Prerana Day One Report
Prerana, NITIE’s annual B-school fest kicked-off with a bang with the fourth Prerana Business Meet, organized at the ITC Grand Maratha Sheraton Mumbai on Friday, October 21, 2005. The meet was attended by dignitaries such as Mr. Jaithirth (Jerry) Rao: Chairman & CEO, MphasiS and past Chairman, Nasscom, Dr LS Kanodia: founder Chairman of Tata Consultancy Services and Chairman of Datamatics and Mr. K. Ramachandran, CEO of Philips Electronics India Limited. The meeting was hosted by Director of NITIE, Dr. Subhash D. Awale and Professor Ashok. K. Pundir.

The topic of discussion at this meet was “Brand India: From emergence to Leadership”. The discussion was kick started by Dr. Awale who connected the meaning of Prerana itself to the roots and traditions of India and thus recognized the role that our past traditions and culture plays in our present as well as future. The discussion was then taken over by Dr. Kanodia who painted a very vibrant picture of what India is and what it will be in the years to come. Dr. Kanodia also emphasized the fact that there was still a long way to go for India and gave the example of India’s per capita income being just 10% of the average per capita income of the world and the vast inequalities which still exist in the Indian society. “What USA is today we were 220 years ago”, this is how Dr. Kanodia summed up the loss India has suffered in its past. Dr. Kanodia felt that the value of brand India once fully developed would be invaluable provided we overcome the obstacles of poor infrastructure and corruption.

Mr. Jerry Rao put forth his points by using the examples of Switzerland and China as two nations which have emerged as strong brands that deliver on certain core values. He also quoted an example of a brand going wrong, by citing Germany’s example, where the obsession for quality blinded them from the affordability and value-for-money equation. Mr. Rao also cautioned that the focus should first be on evolving a successful product or service and then branding should follow. The essence of his speech was that a brand cannot emerge from thin air and has to be made out of reality.

Mr. K. Ramachandran, CEO of Philips Electronics India Limited, then took the discussion forward with his presentation on “Positioning Brand ‘India’….The Last Mile”.He took a unique approach to the topic by explaining the success of branding in various companies such as Google, Nokia & Philips itself and extending this nationwide – explaining how this approach could be applied to promoting Brand India. Mr. Ramachandran used the example of the difference in facilities provided at the Chennai airport vis-à-vis Kuala Lumpur airport to explain what India really needs to do for developing a strong and powerful brand image.
The meet concluded with a vote of thanks being proposed by Professor Ashok. K. Pundir and distribution of mementos by Dr. Awale to the distinguished guests. The meeting was attended by academicians, corporates and students from the B-School community.

The post-lunch session of day-one witnessed two events where B-school students competed for honours before esteemed panelists from the industry. The first event was “On Your Marks – the Srijan Marketing Case Study contest.” Out of the numerous entries received the top five teams were chosen for the final. The case study, sponsored by Orange, was about developing innovative marketing strategies to capture the growing mobile phone user segment in the 15-21 year old age group. The teams that qualified for the finals were from IIM Calcutta, NITIE, NMIMS, Great Lakes Institute of Management and JBIMS. The panelists for the event were Prof. Rekha Chikalkar, Area- Marketing at NITIE; Mr. Mayank Tiwari, Brand Manager for Axe, HLL; Mr. Anil Bhatia, Sales Director, Financial Solutions Division, NCR Corp India Pvt Ltd; and Mr. Sagar Verma, Assistant VP, Planning and Business Development Group (Polymers), Reliance Industries Limited.

All the teams did a good job of primary and secondary research in analyzing the current market situation and arriving at what the target customer aspires for. All the teams identified the target segment as one which is very technology savvy and hence proposed a slew of value added data-services to capture their attention. Many tie-ups were suggested with places which students frequent such as colleges and coffee-shops. Since, parents are influencers of the purchase decision in this target segment, an innovative marketing campaign targeting the emotional bond between parent and child was proposed.In the end, the teams that managed to marry good research with innovative suggestions emerged on the tops. The team of Srinath and Amol from NITIE came first, the runners up were Susmita and Vikas from the Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai.

The other event of the day was Invest – an equity research contest – sponsored by ICICIDirect.com. Students of esteemed B – Schools across India were invited to submit an equity research report recommending a stock elucidating a long term investment strategy. The panelists for the event were Mr. Prakash Gaba (Professional Technical Analyst, CNBC), Mr. K. Ramachandran (Sr. VP, Head Advisory Desk, BNP Paribas), Mr. Vinod Bajpai (VP, Investment Advisory, Deutsche Bank AG), Prof. Ram Pendelaya (Area- Finance at NITIE), Mr. Harendra Kumar (Head Research – ICICI Direct) and Mr. Anand Rangrajan (Head Trade Finance – Standard Chartered). The event received 320 entries from across the country out of which five finalists were selected.

In the evening, NITIE witnesses an engrossing ‘Talk-Show‘ with speakers drawn from diverse backgrounds such as journalism, acting and social-activism. The panel included Boman Irani, actor and theater artist; Meher Pestonji, author and activist; Srinivasan Jain, Senior Correspondent, NDTV; Naval Bajaj, DCP, Mumbai and Dilip D Souza, author and activist.

Over the next few days a host of events are lined up for B-school students and corporates alike. A rock show will enliven proceedings on the 22nd evening. The much anticipated Prerana Business Quiz is scheduled on the 23rd afternoon.