Stratonomics 2017 highlights the changing face of 'Partnerships and Consolidation'

"Stratonomics 2017", the Annual Business Conclave organized by CONSTRAT, the Consulting and Strategy Association of XIMB-XUB, took place at Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar on Sunday. The theme of the conclave was "Partnerships and Consolidation: Key to survival in India’s Competitive Landscape".

The speakers for "Stratonomics 2017" were Mr. Dinesh Jain, Founder & CEO, IndianMaze Advisory Pvt. Ltd., Mr. Siju Narayan, Smarter Commerce Lead, IBM, Mr. Subroto Gupta, SVP, Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd and Mr. Dilip Sharma, Zonal Head, DHFL Pramerica Life Insurance. The event was moderated by Prof. Amar K.J.R. Nayak, XIMB-XUB, who ensured a smooth flow of the session.

The first speaker of“Stratonomics 2017” was Mr. Subroto Gupta who compared between classical competition in the food industry and the new nature of competition in the form of food aggregators and highlighted how Jubilant Foodworks Ltd. is working as a tech-enabled, consumer experience company in the food industry. He said, “Partnership model focuses on co-innovation and risk-sharing.”

The second speaker of the event was Mr. Siju Narayan, who pointed out that every industry which has customer experience in its core of operations has been disrupted. He emphasized and explained that disruption is not equal to innovation. He also listed important techniques such as “Design Thinking” which are required by all industries as in the current scenario, it should be more focused on customer engagement rather than customer loyalty.

The third speaker of the event, Mr. Dilip Sharma, emphasized the fact that satisfied, repeat customers are very fundamental to successful partnerships. He listed out the four forces working in an organization. He said, “Results matter and are specifically the reason why partnerships are being looked into.”

The fourth speaker of the event was Mr. Dinesh Jain, who stressed on both the aspects of consolidation and told that it is a cycle of focus and defocus, alliances to breakups and how partnerships may or may not serve the same purpose as mergers and acquisitions. He mentioned how India is a very complex market as opposed to other foreign markets as what is right for one market in India would be completely opposite to another market in India. He also explained the role of culture and how it affects the success or failure of any alliance.

The speeches were followed by an interactive question and answer session with the audience. After this session, the winners of “CONSILIUM-2017”, a national level white paper writing competition were felicitated by the esteemed guests. The event concluded with a vote of thanks by the coordinator of CONSTRAT, Mr. Ankit Anupam. This event also marked the release of the annual business magazine of CONSTRAT “The Strategist-2017”.

“Why Must Business Embrace Sustainability?”
at “PARIVARTAN 2017”

"Parivartan 2017", the annual business conclave organized by ConXerv, the Committee for Sustainability of Xavier University, was held on Saturday, 26th August, 2017, by the Xavier School of Sustainability. The event illuminated the growing need for sustainability in businesses and covered four sub-themes-Process, Practice, Power and People.

The panel consisted of Dr. Rambabu Paravastu (CEO-RSM GC Advisory Services Pvt. Ltd.), Mr. Phil Turner (Group Head Safety, Health and Environment- Vedanta Resources Plc) and Mrs. Nandita Upadhyay (Sustainability Head- TATA Chemicals) The event was moderated by Prof. Sutapa Pati, Associate Professor, Xavier School of Sustainability, XUB.

The event kick started with the lighting of the ceremonial lamp, and a welcome address by Dr. S. Peppin, Dean, Xavier School of Sustainability, XUB.

The first speaker of this august gathering was Mr. Phil Turner, who introduced the concept of sustainability in business. He elaborated on the social license to operate, the increasing need for organizations to engage with the owners and the lax in legalities binding sustainability within firms. He also touched upon the four Ps – Power, Paris (the Paris Agreement) and Poverty. Lastly, he urged the future managers to look for organizations with integrity and work towards making them better.

The second speaker of the day was Mrs. Nandita Upadhyay, who discussed the principle of sustainability which includes sustained ecological, social and economic growth and how diverse it is. She touched upon some important terms like Eco-Efficiency, Life Cycle Analysis, Environment Modelling and Vulnerability Assessment. She enlightened the students about the new guidelines that have come up like green bond and green finance in the banking sector. Lastly, she asserted that the businesses are putting in sincere efforts and evolving better methods in this area.

The final speaker of the day, Dr. Rambabu Paravastu, raised a pertinent question-“what is that we should sustain when we talk about sustainability?” He discussed how power should flow in a business so that sustainability in a company can be achieved. Emphasis was put on the need for participative power wielding with the collaboration of GRA and IR thinking. He rightly summed up Sustainability as “Future-Proofing”.

The speeches were followed by an interactive question and answer session with the audience.

The event concluded with a vote of thanks by Ms. Sweety Samantray, Coordinator of ConXerv, Committee of Xavier School of Sustainability, Xavier University, Bhubaneswar.

“Automation in Information Technology” discussed at “Envision 2017”

"Envision 2017", the annual Business Conclave, organized by X-SYS, the Systems Association of XIMB-XUB, took place at Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar on Saturday, 26th of August. The theme for this year’s conclave was "Automation in Information Technology".

This conclave was aimed at addressing the developments in Automation in Information Technology and its impacts on various sectors like Banking, Oil & Gas Industry, Retail Industry, Digital Transformation and Pharmaceutical Industry.

Mr. Satya Shankar Mahapatra (Senior VP - Risk & Analytics, Barclays Investment Bank), Mr. Joydeep Dutta (Executive Director & Group CTO, Central Depository Services Limited (CDSL)), Mr. Debasish Mohapatra (Project Quality, and Global Quality Capability Team Lead, Shell India Markets Pvt. Ltd), Mr. Ritesh Srivastava(Director – IT, Merck Sharp & Dohme Pharmaceuticals Pvt. Ltd) and Mr. Bhavesh Kumar (Head – Engineering & Technology: Data, TESCO PLC) were the speakers for the occasion. Dr. Bhaskar Basu (Associate Professor, Information Systems) served as the moderator for the event.

The first speaker of "Envision 2017" was Mr. Satya Shankar Mahapatra. He emphasised the importance of AI and Robotics in the Banking industry. He mentioned that the key dimensions of automation in Banking were Big Data, IoT, Deep learning and AI. He also touched upon the significance of Block Chain technology in aiding automation in banking. He said, “Velocity, Volume, Variety and Veracity of data has grown tremendously over the past two years.”

The next speaker, Mr. Joydeep Dutta,spoke about Technology and Digital Transformation in the financial services industry. He explained thatthe objective was to create an ecosystem whereall disparate systems seamlessly collaborated with each other. According to him,good connectivity channels, Automation and decision capability were the building blocks of innovation. “Customer Centricity and providing excellent customer experience across all touch points or channels is of paramount importance”, he cited. 

Mr. Bhavesh Kumar was the third speaker of the day. He stated that the basics of retail was, 'Buy, Move and Sell'. He also explained how a highly connected and interdependent process like retail can be made seamless by employing automation. He threw some light on the various challenges faced by the retail industry while adopting innovation, the most important one being security of data. He said, “Whatever data we roll out, it has to be 100% secure.”

The next speaker for the day was Mr. Ritesh Srivastava. He shared valuable insights on the role of automation in the Pharmaceutical Industry. He advised the audience to focus not only on the technology used in solving a problem, but on the problem itself. According to him, the crux of automation is Robotic Process Automation or RPA. He said that RPA delivers an impressive incremental improvement over human equivalent. He cited, “Automation is not new. It has always been there and will be there. The onus is upon us to leverage it and employ it to deliver business value”.

Mr. Debasish Mohapatra was the final speaker of the day. He brought in a fresh perspective about the importance of automation in IT in the Oil and Gas industry. He explained how drones and other technologies helped them to access remote pipelines and made the industry less tedious. He also stated that the objective of automation remains the same irrespective of the various services offered over various departments. He said, “Make IT and Automation so interesting that companies get motivated to implement them in their business model.”

The speeches were followed by an interactive Q&A session, with the guest speakers answering the thoughtful and challenging questions posed by type students. Dr. Bhaskar Basu, then, shared his insights and learnings with the audience. This was followed by the unveiling of X-ITe, the annual newsletter of X-SYS. This was succeeded by the announcement and felicitations of the winners of the annual article writing contest. The event concluded with a vote of thanks delivered by Prof. Rahul Thakurta, Associate Professor, Information Systems.