Forum:  http://webcasts.business2community.com/

Date: 28^th July, 2015

Key Speakers: Ms. Jill Konrath (Consultant with IBM, GE, MSN etc.) and Mr. Donel Daly (CEO & Founder, TAS)

This write-up will explore the various facets discussed during the webinar and key conclusions that emerged. The objective of this webinar was to discuss the ways proven by marketing research through which sales managers can succeed and achieve all targets per quarter.

Premise

Sales managers / executives are amongst the most over worked yet undervalued and underpaid persons in most organizations. For all their qualities and efforts, there is only one metric to judge them. That one is the achievement or not of quarterly targets. Thus a procedure needs to be followed to achieve the same.

5 Essentials

As discussed, 5 essentials have been suggested which sales managers must follow which will enable them to achieve their quarterly targets.

Role

All sales managers must understand the roles they are to work within. As per Ms. Konrath, 41 roles have been identified within the gamut of sales management, yet it is not possible for any one professional to satisfy all of these. However, a sense of agility is required as work profile keeps changing as per immediate requirements. Most people want to do same things repeatedly as it gives the human brain a rest, yet sales requires multi tasking. Also in order to be effective, the sales team needs to put itself into the shoes of the customer to analyze the strengths and problem areas.

On- Boarding

Corporate training is especially essential in sales teams as new recruits need to feel part of the group. The process of on- boarding requires mentoring by seniors. Millennials wish to be independent at work place and this must be granted, yet they must follow team norms and must possess adequate product knowledge.

Ideally a sales manager must follow the following cycle during the process of on- boarding.

Sales Process

The loss of a deal impacts a sales person more than anyone else in the chain. Also this is one vertical where losses arising from inadequate information at front desk lead to substantial business loss. Sales must thus be approached as a process and not as a standalone event. Everyone must speak the same operational language at the office.

Sales process problems can be categorized within the following 4 categories:

Coaching

Coaching and talent management is extremely crucial, else the attrition rates are expected to be high. The trainee must be provided the context for every product, yet not too great a depth as that will lead to too much time being dedicated to training rather than actual business. It has been observed that senior sales managers spend less than 5% of their time on mentoring.

Analytics

Business analysis through big data and sales analytics is extremely crucial these days. However, the focus must never be on derivation of too much of numbers but rather meaningful data that can be broken down for something useful.

Conclusion

Thus overall we see that sales can be considered a thankless job but yet the most crucial cog in a business. Following of the methods suggested in this webinar will majorly help boost productivity.

Forum:   https://in.linkedin.com/

Attendee: Mr. Aritro Dasgupta

Date: 22nd July, 2015

Key Speakers: Ms. Ritika Puri (Co-founder at storyhackers.com)

This write-up will explore the various facets discussed during the webinar and key conclusions that emerged. The objective of this webinar was to discuss the ways in which personalized interview experiences have become important

Premise

In the present scenario, due to the massive demands of recruitment and further talent management, it has become imperative to provide the interviewee a personalized experience during the interview process. High performers are constantly flooded with multiple job offers and need to choose the right one. Thus during the interview rounds, it is not only the interviewer who is assessing the candidate, even the latter is testing the organization as a best fit for oneself.

5 Ways

Business research through discussions with such top performers has devised five key ways for this to be executed.

Be Thoughtful

Due to the length of time that interviews often stretch to, the process can get tedious at times. Also, emergencies do not arise announced and thus unexpected situations, drills and changing team schedules may be considered normal for the employees but may give a sense of lack of organization to the as yet outsider candidate. However, these things must be carried out by the team with utter case as the candidate must not realize that anything was decided last moment.

Put your Problems Aside

Every organization is laced with internal problems. Yet that must never reflect to the interview candidate. The outsider must not feel that the pace of work is rushed or team members are communicating different message to the person.

Be Radically Transparent

Top performers research firms before going for interviews. They conduct a thorough check on the firm and will be able to make out in case the interviewers give the impression of not being fully transparent in their commitments and dealings. If the company shares reports and brochures on day zero itself, that is a clear indication of the confidence they firm feels in its dealings.

Create one-of-a-kind Experiences

Most interviews are predictable and follow similar patterns. Recruiting the ideal candidate must also be wedded with the concept of business innovation. Some firms have started arranging area tours for the top candidates.

Offer Flexibility

Interviews and subsequent job profiles must not appear rigid but must rather incorporate flexibility. Respect for candidates’ time is something not followed very often but increases the recruiter’s impression for the interviewee.

Conclusion

Thus for interviewing the top candidates a different strategy needs to be employed as opposed to earlier formats. Last minute alterations must not be evident. The candidate must feel valued and

Forum:  http://www.aimia.com/

Date: 22^nd July, 2015

Key Speakers: Mr. Laura Hewitt (GM, AIMIA) & Mr. Eric Monteiro (EVP, AIMIA)

This write-up will explore the important learnings derived from the webinar. The webinar was about how customer experience and marketing ROI is driven by smart usage of customer data confirmation. Business analysis however must be based around data collection on relevant material. The measurement has to be around a meaningful customer journey.

Mr. Hewitt who is the General Manager of AIMIA discussed the phenomena of data collection and usage in retail chains. He spoke about how retail chains have lost their link to the customer over the past 2 generations. Until the creation of the first supermarkets, retails shops in the USA knew all their customers and exactly who needed what. They knew about which regular customer needed to buy meat on Thursday and which wanted tomatoes on Tuesdays. They could even spot preferences of new customers. However, the supermarkets lost that level of personal touch.

This gap however, can be sorted in the post-modern era of today. Using relevant data, retail chains can tap into the exact requirements of customers and then use it for the purpose of digital marketing. The shopping behaviours of customers can be kept track of. It can help brands connect with buyers.

The speaker explained how the entire process can be streamlined. When customers reach shops, they look for products they need and invariably end up purchasing stuff they already know about. New products rarely get the visibility. There is a need for certain products, and the supermarket has a solution to the same, yet the connect does not exist and so the sale opportunity goes missing. The opportunity would have been converted had data been optimized.

Another sector suffering from similar short-sightedness is the travel industry. This is one sector which possesses a lot of information prior to the actual event. Information on check-ins can be obtained through booking statuses. One can even optimize to know the time one has left home, one is on the way to destination and expected / actual arrival time. Rather too much data has been generated over the last few years, yet nothing substantial is taking place to use the same.

The other speaker- Mr. Eric Monteiro- who is the EVP at AIMIA, then mentioned how there exist 3 major shopping personas as proven through marketing research. They are as follows:

   · Alone and on a mission- this includes typically the office working male who visits the retail store / chain at 8 pm on a  Wednesday evening, because his wife has asked him to get specific essential product like milk or bread. This person is too  busy and not in a mood then to look for innovative, new products.

   ·  Sunday with the family- this is the working male who is traveling with the family on a Sunday and specifically out for shopping. The pace is more relaxed and the group is open to purchase innovative / frivolous products.

   · Business trip- this is when the family or individual is out on a business trip to some location within or outside the country. The purpose then becomes to shop for certain products npot available back home or which have sentimental purpose.

Data analytics can help us win back the connect with customers through following channels:

$1·         Partner data

$1·         Personal and transaction data

$1·         External sources

$1·         Market research

This also helps enable the building of a customer engagement score. Data also fetches us crucial third party demographic information. Crucially, marketers need to understand a maxim: all data is not created equal. Some must be given greater weight-age than others. Data must be used to develop customer profiling. This can even help ease typical pain points of marketers.

Another aspect the speakers discussed about was the development of Customer Engagement Scores (CES) within KPIs. This will also build a loyalty statement for customers with the seller. The organization can in turn indulge in both cross-selling and up-selling. This is a cost effective method of customer acquisition.

Surveys have further highlighted how Canadians on average receive fewest professional emails per month among nationalities. Americans on the other hand get bombarded with the maximum. Email marketing is after all the most effective marketing tool.

Tracking ROI has become a challenge for 81% of marketers as per research conducted. In the present scenario, personal data protection has also taken up critical importance. There is a trail of information we are all leaving on the internet. Data security and privacy protection then becomes the benchmark for the industry to base itself against. 

Key Speakers: Ms. Maureen Boyle (cars.com) and Sam Peterson (workfront.com)

This write-up will explore the various facets discussed during the webinar and key conclusions that emerged. The objective of this webinar was to discuss the role of an internal marketing agency within a firm and values generated by the same as opposed to an external agency.

Premise

A number of organizations of all sizes prefer outsourcing their conventional and digital marketing operations to external agencies as they are considered experts in the field. Firms often have a deeply ingrained mistrust of ‘creatives’ working full time with them. However marketing research has clearly shown that certain advantages exist when the internal team works full time, often saving enormous cost while adding value to entire organization.

Stages

Key advantages have been identified divided within stages which the internal marketing agency provides as opposed to external ones. They are as follows:

$1·         Build trust

$1·         Be strategic

$1·         Save time

$1·         Stop chaos

$1·         Get the big picture i.e. improve visibility

Build Trust

38% of marketers say that for them the biggest challenge is to gain the trust within their own firm as number of people do not understand their roles. Also 58% state that a substantial portion of people do not even wish to comprehend their tasks. Creativity is subjective and thus difficult to measure tangible results. Thus extra efforts are needed to earn respect within the firm.

The speaker, Ms. Maureen Boyle, then highlighted some steps taken. Firstly the creative agency at cars.com was remodeled as Team Idea. The concept of idea generation was given top priority. She also stressed on how certain projects which were not feasible were not taken up and a polite no was the response to such clients. Those clients in turn would have been particularly unhappy had the project been taken up but desired results not delivered. Finally she says that the clients must worry about the ‘what’ of all problems and leave the ‘how’ to Team Idea. The team has / had the requisite expertise to feel supremely confident about the delivery.

Be Strategic

A certain path to achieving efficient follow up to corporate strategy has been designed. The path will be better illustrated by the following chart.

Thus at first the client comes up with a particular ‘need’. Then the internal agency works on discovering best solutions to achieve the target. The target then gets executed as per the plans. Finally the product / solution is delivered to the client.

However, often the original mission can be deviated from. Rather it is often desirable as clients appreciate improvisations made to improve the final delivery. Once the hands-on execution begins, there is bound to be crucial change in tactics. As per study, 90% times, this leads to increased satisfaction among the clients.

Save Time

Corporate Training is particularly crucial in the aspect of saving time. Each time there is an inbound project generation, a brief must be asked from the client. This may seem a tedious process initially and one may even lose few prospects in the process, however this saves critical time at a future date. One must by all means try to avoid falling in the trap of the ‘feedback swirl’. The success metrics, key messages and target audience must all be tracked using sophisticated business analysis.

Stop Chaos

The first step in achieving this is to align on expectation with the clients. The speaker gave the analogy of the neighbour whose household bears a messy outlook as opposed the more organized one. One is bound to feel more inclined to get friendly with the organized neighbour rather than the other one. The case of the marketing agency is similar and thus the same must forever bear the look of being organized. The visuals at the agency’s work stations must be aligned neatly. Creative work often becomes chaotic, yet non-team members must never get that feel, must rather feel confidence and reassurance at their project execution. Clients value documentation and consistency via a process. Also complete 100% transparency must be maintained with the client.

Get the big Picture

This consists of few tools. They are as follows:

$1·         Project status

$1·         Project timelines

$1·         Proofs and feedback

Client satisfaction must be gauged using data. This process has become easier due to the availability of sheer volume of big data. Thus proper business metrics must be used to deduce this. They must be included as part of the KPIs developed. An ROI study must be done accordingly using analysis.

Thus overall we see, internal marketing agencies have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars per organization. These agencies have created value by proving to be valuable.

Forum:  http://www.marketingprofs.com/

Key Speakers: Mr. Mark Bornstein, Senior Director- Content Marketing at ON24

This write-up will explore the various facts discussed during the webinar and key conclusions that emerged. The objective of this webinar was to discuss important patterns that have been identified in webinars that are usually conducted and how they can be benchmarked to provide better results and aid in corporate training.

Premise

Number of webinars being conducted has been steadily rising and growth has been particularly concentrated over the last 5 years. Beyond lead generation through digital marketing, webinars serve the purpose of engaging users. Case studies and whitepapers are very often downloaded post these events to learn further on the topic discussed about. It is particularly popular at bottom of the funnel in terms of marketing. This is especially true for positioning software.

Stages

Webinars can further be divided into 3 stages around which the hosts need to strategize. They are as follows:

$1·         Pre- event

$1·         During event

$1·         Post- event

Pre- Webinar

This phase is most critical for the marketing of the event. The following table will explain the time period for registrations to occur based on when the same was opened up for the webinar:

The data has been derived from marketing research conducted. It has thrown up some key observations:

$1·         Longer registration period serves positive marketing purpose

$1·         Promotions emails must be included as integral component of the marketing

$1·         On days when such mails aren’t sent, immediate next day witnesses deluge of registrations

$1·         Most webinars are for B2B purpose

$1·         Tues, Wednesday and Thursday have been proven to be the best days to drop promotional e-mails.

$1·         Wednesday and Thursday are best days to conduct a webinar marginally above Tuesday

$1·         One sure way to improve live attendees to registrants’ ratio to ensure reminder on calendar; the figure stands at 43% presently.

$1·         Some webinars have seen improved ratio due to them being compulsory or trade events for them, so this may skew figure, but otherwise improvements have been observed.

$1·         Reminder mails shot out to registered candidates must be packaged similarly in appearance to the original invitation email as the user must be able to recall what prompted him/ her to register in the first place.

During Webinar

The speaker, who practices management consulting, has jotted down some observations useful for all webinar hosts. The following table will explain the best possible timings to conduct webinars and ensure healthy participation:

Thus some useful conclusions emerge which are as follows:

$1· Early morning to office is busy schedule but just pre lunch is ideal; in addition pre lunch in Seattle is post lunch in New York and thus a more comfortable timing for both sides of the US.

$1·  Webinars with more than 1000 participants has increased from a mere 1% of total to 9%

$1·  This trend not just with large firms but also SMBs

$1·  Average viewing time has increased from 38% in 2010 to 56% today; this is all the more remarkable as this era is defined by ‘snack-able’ content where even 15 second commercials are deemed too long

$1·  Q & A is used as a tool to engage audiences

$1·   Social media must be increased further especially Twitter; in case we do not provide social media option, then users may simply disappear to these virtual worlds instead of sharing content or posting about event which is desirable.

$1·  16.5 % of webinars include videos; some marketers are scared of technological uncertainties and this avoid videos but they must be included more often

Post- Webinar

This is a stage often ignored by marketers yet business research has provided ample proof for this part to be of great importance. Following are some key observations regarding this stage:

$1·         Post event reflection necessary

$1·         While majority of users still prefer live over pre-recorded, the latter is catching up

$1·         Especially for video based webinars, pre-recorded can work to a treat

$1·         Often ‘live’ events are not exactly live but pre-recorded yet not admitted

$1·         20.6 % on demand users and their average viewing time is 29 minutes

$1·         8.3 % of registered users who have already seen the event, attend yet again, mainly to jot down important points missed earlier.

$1·         Post-finish, webinars must not be allowed to die; depends on how long content remains relevant

For further research, the speaker suggested us to visit Webinar academy website.

Talent as a differentiator on business

This webinar was organized by HR Virtual learning zone & the speaker was Mr. D P Singh who is the VP & Head HR for IBM in India / South Asia Region

His views were important for all kinds of organization irrespective of their size. Very recently ,corporate  are earnestly discussing  Talent as recruiting  top talent is a challenge Organizations  become more competitive & leaders lead bestteams with the support of talented people.As Mr. Singh says youbet on people not on strategies. Goodtalent /talent Management, as visible at every step of the pyramidin a company is one of the  strongest indicators of success.

In the past employers just filled positions and there was no recognition for talent per se.  As worldwide Industry environment changes, so do organizations need change managers. HR heads now have to lead from the front and not escape their responsibilities of sourcing and nurturing Talent.

Mr DP Singh put a pointer at the Sports Industry which has pretty much perfected the art of talent  as a differentiator and from whom all can learn how  they select ,how they train, reward, measure performance , make use of technology, take care of health , coach, mentor and finally  how they let people go and do succession planning. In sports each club has a strategy on how best they can gain from talent and vice versa.

The Football league is a perfect example of the above: Football clubs need people who have good height, ideal weight & need intelligent people to take quick decisions .The shelf life of a football player is usually three years so accordingly they do succession planning

Recently IBM Smart workforce conducted a study and found that most CEOs aspire to be a “customer activated organization” implyingthat as this is a era of crowded markets, extreme competition and growing dominance, the key differentiator is being customer centric. Hence,organizations need talent to win markets.

As part of organizations goals in the changing world need the following four cornerstones for our talent management:

Networked workforce

Transparent Value Chain

Independent Worker

An agile workforce

Leveraging talent is then the responsibility of the HR /Manager/organization

Mr. DP Singh wants every organization to focus on a three tier model which should include

1. Process

2. Technology

3. Behavior sciences

Organizations must hire talent for jobs and skills. They must identify successful talent are & what process and behavior they show in the organization. We must acquire talent which add value at the right places and be measured effectively and more frequently because this is how it will be differentiated.

He also said one must engage potential employees and make them learn from each other, let them create their own communities.He believes workforce + engagement level creates good ROI  

The session was interesting to say the least and an eye opener of sorts as I believe that the HR next wave will be that of differentiating, measuring and replicating high performance. Progress will be measured by the degree of differentiation and hence Talent will be a differentiator in business.

Skyline is the leading specialist from India, offering best talent sourcing programs to industries.

Date : 6th & 7th April 2015 – CII Annual Convention”

Day 1

Inaugural Session- Mr. Arun Jaitley

In this session, the Honourable Union Minister of Finance got the convention underway. He outlined some of the key challenges facing the country especially the industry and how an august gathering at CII can help solve of the major issues. He also acknowledged the work CII has done in various spheres including the social sector.

Urbanization & Smart Cities: Realizing the Investment Potential

This session included 3 panel members who all spoke individually regarding the topic. The panel members were as follows:

Mr. Aamer Azami

This speaker spoke at length about the concept of a smart city. He firstly explained that a smart city does not mean that the people are ‘smarter’. Instead it is a city which is very well connected via digital and electronic media. Especially crucial here is the link that residents of the city have with the government authorities. He outlined how Cisco has enabled systems across the world aiding in the process. The city of Barcelona in Spain is one such fine example where kiosks have been set up inside shopping malls where city residents can register their complaints or file their payments to authorities without having to go the route of government officials in government buildings. Cisco has helped automate all such processes leading to a far greater ease in governance.

Mr. Ravi Parthasarathy

The ILFS chairman started out by lamenting how people compare places and often he hears the remark that a certain activity will not be possible in India. He did acknowledge that certain procedures may not be exactly replicable but felt that tailoring a product can lead to advantages. Like the previous speaker, he too took the example of Barcelona and added Dubai for good measure citing these 2 cities as the perfect role model for an aspiring smart city as New Delhi is. He mentioned for good measure that per capita income in Barcelona (Spain) or Dubai (UAE) is much higher than anywhere in India and that poses complications. But a start needs to be made.

Mr. M Venkaiah Naidu

The Union Minister though from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) began his talk by homage to some of the great leaders of the country in the recent decades. In particular he spoke about Mr. Narasimha Rao, Dr. Man Mohan Singh (as finance minister) and Mr. A.B. Vajpayee as being statesmen with a vision. Then he began speaking about the present government of which he was a part of and in particular spoke about the leader- Mr. Narendra Modi- and how the government has steered clear of all scams of any kind in their first one year in charge. He criticized certain sections of the media and opposition who have ventured to say that the Modi government may not have kept up all of its promises, but the speaker reiterated that in a democracy everything had to be done via a system. Breaching the system was not possible, nor were instant results as all stakeholders had to be consulted before any major decision making at policy level.

This session was followed by the Networking Lunch Break.

Ideas That Could Change the Indian Economy

This session included 2 panel members who both took turns speaking about the topic. The panel members were as follows:

Dr. Subir Gokarn

The speaker spoke about how the policy makers of this country need to have a clearer vision of what needs to be done. Catching up China was becoming an area of concern as in spite of a later start China has fast forwarded to being an industrial and economic giant leaving India well behind.

During this talk another important thing that happened was Mr. Azim Prewmji, Group Chairman of Wipro Industries was felicitated with President’s Award from CII. This annual award was bestowed upon Mr. Premji to recognize his outstanding contributions to the world of business, technology and philanthropy. He and his business group stand at the forefront of India’s recent growth story.

Dr. Ajit Ranade

The speaker explained his position at the AB Group and how he and his team needs to study all national policies to formulate group strategies. Basing on the statistics available and the budgets sanctioned, group strategies get formulated accordingly.

Will National Agenda Overcome Political Agenda

For this event, 3 political stalwarts from 3 of the biggest political parties were invited to the discussion panel. However, one of them – Mr. N.K Singh of BJP- could not come due to some technical reasons. Mr. Sitaram Yechury from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) was the main speaker during this session.

Mr. Sitaram Yechury

There was a mention of the usual strikes & lockouts associated with the communist movement in India during the welcome of the speaker. The CPI(M) veteran then contested the claim by saying that when there is such a strike or lockout no one feels sadder than the labourer himself as the factory is symbolic of his and his family’s earnings. It is only an extreme stage of exploitation that needs to be reached for a labourer to protest in this manner. The speaker also mentioned that he fears he must be the most unpopular person in the convention but stressed that he and his party were not anti-development. He lamented the fact that there was too much discrepancy in society with income gaps between the top 10% and the bottom 40% ever rising. Such an economy he feels is unsustainable and something needs to put a camp on the differences. He also stated that the brain drain from India to western countries especially to USA in the software industry was a massive loss to the country. Thus some enclaves can be set up in the country catering to a mini-developed country so that the engineers from IIT for example find the right conductions for growth and do not need to go abroad.

This session was followed up by a round of High Tea.

Day 2

Building India: The Infrastructure Story

This session included 3 panel members who all spoke individually regarding the topic. The panel members were as follows:

Mr. Vinayak Chatterjee

This speaker’s role in this session was more on the welcoming side. His job was to set the tone for the discussions ahead. He did that by addressing some of the key challenges that India faces in infrastructure. He also mentioned regarding the plea among some quarters to do away with all state level road taxes and to implement only one for the whole country.

Mr. Prashant Ruia

This speaker spoke with particular reference to the telecom infrastructure. He stated that the earlier scams regarding 2G & 3G auctions were a thing of the past. They failed as it was an alien concept directly imported in India without due diligence to local conditions.

Mr. Nitin Gadkari

The Union Minister gave an extremely informative talk. He focused solely on the economics side and not on the political aspects. Following were among the major points he discussed:

• For internal cargo transport, his government is focusing less on roads, more on railways and most on internal waterways. Mr. Gadkari feels that rivers in India have not been tapped for their transportation uses as much as is done across Europe. Most rivers in India are navigable and costs are a fraction of roadways. On certain routes complete reliance on internal waterways may not be possible. In such cases a syndicated approach will work. A project has been launched under Mr. Gadkari’s leadership whereby a water transport network is to be developed from Kandla port to Chennai using multiple networks of rivers. Thus cargo can be transported over land from the north up to Kandla from where further they may travel by water transport.
• The system of 1 road tax for the whole nation has been initiated. This will reduce costs and waiting time for the transporters.
• There has been much controversy and much criticism has been leveled at various governments regarding procedures for land acquisition to build public utilities. Mr. Gadkari reiterated that railways and roadways need to be improved by far greater margin than what they are at the moment and this can only help the poorest of the farmers to get better connectivity. He stated that if rails and roadways need to get constructed then land had to be acquired as there was no alternative to building them. His government has started a system where the farmers’ family gets 35% greater compensation for the land that market price in case public infrastructure utilities need to be built. Some quarters have complained regarding this hike, but the minister states that this will help the poor people and will benefit the nation. He also stated that there were reservations initially regarding land takeover but due to the transparent system, his team has actually received requests for land to ‘get acquired’.
• The speaker spoke extensively regarding clean and renewable sources of energy which can be used to power transport. He mentioned some pilot projects have been started in some small towns in his home state of Maharashtra where waste water instead of being dumped in to the waterways, is instead getting re-used and converted to fuel. He feels that in India the usage of biogas is quite low as opposed to other countries, thus specific limits are being sought by the government to promote the usage of sugarcane (of which India is a massive producer) bagasse as a percentage of fuel consumption.

Delivering Digital India

This session included 4 panel members who all spoke individually regarding the topic. The panel members were as follows:

Mr. Rajesh Navani

As the moderator of the session, this speaker introduced all the panel members and set the tone for the discussion. He spoke about how digital was the way the world was moving as opposed to the time when his ancestors had started off their business few generations back. The idea in those days was building a safety net and getting into a family business which would secure everyone concerned. Now the generation was willing to take risks due to the more favourable business environment.

Mr. Kiran Karnik

This speaker spoke about CII’s role as an industry aggregator and how CII strives to connect people within this industry to cooperate and take ahead these business interests. He acknowledged that India had a long way to go in this industry but India was catching up fast.

Mr. R Chandrasekhar

NASSCOM plays a similar role in the technology sphere as CII plays in the overall business world within India. Thus if India is to hit the heights of the developed countries then NASSCOM will have to be at the centre of such a revolution.

Mr. Ashank Desai

The speaker says that the digital world at the moment can be divided into 4 sections on the scale of digital connectivity. SO while India has a massive population and a fairly well developed mobile phone connectivity, the internet and digital media lagged behind. India is at stage 2 right now 2 stages below the ideal top level. Thus the speaker illustrated the tremendous potential for growth in this industry as very little has actually been penetrated. Even with a percentage increase, in a large economy like ours, that will lead to substantial gains for the players and users.

This session was followed by a session of Networking High Tea.

Make in India: Transforming India in to a Global Manufacturing Hub

This session included 2 panel members who all spoke individually regarding the topic. The panel members were as follows:

Mr. Amitabh Kant

The speaker introduced the concept of this session which stated that India must manufacture locally. However, this was not a veiled version of protectionism, instead it is an idea to promote cutting edge manufacture within the competitive nature of the country. He paid homage to the fact that Japan is considered as a spiritual capital of smart manufacturing and the country is helping India through various technical and financial measures so that India can attain self-sufficiency with regards to manufacturing.

Professor Shoji Shiba

This speaker started discussing at first regarding smart manufacturing and the concept of TQM which his country Japan had pioneered. He showed us through a series of slides, the methods by which VLFM works. VLFM is a Japanese body of manufacturers aided by JICA bank and follows a spiritual path to success using ancient methods followed by the Lord Buddha.

This session was followed by the Networking Lunch.

Securing India’s Energy Future

This session included 4 panel members who all spoke individually regarding the topic. The panel members were as follows:

Due to the paucity of time, 3 of the speakers mainly participated in the round table discussion but did not address the audience exclusively for any substantial period of time. The only speaker who spoke at length was the minister who covered most of the major points as stated out in the agenda for the programme.

Mr. Piyush Goyal

The speaker in this session states out the intentions of his ministry over the next calendar year. In particular he spoke about how a number of new coal blocks have been added from where mining is taking place. This is being done to stem the imports from countries like Australia for coal and to promote local industry. He also mentioned that at present India is known worldwide for the services industry but his ministry has plans that the primary industry including mining and the secondary which employs vast amounts of coal will add substantially to the overall contribution in the economy.

India’s NexGen Rail Systems: Progress through Partnerships

There was only 1 speaker in this session. His details are as follows:

Mr. Suresh Prabhu

The major theme of this talk revolved around the concept of Public- Private Partnerships (PPPs). The speaker however added a fourth P to it calling it – People. He feels that without the co-operation of People, a PPP will never succeed. Ultimately it is people’s land which is being encroached upon. His ministry has also been very careful with regards to fresh construction around forest areas or animal movement corridors.

This session served as a sort of valedictory with the 2 days’ proceedings coming to a close. With this CII members thanked all the speakers, organizers and the audience. Also it was acknowledged by all present that ideas & ideals discussed during the 2 days would not remain meager theory but would actually get implemented in the real world.