IIM, Ahmedabad Successfully Concludes "Confluence 2009"

IIM, Ahmedabad Successfully Concludes "Confluence 2009"

The third day of Confluence 2009 presented strategies on how to 'succeed' after having 'survived' and 'sustained'. The first session of the day was chaired by Prof. M. R. Dixit of IIMA. He began the session by graciously introducing the speakers to the audience and elaborating on what the session would entail.

Mr. Arvind Mahajan, Executive Director and Head of Business Advisory Services at KPMG, took the dais on the invitation of the session chair and spoke about new paradigms to sustain and succeed. He firstly sought to lay to rest all fears that India might not be fully out of the recession by sharing that most business leaders had started to think growth again. He elaborated by saying that the dynamics of growth had changed as well from incremental to breakthrough. Mr. Mahajan suggested that a new angle to look at the financial crisis would be to consider it a global reset. Policy makers and business leaders have to re-evaluate what their thinking about growth and realize that what had ensured growth earlier might not hold true now. Because of changing volatility in the Indian market, risks too need to be restructured and re-analyzed. Mr. Mahajan concluded with talking about how innovation in all aspects of business was required for Indian companies to stake claim on the global front. By citing Narayana Hrudalaya and Aravind Eye Care foundation he exemplified how Indian companies were changing how the world perceives health care and India as well.

Ms. Meenu Handa, Director of Corporate Communications at Microsoft India, next took the dais and extended Mr. Mahajan's line of argument about innovation as a differentiating factor for companies across the world. She however added why she felt Indians as a people and hence Indian companies were the most well suited to innovate and create new products and services. According to her the ability of Indians to make sense out of chaos and use this sense to reach a destination amongst creaking infrastructure and overcrowded roads was what made us different from any other people. She also added about the role technology can play in making India's excellent and abundant human capital even more prized. She emphasized that solutions to India's problems would have to stem from Indian's themselves as no one else quite understands the peculiarities of our diverse nation. She ended on the hopeful note that although India still had some time to go in becoming a knowledge power, with continued determination and especially adding a certain tolerance for failure India was surely going to get there.

The stage was then taken by Mr. L. Ramkumar, MD of the Tube Investments of India (TII). Mr. Ramkumar was a perfect example to end the session with of how Indian companies bent on innovation could battle both far more developed external competition and a falling domestic demand. Mr. Ramkumar began by detailing how the Indian policy scenario has matured over the years and then talked about how Indian companies need to re-invent themselves to take the next big leap into being global players.

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Contributed by -
M. Arun,
Coordinator,
Media Relations,
Confluence 2009,
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

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