The seminar was organized by MBA-Management of Services students on December 15 and 16, 2007, in Delhi. The seminar gave the students and participants got an opportunity to have useful insights from different leading corporate leaders including the illustrious Mr Douglas Baillie, Managing Director & CEO, HUL.
Day1:
The seminar was divided into specific sessions like ‘Value Space: Escaping the parity game’, ‘Expansion Beyond: Creating synergy across boundaries’ and ‘Servepreneurs: Drivers of New India’. The event also included presentations on competitions including Taksha- The Paper Presentation, Dwandh-The Battle of Views, The FaMouS Cribler, Servepreneur- The B-Plan Contest Mark Thy Alter Ego- Surrogate Ad-making contest. Some of the premium B Schools that took part in these events included IIMs, ISB, MDI, SPJIMR etc.
In the first session titled ‘Expansion Beyond: Creating synergy across boundaries’ Mr. Douglas Baillie gave an insightful keynote to kick start the fourth edition of Serveskriti. Looking at services through the lens of a CEO, Mr. Baillie said that the innovation sandbox must constantly be on the go, striving to keep up with the challenges of an ever changing work environment. Mr. Baillie concluded with a thought-provoking line from Robert Frost, “Two roads diverged in a wood, I took the one less travelled and it has made all the difference”.
Mr. Atul Dhawan, Partner, Deloitte Haskins and Sells, introduced the belief here that change is the common denominators to organizations, their processes; the consumers , their expectations and value creation. He gave the ‘Blue Ocean Strategy’ as a solution to the breaking free from the parity game.
Mr. R. Balakrishnan, Chief Creative Director- Lowe India, gave the marketers perspective of the consumers value space. He said, “The intangible component of an advertisement is more important than the features of the product itself”. The ad-man who also directed the movie Cheeni Kum exemplified the same through some of his memorable TV Ad campaigns for leading brands like Bajaj Avenger, Surf Excel and Lifebuoy. The common feature of all these ads was the subtle way in which they communicated an attitude and not the product per se.
Ms. Charulata Ravikumar, Managing Partner, JWT India spoke about the trends in the Communication and advertising space and said, “In the communications space, organizations have to deal with synergies across cultural, geographical, demographic, religious and psychographic spheres” and gave instances of integrated brand communication strategy with instances from Nokia campaigns for different segments of the Indian consumer.
Day 2:
Afresh from the knowledge-sharing sessions of day 1 of Serveskriti, the students of FMS and other participants got their share of knowledge on the topic ‘Servepreneurs: Drivers of New India’.
The first speaker of the day mesmerized the audience with a speech that was dotted with anecdotes and witticisms. Mr. Harish Bijoor, CEO of Harish Bijoor Consults gave a panoramic view of the Experience economy. He said that different products have different service avatars. According to Mr. Bijoor, “Service is a cutting-edge differentiator and a momentary value ultimately. He also introduced the concept of PVC- Perennial Value Creation. Mr. Bijoor also spoke about the evolution of customer service to customer satisfaction to customer delight and now to customer ecstasy.
Closing his speech Mr. Bijoor said, “Brand loyalty is a myth and service loyalty is a reality of the future”. The next speaker in line was Mr. Mukul Kansal, Head, SaReGaMa India Ltd., an alumnus of the Faculty of Management Studies, emphasized on the fact that change creates opportunities for entrepreneurship and thus entrepreneurs. He said, “The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it and explores opportunities”. He gave the perspective of the Service Industry in general and the Entertainment media industry in particular.
The post-session part of the second day of Serveksriti was marked by the successful and overwhelming conduction of Certamen- The B-School and Corporate Quiz which was gracefully hosted by renowned Quizmaster Mr. Joy Bhattacharya. The event saw participation from teams from leading B Schools in and around Delhi and a rush of corporates as well. As part of the cultural event that was sponsored by Radio Mirchi, the well-known theatre group Pierrots Troupe presented a comic play titled Big B that was based on a play by Premchand and was a satirical yet comic depiction of relation between two brothers.
The principal partner for the fourth edition of Serveksriti was Vodafone. Oil India was the knowledge partner for the annual seminar with Zee Networks as the exclusive TV media partner. IFFCO-Tokio and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) were the associate partners for the event. Radio Mirchi is the partner for the cultural event and leading MBA portal MBA Universe is the online media partner.