SYMPOSIUM 2005

Symposium 2005.

Army Institute of Management (AIM), Kolkata, formerly known as National Institute of Management Calcutta, organized Symposium 2005 on Friday, 23 September 2005 at the college premises.

Symposium is an annual event, which is organized with the objective of bridging the gap between the classroom and the industry and to familiarize the students with the nuances of the business world.

Every year AIM invites experts from different functional areas to come and share their perspectives with the students on a given theme. This year the theme was India Inc 2010: Towards Global Leadership Mr. D. Guha, Executive Director CESE Ltd graced the occasion as the chief guest. In his brief address to the students, Mr. Guha observed that “We have our own culture, as a country” and “would need to modify that suitably to suit the circumstances,” that would arise in India’s quest for global leadership. However, he cautioned that whatever be the changes that we would need to adjust to; we must never digress from our values and ethics. 

The program unfolded in three different sessions  

SESSION	FUNCTIONAL AREA	THEME
I	Human Resource Management	Tapping the gold mine : making the most of the world’s best human resources
II	Finance	Financing and investing : making the best use of the open era
III	Marketing	Toward building Indian brands that shine across the globe

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MARKETING SESSION -

Mr. Sanjay Datta

Topic : Towards building Indian brands that shines across the globe

SPEAKERS
1. Mr. Sanjay Datta- District Manager (east), ITC Ltd.

2. Dr. Subir Roy ,Senior Technical Director & SIO , NIC

3. Mr. Sumit Ray, Chief Retail Initiative, TATA Steel

MODERATOR
Prof. Biswajit Chakroborty, Faculty ,AIM

SUMMARY OF SPEECH

Mr. Sanjay Datta said that the most important thing in marketing is adding value. He said that anything that is done on the basic product is adding cost and not value. Adding value implies that people should be willing to pay a good price for it  

       Earlier it was perceived that anything made in India was of an inferior quality. But things have now changed drastically, and people are taking notice of the Indians. The ‘Indian brains’ are changing the world order. Today about 34% of Microsoft employees and 36% of NASA employees are Indian. 

      In a similar manner, the Indian brands too can make a difference. They can and should bring in innovations. Innovations is not about spending money, it is all about pushing oneself to a corner and focus on something with a lot of dedication and hardwork.

           Dr. Subir Roy then expressed his views on this. According to him the main reason why the Indian brands are not able to come up is because of SKEPTICISM. We as Indians do not like to get ourselves associated with India. This is despite the fact that many Indian brains are associated with some of the great discoveries of the world. Everyone knows what is an IBM thinkpad  and who owns it, they even know that it has an INTEL processor inside it but very few would care to know that it is an Indian who is known as the “ Father of the Processor”. 

      The attitude that we carry is that anything Indian is not rewarding, and we keep criticizing our own brands all the times. There is a need to change our attitude and support Indian Brands while inviting MNCs into the market.

       Stress should also be laid upon R&D, which is usually ignored by our companies, and service provided should be up to the mark, and up to the expectations of the customers.

       He concluded with the remark that it is important to brand not just products and services but whatever we do,  thriving on quality performance.

            Mr. Sumit Ray started with the question- “what is India” and answered it impressively with the definition of India as given in Encyclopedia Britannica. He observed that our country is bestowed with the great minds- “the great Indian Minds” which in itself is a brand.

            The way Switzerland is known for its precision, USA for its innovation, Japan for its manufacturing, India will be known as the intellectual capital of the world. All of us together can make a difference.

            We all have great minds but the Indian mindset of not feeling proud of ourselves, of trying to cut corners, should be changed.

            Mr. Ray said that in order to make the Indian brand go global one must

• Be focused
• Innovate
• Differentiate between products
• Differentiate between brands
• Improve service
• Develop scale of operation
• As a country we have certain definite advantage:

*India has a parliamentary democracy, which make it an attractive destination, as against countries, which have a dictatorial regime. 

India has a reasonably robust judiciary system.
Majority of the Indians speak and write English which is the single most important global language.
Considering all that, India has tremendous potential of becoming a world brand. 

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FINANCE SESSION –

Symposium 2005

TOPIC : FINANCING AND INVESTING: MAKING THE BEST USE OF THE OPEN ERA 

SPEAKERS
1. Mr. Naresh Pachischia, MD SKP Securities

2. Mr. Partha Chakraborty, Head Operations, TATA AIG

3. Mr. Ashley Kennedy, Branch Head, BIRLA SUN LIFE

MODERATOR
Prof. Prantik Ray, Faculty, AIM

SUMMARY OF SPEECH

Mr. Naresh Pachischia, opened the speech on a positive note stating that “We are very lucky to be in the right country at the right time, which is where we will see good growth for years together”. Some of the key factors to be noted are:- 

• India’s demographic profile where
• 55% population are below 21 years
• 30% population are below 15 years
• 8% population are above 55 years
• India would thus become a country with largest dependency rates and a large earning population.   

As the level of education and awareness increases in any country, the demand for more sophisticated products also increases. So to cater to these needs more knowledgeable providers are needed. The opportunities lie in increasing penetration across the country and bring greater population within the folds of different sophisticated products. 

As an example, Mr. Pachischia, mentioned that 50% of all US deposits are in Mutual funds where as in India it is only 3%.

In the field of finance more analysts, more wealth managers and more financial planners are required, who would first understand the needs of the clients before recommending any financial product. He cited the instance of insurance products always having been sold first as tax saver, then as an investment and last as an instrument of protection, whereas in reality it should have been the reverse. 

He also added that the three things that appeal most to an Indian investor are

• Fixed Returns
• Real Estate
• Gold

The mutual fund industry is yet to tap this vast potential. He concluded with the remark that with more and more financial product coming up and the penetration level increasing, tremendous opportunities would open up for India. 

Mr. Partha Chakraborty highlighted the  fact that due to opening up of the Indian economy in 1991 has propelled tremendous growth opportunities for India. Although there have been some 8 different governments in the last 15 years, India has been able to sustain about 6% growth rate over the same period of time.

Today India is being regarded as a robust economy. MNCs are coming in not only for outsourcing but for mergers and acquisitions as well. Investments are invited even in the fields of major projects in infrastructures sector. With opportunities like these the entire world is focusing on India. It is predicted that India’s GDP would touch USD 1 trillion by 2010; USD 2 trillion by 2020 and USD 3 trillion by 2030.

India is being perceived as one of the fastest growing decentralized economy. It is emerging as the venue for the service sector, health care, travel and tourism, among others. 

Although reforms in the finance sector started a little later that too is fast catching up. The insurance sector has opened up, many sectors have been opened to Foreign Direct Investments (FDI), corporate profitability. 

Armed with all these and more, India can indeed emerge as the global leader. Mr. Ashey Kennedy, being from the Life Insurance sector, focused mainly on that. He said that per capita life insurance premium amount worldwide is US$469. In Malaysia it is US$ 227, in Thailand it is US $ 79,in China it is US $ 36,whereas in India the average is US $16. 

        This augurs tremendous opportunity for the Insurance industry. Many investing companies are now investing in bank assurance, which now provides about 40% of the total insurance premium, handled by relationship or wealth managers. 

 But for all these education is very important. India needs many institutions that can provide knowledge about finance. 

       India as a country presents tremendous growth opportunity in all sectors including finance

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HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT SESSION -

 
Symposium 2005 

TOPIC : TAPPING THE GOLD MINE: MAKING THE MOST OF THE WORLD’S BEST HUMAN RESOURCE 

SPEAKERS 

1.  Mr. P S Paul, Deputy General Manager (HR), IBP Ltd.
2.  Mr. Indranil Sarkar, Sr. Consultant, TCS.
3. Mr. Prasenjit Dasgupta, Deputy General Manager Peerless Hospitals and B K Roy      Research Center.

MODERATOR

Prof. Parveen Ahmed Alam, Faculty, AIM. 

SUMMARY OF DISCUSSION

Mr. PS Pual opened the discussion with the observation that proper utilization of any resource can “create wealth and value”. He said that in our country, there is a lot of manpower, who have the right skills, but the question is “how can we sustain it in the coming years”? In this fast changing world we need to ‘succeed’ more than just surviving. An organization can succeed only when it has a strong value system and the potential of the people can be lapped when they have strong value system, strong enough to support the society.  There should be a “passion for excellence” which can be realized only when we keep enhancing our knowledge. It is equally important to have positive “CAN DO” approach. These qualities are certainly there in all even if it is lying dormant, but these dormant capabilities can be made to shine through:- 

• Competency building
• Benevolent leadership 

Both of which should have clarity of thought and clarity of heart. The next speaker Mr. P Dasgupta said that growth in India is to a large extent being driven by the growth in the service industry, but problem that India is facing today is scarcity of skilled manpower. Manpower is in abundance. It is the talent that is scarce and needs to be built. Proper infrastructure training should be provided to groom the managers. Money is not every thing, one cannot hold on to it for long. Therefore instead of focusing only on money one needs to focus on growth and grow with the society.  The third panelist Mr. Indranil Sarkar also expressed his views on this topic and said that we should be able to help the business grow. People have many aspirations and the organization should be able to manage them well, in order to retain them. Mr. Sarkar took the example of his own organization and said that 75% of their employees are less than 30 years of age. Some of the dynamics of aspirations and expectations they have to take care are:- 

• Aspiration about technical keenness to work on
• Role expectation
• Geographical constraints
• Global constraints
• Mindset and level of commitment to projects
• Career planning versus business requirements
• Personal unavailability of associates with engagement
• Working with working couples and placing them at a common place 

In any given situation, the organization should be able to motivate the people and bring of the best of them. Some of the ways in which employees can be motivated are:- 

• Attractive compensation
• Training
• Ensuring various exposures
• Variable compensation, linked with time spent 

To conclude Mr. Sarkar emphasized that at the end of the day it is the employees who need to put in continuous and rigorous efforts. Employees’ efforts and learning process cannot “begin at 9 in the morning and stop at 6 in the evening”, it is a continuous process

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