The summit was organized in New Delhi on May 16, 2008. Mr Sharda Prasad, Director General Employment & Training, Government of India was the Chief Guest at the occasion.
The first session of the summit was addressed by Mr Shivinder Mohan Singh, Director, Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited, Mr Amit Bhatia, Founder and CEO of Aspire (Human Capital Management Firm), Dr Peter Cappelli, George W Taylor Professor of Management, Wharton School of Pennsylvania, Mr Sharda Prasad and Col Harmit Singh Sethi, Head - Skills Development, CII.
Kicking off the summit, Mr Shivinder Mohan Singh, Director, Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited said, "Discussing the talent and development of skills is really very important. We see that there is a major problem of unemployment in India. One of the reasons is that the Indian education system has not caught up with the industry needs."
Mr Amit Bhatia, in his theme address said, "The issue of skills development has now become a central debate. Forums such as SkillsWorld 2008 will take the debate on how India should reap the 'demographic dividend', as India's working age population increases from about 77.5 crores currently to an approximately 95 crores in 2026, to a new level."
Mr Prasad launched the book 'Talent on Demand: Managing Talent in an Age of Uncertainty' authored by renowned international expert on skills and employment issues, Dr Cappelli. The book explains how to approach talent management as a business perspective and how to structure investments in employees to make those investments pay off.
CII and Aspire also launched the 'India Skills Report Card 2008' at the Summit. This report candidly highlights the need to develop skills amongst the Indian youth. The findings of the report suggest that 39.5% of Indian youth is unemployable in entry-level white collared jobs with up to three months trainings. The research highlights were accompanied by three white papers on IT&ITES, BFSI and Retail sectors respectively. The research was carried out by Aspire between July 2007 and April 2008 across 31 cities in 12 states.
The summit further featured roundtable sessions on Outsourcing, Financial Services and Retail sector.
The Outsourcing RoundTable was focused on ITO, BPO and KPO areas which was addressed by Mr Rajnish Virmani, President & COO- Reliance BPO; Mr Nitin Seth, Director, McKinsey Knowledge Centre; Mr Ashish Gupta, COO, Evalueserve; Mr Ajay Chowdhary, Co-Founder & COO, Aspire and Mr Asish Sinha, COO, RocSearch.
The Financial Services session was addressed by Ms Anita Belani, Country Head, Watson Wyatt India's Human Capital Group; Mr Ravi Krishnan, MD- Goldman Sachs; Mr B Anant, Head-HR, ICICI Lombard; Mr Ratan Chugh. Founder, Cornerstone & Ex India Head, Fidelity and Mr Nitin Aggarwal, COO- Pipal Research.
While speaking at the Financial Services session, Mr Chugh said, "India has gone through tremendous growth. The question for Finance industry is to get the required talent for the specific job. We need the people who are certified and have technical plus soft skills."
The Retail RoundTable was chaired by Mr Sandeep Kohli, Former Managing Director, Yum Brands Restaurants. Dibanjan Ray, Head-HR, McDonald's India; Mr Aquil Busrai, Executive Director, HR, IBM, Mr Karandeep Singh, Co-Founder, Aspire; Mr Harpreet Datta, Head-HR & Training, Fortis Health World and Mr Manish Chordia, VP, WNS Knowledge Services were other speakers.
Summing up the summit, Mr Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII said, "It was a very significant and important day for CII. At the summit, Indian industry went through its challenges in different areas. The conclusion is that Industry has to think about the skills development whether it is a manufacturing, service or any area."
India's leading management portal MBAUniverse.com was the online partner of the summit. Group publication M NOW magazine was the print partner of the summit.
