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VISTA 2002 Ever since its inception in 1973, the Indian Institute of Management at Bangalore has been living up to the high expectations from it through its continued contribution to management thought, research and its highly valued consultancy services to the Industry. It is the most internationally focused B-School in India. Today, IIM Bangalore is considered one of the best B-Schools not only in the country, but also in the whole of Asia. VISTA 2002, the flagship event of Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, was organized from 25-27 Oct. 2002. VISTA offers management students all over India an opportunity to interact with the best amongst their peers and business leaders from countries across the globe. Inauguration Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman, Aditya Birla Group flagged off VISTA 2002 on 25th Oct. He then addressed the group of invitees, corporate guests, faculty, media and students on the issue of "Corporate Governance", a topic very close to his heart. Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Birla pointed out that the uneasy standoff between the society and business is likely to prevail. Making a reference to history he rendered a warning to corporations that social systems have always tried to resist hegemony and concentration of power. Giving reasons for why corporations would always continue to remain under public glare, Mr. Birla said that it is the sheer size and the concentration that they represent. He mentioned the interesting statistics of 80% of world's output being accounted by top 1000 large companies. Referring to the concept of "shareholder capitalism", Mr. Birla added that people's financial fortunes have become more and more dependent on how the corporate sector performs. The splendid inauguration ceremony rightly set the tone and fever for the festival of fun, excitement and learning. VISTA 2002 had participation from premier B-Schools in the country including IIMA, IIMC, NITIE and S. P. Jain. IIMB was host to over 100 participants from outside Bangalore and over 200 students from colleges in Bangalore. Day 2 The second day at VISTA 2002 was filled with intellectually stimulating events ranging from the ad-workshop, paper presentations, games in functional areas and the business quizes. Ad-Age, the advertising workshop, was conducted by Mr. S Radhakrishnan, Vice-President, and Mr. Manoj Choudhury, Creative Director, Mudra, Bangalore. The theme of the workshop was 'the magic of advertising'. The participants were exposed to the various parts of the creative brief, how to develop it and how to execute it. The second part of the workshop was a competition in which the participants were divided into teams and given a specific situation. They were then asked to develop the creative brief and come up with their advertising campaign. Manifestations, the country's largest paper presentation contest received 348 entries out of which 16 were chosen for final presentations. Students from IIMA, IIMC, NITIE and IIMB presented papers in the areas of operations, finance, marketing, strategy and systems. Money Matters - the finance game, Best Sellers - the marketing game, Arthashastra - the strategy game and Log-Sticks - the operations game, had huge participations from students of visiting colleges. Bizarre - the business quiz, organized with the help of Karnataka Quizzing Association and hosted by Mr. Arul Mani, saw a participation of 180 teams comprising of 300 students and 60 professional/corporate quizzers from around the country. Bizarre had sizeable participation from the corporates. Day 3 Gray-Ones, the Panel Discussion at Vista 2002 was as grand as a grand finale could be. Seldom has any discussion seen such a panel grace the occasion and perhaps the structure has never been tried before in the country. The entrepreneurial approach to the idea of market for corporate control in India brought a fresh perspective to the whole concept. The topic for the discussion this year was, "Is there an opportunity for corporate takeover companies?" The moderator for the discussion was none other than Dr. Narendar Pani, Senior Editor Economic Times. The panelists included Mr. Balu Doraisamy President Hewlett-Packard India, Mr. Mohan Das Pai CFO Infosys, Mr. Rajeev Gupta EVP DSP Merrill Lynch and Mr. TCAS Raghavan, Consulting Editor Business Standard.
There couldn't have been a better closing to Vista envisaged and would probably be difficult to match in the future too. To sum up the sentiments of those present, this is what Mr. Doraisamy had to say about the event: VISTA attracted a host of corporate sponsors including HLL, ITC, Standard Chartered, Tata Group and Colgate Palmolive. Three days of action and learning were aided by the synergy of the corporate world, management students from around the country and academia. It truly lived up to its theme for the year, "Making the Connection". Contributed by: - |
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