IIMA Confluence 2008 Dedicates its Final Day to Look 'Beyond the Frontiers'

IIMA Confluence 2008 Dedicates its Final Day to Look 'Beyond the Frontiers'

He classified the current challenges faced into four categories. First being the ‘nano-second’ culture, the pace at which changes happen is very rapid. Leaders have to anticipate and have to be proactive in such situations. Second is the hyper competition. "...It is time to think

beyond the conventional ways and companies have to realize time management and human productivity are the key challenges faced by firms," commented Dr. Jain. Third challenge, according to him, is customer demographics. He commented India will become rich before getting old while China will get older before it gets rich considering the fact that more than 70% of Indian population is aged below 35 years. The commitment of Indian parents towards child education will make the biggest difference. ‘Education’ and ‘talent’ will be our wealth and that will be what that makes India super power. The fourth challenge is to find and reward talent. Dr. Jain stressed on the fact that India should focus on providing compulsory education till the higher secondary level.

Dr. Jain concluded his talk by telling that it is the ‘Indian-ness’ within him that has attributed to all the success he had in his life.

He received a huge round of applause along with a standing ovation from the packed audience in the Ravi J. Mathai Auditorium. The session ended when Prof. Varkkey thanked Ms. Bhatt and Dr. Jain for their mesmerizing blend of thoughts.

The post-lunch session had an interesting discussion chaired by Prof. Atanu Ghosh of the business policy area at IIM Ahmedabad and also faculty coordinator for Confluence 2008. The speaker for the session was Mr. Glenn Saldanha, MD and CEO of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Saldanha, a former consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), talked about the Indian pharmaceutical industry. He said that though the Indian pharmaceutical industry ranks fourth in terms of volumes, it forms less than 1% of the global pie in terms of value. He advised that the Indian industry should move over from a hybrid business model that leverages low cost to an innovation-led proprietary business model.

The previous evening, the speaker series was chaired by Prof. Ajay Pandey of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad and it had Prof. S. P. Kothari, Head of Department of Economics, Finance & Accounting, Gordon Y. Billard Professor of Management, MIT Sloan, giving his views on the current financial crisis. Prof. S. P. Kothari said that the ripple effect of this crisis could be compared to a ‘Global Tsunami’, and conservatively estimated that its impact would last for a few years.

Giving his views on the possible ways to recover, he said that collective responsibility would increase the confidence on investors. "Merely throwing more money is not going to be a welcome solution. As a long term solution, you have to improve the earning capacity." Answering a question, Prof. Kothari remarked that rise of a sub-prime crisis in the Indian scenario could not be ruled out due to the increasing trend of lending to people without repayment capacity.

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* Contributed by -
Ravi Shankar,
IIMA Confluence 2008,
Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

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