SJMSOM, IIT Bombay Organizes Business Seminar Series

SJMSOM, IIT Bombay Organizes Business Seminar Series
Post-event Press-release

SJMSOM and Vinnoite Media launched the annual rolling seminar series, Continuum, in association with Financial Express and COVACSIS. Continuums are the rolling seminar series organized each year by the students of SJMSOM.

At each Continuum, eminent speakers from the industry as well as academia engage in talks, presentations and panel discussions on topics pertinent to industry.

The series began with the consulting and operations continuum on the themes: Handling Market Optimism with Caution: A Consultant's Approach" and "Towards creating a sustainable green supply chain".

Operations Continuum

The Consulting continuum was followed by the Operations Continuum on the 21st. The keynote address for the event was delivered by Mr. Sukumar Narasimhan, Senior Vice President - Supply Chain at Reliance Industries. He spoke about "What is not so obvious within the Supply chain ecosystem" and emphasized the importance commonsense going back to basics. He stated that if all processes are standardized, maintaining these processes takes precedence over completion of tasks. Also, flexibility to respond to unforeseen events is reduced. He suggested that rather than standardizing entire processes, firms should standardize and automate routine transactions.

Next was Mr. Sivakumar Periasamy, Vice President - Procurement, IBM India. He spoke of IBM's efforts in sustainability, including the design of green, energy efficient, data centres. He also spoke of IBM's procurement policy, wherein the company only chooses suppliers that are known to comply with environmental norms.

The seminars were followed by a panel discussion among speakers from a wide range of industries. The members of the panel were, Mr. Hans-Henrik Hansen, Cluster Manager, South Asia from Maersk Group, Dr. Prasad Kanitkar- Director Plant Operations of Pfizer India Ltd, Mr. Jagadeesh K. Math - Director at Rolta India Limited and Mr. Sukumar Narasimhan, Senior VP - Supply Chain at Reliance Industries. Moderating the panel discussion was Mr. G. Chandrashekar, Associate Editor, Business Line. The theme of the panel discussion was "Role of Technology in Creating Sustainable Green Supply Chain". Points mooted were: the role of organic, biofuel in the supply chain to enhance "greenness", the importance of conserving water through reuse after purification, the use of geographic Information Systems (GIS), to visualize an area and make it easier to understand and implement green practices there. The panel also emphasized the role of small actions, such as switching off those lights which are not required in company offices. The panel agreed that there are enough governmental policies in place to protect the environment; these just have to be well enforced.

Next, Mr. Chandrashekar shared his views on macroeconomic environment indicators and their relevance to the environment. He said that it will be necessary to choose between growth and environmental sustainability, since both are unlikely to occur for a developing country like India: a case of having one's cake and eating it too. After the panel discussion, Mr. Hans-Henrik Hansen, Cluster Manager, South Asia - Maersk Group, spoke about sustainability in shipping by combining CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and HSE (Health, Safety and Environment) to benefit both the business and society.

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Contributed By-
Ashish Rijhwani,
Online PR Co-ordinator,
Public Relations Team,
SJM School Of Management, IIT Bombay.

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