Indus Business Academy (IBA) Bangalore, one of the leading Management Institutes in Bangalore will hold the ‘9th IBA International Conference’ on the theme ‘Strategizing towards a Digital Future’ on March 23 to 25, 2017.
Inspired by the PM Narendra Modi’s shock and awe demonetization announcement of Nov 8, accompanied by his pitch to go digital, the conference theme proposes to make deeper analysis on the digital ecosystem inevitable. While narrower interpretations of digital aggressiveness policy might liken it to using less cash ostensibly to eliminate corruption, the forest of digital expansiveness, however, goes far beyond.
The industrial information architecture designed for world created post Industrial Revolution is increasingly being dismantled. Internet and the accompanying digital revolution challenge this substructure significantly on account of advances in internet and telecommunications. Knowledge dominates both production and consumption substantially at the cusp of a new order of information and knowledge access, control and transfer.
Furthermore, the digital shift has upset the time-honored equilibrium of power between private corporations, civil society and governments. Access to information ceases to be the preserve of the state, yet neither the corporation nor the wide body of non-profit, nongovernmental organizations and pressure groups can claim exclusive control. Implications notwithstanding, there is uncertainty whether the forces digitalization fortify decentralized order of information production and exchange or conversely craft a new order of information feudalism. Nonetheless, the emerging order is not technological determinism but an outcome of consumer, citizen and producer behavior reaching a tipping point facilitated by digital tools. If in more ways than one, the traditional substructures of information reflected elitist form of socio-economic discourse, sharing based production models (Wikipedia), open innovation models (P&G, IBM), user driven innovations (Google Maps, Lego Toy) and other online business models (Intuit, Amazon, E-bay) present a bottom up reaction in business thinking.
Digital technologies serve as engines of cultural innovation. Their influence stems from the virtualization of group networks and social identities like Facebook and extends to the digital convergence of textual and audio-visual media. The growth and adoption of electronic commerce gets inter-wined with the development and strengthening of intellectual property legislations. The global nature of internet is evident in the fact that while service providers are located in industrialized world, the benefits diffuse across developed and emerging countries alike. Digital expansiveness suggests strong movement towards the spread of greater competition, increased availability of choice, spirit which liberates from the lock-ins, controls that threaten to take the market into a monopoly and like. For India to emerge as a hub for the new generation digitally underpinned firms, recognition that there are subtle shifts in the way we produce and consume is imperative.
Despite uncertainty over future trends, it would be apt to explore the directions the global society, economy and polity might negotiate in the coming years.
The Track
Decoding Digital Business Landscape
The conference will have intellectual sessions focusing that it is just not existing brick & mortar business shifting their distribution online but whole set of transformations in the way the relationships across the business ecosystem are redefined & reassessed.
There is - Mapping the Theoretical Contextualization of the Digital Domain; Historical Trajectories, Legacy Penalty, Path Dependency Information Empires & Digital Schumpeterianism; Negotiating the Indic Digital Expansiveness among assessments on other parameters like Digital Public/Club Goods & Knowledge Commons-Appropriation, Governance & Public Domain.
Digital Business Models, Design & Product Development
Given the transformative & disruptive nature of knowledge as means of production, there are multifarious vistas for emergence of new business models & product design. Defining Industrial Revolution 4.0- Immersive Experiences, Smart Machines, Platforms, Quantum Computing, Distributed Technologies, Internet of Things & Web 2.0; Economies of the Knowledge Milieu: Commons Based Peer Production to Sharing Economies to On-Demand Economies to Product as Service Economies; Surveying Digital Competition Dynamics, Differentials & Property Rights & Responses among others are the key focus areas.
Innovation Compass in The Digital Universe
As couple of leading scholars put it, every business is a knowledge business. Given the increasing role of knowledge, information, creativity, culture etc in business, the track seeks to explore these dimensions. Further it also explores the challenges & sustainability of these models like Harnessing Competitive Innovation & Frugal Engineering in Digital India & Start Up India; Tracing Cost Benefit Anchors of Innovation, Democratization & Business Models; Shifting Patterns in User/Customer Experience Design and User Interfaces among others.
Digital Externalities
Digitalization might seem manna from heaven yet it is littered with unintended consequences. The focus is therefore on Information Asymmetry, Adverse Selection, Network Externalities, Free Rides; Cyber Security, Privacy, Anonymity, Data Protection, Surveillance & Tracking; Debating Native Architecture of the Internet – Generativity and Walled Gardens; Net Neutrality, Holdouts & Digital Monopolies; Search Neutrality Digital Carbon Footprint Digital Waste Management; Digital Labour and Sweatshops; Engaging Knockoffs & Enforcement Arbitrage, Shenzai Culture & Bazaar Economies among others.
Social & Political Face Of The Digital
Digital disruption encompasses its effects on the political & social dimensions of the system. The track attempts to decode these effects by Envisioning Social, Political & Economic Contract for Digital Epoch; Digital Diplomacy, Politics & Platforms; Information Sovereignty & State-Private-Society Interplay in Internet Access & Control; Digitally Enabled Ease of Business & Welfare & Job Creation & Empowerment; Digitally Aided Economic, Financial & Social Institution Building; Examining Idea of Cashless Society- Feasible Proposition or a Utopian Myth?; Smart Cities, Urbanization & Social Media Governance & Public Services Delivery among other key points.
Sectoral & Functional Case Studies User Stories, White Papers & Experiences
IBA Bangalore International conference invites participants to submit case studies, use stories, white papers & experiences with respect to digital impact across various sectors & functional domains. They could include impact in terms of production operations, marketing, finance, innovation, organizational restructuring, consumer behavior, intellectual property among others.
- Navigating the Quicksand in Culture and Entertainment Industry
- Revisiting IT/ITES Industry Topography
- Relocating Value Propositions in Biotechnology, Genetics & Pharmaceutical Industry
- Transforming Fintech Value Chains in Banks, Insurance & Financial Services
- Crafting Digital Pedagogy, Open Access & Content Building in Education Industry
- Decoding Digitally Activated Rotating Pyramids in Publishing Industry
- Reshaping Foundational Undercurrents of the Manufacturing & Supply Chain Industry
- Disruptive Mutations of the Retail Industry, E-Commerce & Last Mile Logistics
- Recasting Energy and Power as Knowledge Industry
- Digital Interventions & Innovation in Agriculture, Food & Seed Industries;
- Decomposing Horizontal & Vertical Value Chains in the Fashion & Textile Industry
- Leveraging Storms of Digital/Social Media Marketing & Online Advertising
- Assessing Prospective Revolutions in the Automobile Industry
- Social Reforms & Development Case Studies
The list of suggested topics is not exhaustive & papers are welcome in other related areas. The suggestion is to indicate in your abstract to which theme you would like to contribute. The Conference committee withholds the final right to arrange the track allocation depending on the popularity of each theme.
Indus Business Academy (IBA), Bengaluru is one of the top MBA colleges in Bengaluru, and one among the only 27 out of more than 5000 colleges in India to receive an International Accreditation by IACBE. Media publications like Competition Success Review (CSR), Business India, Dainik Bhaskar among others have consistently ranked IBA amongst the top B-Schools in Bengaluru and India.
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