.

Dr Devi Singh, Director, IIM Lucknow, Prof. Punam Sahgal, Dean, IIM Lucknow Noida Campus and Prof. Ajay Singh, HRM, IIM Lucknow attended the HR Summit. In the opening plenary, other eminent panelists included Saugata Mitra, CPO & Group Head HR, Mother Dairy Fruit and Vegetable Private Limited(who was also the Chairperson of the Panel Discussion), Raveen Bhatnagar, National HR Head, Tata Teleservices, Shantanu Dhar, Asst. Executive Director HR , Dalmiya Cements and Tim Huiting, VP HR, Convergys.

Mitra said, “Any value creation should be in the framework of law and human values such as trust, accountability, honesty and integrity. The challenge the industry is facing is how to codify a value system so that Corporate Governance in particular can be institutionalized. HR function has a significant role to play in this area.”

While Raveen Bhatnagar, National HR Head, Tata Teleservices emphasized on the need of strong profound unified thinking and belief and Need for trust along with accountability and responsibility, Huiting, stressed on Catching corporate governance issues early.

The closing session on ‘Is HR Outsourcing a Source of Competitive Advantage’ had panelists like Mr Manmohan Kalsi, VP, HR Vodafone, Mr Manmohan Bhutani, VP – People & Operations Global Services, Fiserv, Asim Talukdar, Sr. VP HR, NIIT, Deepak Puggal, Country Head – APAC BDL & India Business Leader, Hewitt Associates and Dr.Devi Singh, Director, IIM Lucknow.

Panelists talked about how HR outsourcing is becoming a source of competitive advantage and how companies have reduced their cost of HR processes and increased efficiency. High value stuff where human interface is becoming critical focus in-house for such HR services. Example, Performance Management, Career development was also deliberated upon.

Kalsi said “Companies have gone in for shared services model for outsourcing. What has been seen presently is that transactional intensive activities are outsourced. But higher level HR activities or consulting activities which HR is capable of performing is not outsourced yet. That will hopefully happen soon”.

Talking from the customer’s perspective Talukdar said, “customer gets an advantage from the complete outsourcing process. However, having said that it is essential to see that business needs to understand what is essential activity in the company’s core business. If businesses stop doing it, it may lose its valued customers”.

The event was concluded with a vote of thanks from Prof Punam Sahgal, Dean of IIM Lucknow’s Noida Campus. She thanked the entire panel of speakers for sharing their industry experience and giving valuable insights on the issue of HR outsourcing