The event began with the Chief Guest, Shri Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission and the Guest of Honor, Mr. Arun Maira, Chairman, Boston Consulting Group, lighting the traditional lamp. Drawing on his vast and distinguished experience, Mr. Ahluwalia in his speech said that inclusive growth could be achieved when the system is flexible enough to allow people to do what they want to, what they are best at and take risks. Highlighting some of the major risks that the Indian growth story could run into, he said that the risk of failing to build up on the continued growth momentum and the risk of managing mobile capital in today’s global economy were the ones that students and budding leaders must focus upon.

Continuing the discussion, Mr. Arun Maira said that things are beginning to change with not only corporations but also individuals seeing themselves as being personally responsible for environmental effects of their actions. Identifying the fact that this is a time when corporate philanthropy is no longer a suitable solution to our business problems, Mr. Maira said that there were two dimensions to business models – sustainability and inclusion with equity. He emphasized that inclusion could only be achieved if every individual took on the responsibility to ensure that every Indian was empowered to live a life of dignity.

Session I:

The theme for discussion in this session was “The Changing Indian Marketplace”. The speakers for the session included Ms Hiroo Mirchandani, Director, Consumer Health Products, Pfizer Ltd., Ms Nita Kapoor, Executive Vice President, Marketing and Corporate affair, Godfrey Philips, Mr Harit Nagpal, Chief Marketing Officer, Vodafone India, Mr Kamal Oberoi, CEO and MD, M&C; Saatchi and Mr Harish Bijoor, Brand expert and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. The session was moderated by Mr Sreekant Khandekar, Director, Agencyfaqs!

The speakers touched upon various intriguing aspects related to the rapidly changing consumerist trends and lifestyle aspirations of the Indian consumer. Ms Mirchandani, for example, spoke about the emergence of modern retail formats in the OTC segment and the marriage between the FMCG and the Pharmaceuticals sector towards this end. She believes that the Indian healthcare market has changed from being a reactive (illness-oriented) industry to a proactive (wellness-oriented) one and that this was a lucrative area in the healthcare sector. Mr Harish Bijoor presented some interesting dimensions of marketing through his love-hate pendulum and the idea of brand caste i.e., the emergence of simultaneously convergent and divergent patterns in the consumer behaviour across the globe depending on the kind of products and services he/she consumes.

Ms Nita Kapoor talked about the creation of the massive new Indian middle class and the extremely dynamic Indian market behaviours. However, she identified that certain ingrained cultural and social paradigms in the country have remained unchanged over time upon which marketing campaigns could be based to adapt them to the present day scenario and make them relevant and appealing to the customer/consumer. Some of the parameters she mentioned were relationships, religion, art, marriage et al.

Mr Kamal Oberoi talked about the changing canvas with respect to the advertising function of marketing and the new mantra of materialism, which suggests that success matters more than anything else for today’s youth. He also stressed that brutal simplicity is extremely important in order to appeal to the consumer given the information explosion that has taken place. Mr Nagpal suggested that the success of a brand and the likes and dislikes of an individual depend on the appeal to the senses and the experience in case of services. He also believes that the focus on one particular feature of the brand should be emphasised for a successful marketing campaign. Through his four-phase model of Presence, Relevance, Performance and Bonding, he presented a lucid understanding of marketing as a function.

Session II:

The theme for the second session of the day was ‘Building financial resilience in changing times’ with the discussions centring on analyzing and structuring robust financial decisions for India Inc. to grow and prosper in the current business scenario. Mr. Gunit Chadha, CEO & MD, Deutsche Bank India, spoke on issues concerning the present day global markets including the sub prime crisis, use of financial instruments and securitization. Responding to a question on whether one should look into usage of financial engineering models given the consequences such as the sub prime crisis, he reiterated that such instruments have done more good only than bad and have resulted in getting better asset-liability matches and better risk management.

Mr. P.K. Choudhury, Vice Chairman, ICRA Ltd. & CEO, ICRA group called for getting global capital inflow at a competitive price and not at an inflated price and wanted a reduced dependence on mathematical and statistical models for judgmental decisions. Dr. V.K. Garg, CMD, PFC Ltd., reiterated the need to build sound infrastructure capability that would be the backbone of building financial resilience in the country.

Dr. K.C. Chakrabarty, CMD, Punjab National Bank, gave a banking perspective of the need for building financial resilience and said that the Indian public is more insulated from financial shocks and instability due to less exposure to the banking environment. Replying to a question on the current financial resilience of the Indian economy, he said that on a scale of 1 to 10, today’s situation would command a very high rating of 9 but things could be different when markets are opened up.

Session III:

The theme for the third session was “Inclusive Growth- The New Mantra”. Many luminaries of Indian business including Mr Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM, Mr Vijay Thadani, CEO, NIIT Ltd., and Mr Shivakumar, VP and MD, Mobile phones, Nokia India participated in this session. The session was moderated by Mr Sunil Jain, Senior Associate Editor, Business Standard. Mr Vikram Kaushik, CEO and MD, TATA Sky kicked off the session with his thoughts on the subject by drawing relevant examples from his own company and TATA group toward providing equitable opportunities to all. He vehemently urged the industry and academia to play an active role in transforming India to Bharat.

Mr Shivakumar from Nokia India brought out the perspective that the optimistic numbers showing India’s growth had their flip side as well. Economic as well as social inequalities still plague India and have led to restlessness, tendencies towards crime, strife, strikes and hartals still persist making it difficult for free and fair business. He suggested that the important components of inclusive growth should be education, health, infrastructure, worthy benchmarks and Public-Private partnership.

Mr Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM suggested that the yardsticks for merit should be established and that merit alone should be rewarded for us to remain competitive. However, he warned that we must not be bound by narrow, urbanized definitions of merit and must be flexible enough to include the native intelligences of 700 million rural Indians. He believes that the market is a great equaliser and might address the economic inequalities but the same cannot be said about the social inequality. He also suggested that inclusive growth is important not just because of its altruistic implications but also because it helps create new and huge markets for corporates

Mr Vijay Thadani, CEO, NIIT Ltd. succinctly suggested that if the government allowed the corporate sector to grow unhindered, inclusion and strategies to identify, and nurture talent from among the disenfranchised section would follow. Talent development in his opinion, presents a great entrepreneurial opportunity as well while also helping millions of people to cope with the demands of the new employment opportunities. He pointed out that industry should be given the opportunity to specify their needs to the educationists. Growth and its sustainability needs relevant and current skills – and for this, it is necessary to remove the disconnect between industry and academia.

In all, the Convention was a great success with the most influential opinion-makers of our country exhorting the budding leaders of tomorrow to apply their minds and education to take growth and justice forward in the country.

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