The Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad’s flagship festival Confluence 2010 was declared open by the head of Tata Administrative Services, Rahul Krishna and IIM Ahmedabad deans, Prof BH Jajoo and Prof Atanu Ghosh on Friday.
The festival kicked off with a panel discussion on innovation along with inclusivity in business, which was the underlying theme for Confluence on Day 1.
Mr Deep Kalra, Founder and CEO of Makemytrip.com, Mr Arjun Uppal, Head of Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar, Mr Nikhil Rungta, Marketing Head at Google India, Mr Vishal Mehta, CEO, Infibeam and Mr R Ramakumar, CEO, Pears Capital participated in the panel.
The panel expressed that they felt encouraged and heartened that entrepreneurship had risen over the past decade in India. Mr Kalra felt that innovation was just a medium to solve customer problems which is the real goal of any entrepreneur. He described various ways using which makemytrip.com had succeeded through customer-focused innovation. Mr Uppal described similar experiences in the agricultural commodity sector. His enterprise Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar exists at 300 locations, each spread over 4 acres and has provided innumerable farmers a platform to trade their produce.
Mr Nikhil Rungta gave examples of Google products such as Google News that were born out of the 20% time that Google engineers have free to work on personal projects. He also added that innovation was not instant perfection and it took more than just a brilliant idea to be successful. Mr Mehta talked about how Infibeam had applied the concept of e-commerce to small retailers and kirana shops, and turned e-commerce to i-commerce (inclusive commerce).
During the question and answer session, panelists agreed that innovation should keep customer as the focal point. They also said that innovation was not necessarily about breakthroughs but about a lot of small things coming together over a long period of time (incremental innovation).
A total of 585 students from various b-schools of India had registered for the Management Students Program, an avenue for students to interact with several industry leaders at lectures, workshops and panel discussions. The event saw participation from more than 50 b-schools from all over the country.
A roundup of some of the other events on Day 1 of Confluence 2010 follows.
Ignoble the Market Research Competition
At Ignoble, students had to combine creativity with sound business sense and develop products that are not available in stores. These product ideas had to be backed by sound market research. Participants came up with an eye-popping variety of products ranging from helping one find things he/ she had lost to finding life partners. The first and second places were swept by SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai.
Tata Think Tank
In Tata Think Tank, participants had to come up with global expansion strategies for Tata Chemicals. They were challenged to look for the best ‘partner’ company taking into consideration synergies, potential markets and product portfolio. This was a highly charged event with students exploring a variety of options around the globe such as companies in Egypt, Brazil and Turkey. Students not only had to decide on a partner that Tata Chemicals should take over but also had to value it. The event was judged by Mr Zareer Langrana, the CEO of Tata Chemicals. The host team, IIM Ahmedabad won this event and IIFT, Delhi came a close second.
Corporate Combat
Corporate Combat as an event tested the ability of students to handle a major crisis in a business organisation. Students had to prove that they were brilliant ‘CEOs’ while coming up with safe solutions to tackle different crises that a business might face. This is one of major events of Confluence and will continue for another 2 days. While today was just a trial round, with SP Jain winning and IIM Ahmedabad coming second, it promises to be an interesting and exciting contest in the days to come.
Masterplan
Masterplan is one of the biggest business plan competitions of the Indian subcontinent with a prize money of over Rs 2 lakh. This year the competition received 136 entries from colleges across the country. After the initial round of elimination 8 teams eventually made it to the finals. These include two from IIM Ahmedabad, and one each from ISB Hyderabad, NITIE Mumbai, NMIMS Mumbai, SPJIMR Mumbai, IIT Delhi – DMS, and Indian Institute of Finance, Delhi.
The teams presented plans grouped under four categories — ‘Green is the new colour of Money’, ‘Building a better India, one service at a time!’, ‘Simplify and Enrich Urban Life’ and ‘Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid – a tribute to CK Prahlad’.
The teams shortlisted for finals had the opportunity to get feedback and mentoring from Confluence’s knowledge partners as well as present their plans in front of an eminent panel of judges which include Prof Nagesh Rao, Visiting Professor at IIM Ahmedabad from Michigan State University, Prof Jacob Joshy, Professor in the Finance area at IIM Ahmedabad and Mr Mihir Joshi who runs the Gujarat Venture Capital Fund.
The final round of Masterplan shall be held on Saturday.
ProMagna
GeneSys is a technology project planning and management competition. After the initial elimination round, 10 teams were invited to take part in the subsequent rounds which were held today on campus. Of the teams taking part, four were from IIM Ahmedabad, two from MDI Gurgaon and one each from NITIE Mumbai, IMT Nagpur, KJ Somaiya Mumbai and BIM Trichy. The results of the competition would be declared on Saturday.
Campaign for a Cause
For the first time in Confluence, social issues were brought to light in the event ‘Campaign for a Cause’. This event was an attempt to raise social consciousness amongst students and engage them into the agenda creation process in public policy. This event had participation from colleges all across the country and participants had to present short films on several social themes right from the plight of diamond workers in Gujarat to land acquisition issues to right of education. Among the judges of the event, Rahul Bose, Vipul Shah and Bharatan Kandaswamy represented the film fraternity.
PaGaLGuY is the Official Management Portal of Confluence 2010.