The Second Pan IIM World Management Conference was held at IIM Kozhikode on Nov 5-8, 2014. The four day conference saw many distinguished speakers including Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, Hon’ble Union HRD Minister; Guillaume Sicard, President, Nissan India; Santosh Desai, MD & CEO, Future Brands, India; Ravi Kant, Former Vice Chairman and MD, Tata Motors, India; Dr Ashish Nanda, Director, IIM Ahmedabad and Mr. Abhishek Bachchan, Actor and Sports Entrepreneur discussing the conference theme - Globalizing Indian Thought.
Prof. Ashish Nanda, Director, IIM Ahmedabad said, "Globalizing Indian Thought is possible if we research and publish the uniqueness of Indian market, and its people. Research has to play a very important role. And today Indian research can be published in the top journals in the world. So Indian management academic should focus more on doing world class research." Dr Nanda also emphasized that Indian researchers should focus on Indian themes like Role of MSMEs, Entrepreneurship & Family Business.
Mr. Santosh Desai, MD & CEO, Future Brands India, highlighted how culture resonates with the mindset and behaviour of the Indian consumers. He defined culture as “a soap which rinses away the impurities resulting from daily struggle of living.” He said that Indian journey of consumption is a business innovation along the path of familiarity which would necessitate that ‘Modernizing Indianness’ and ‘Indianising Modernity’ go hand in hand.
Dr Hrishikesha Krishnan, Director, IIM Indore spoke about “Building innovation capabilities in India”. Drawing references from his book “Jugaad the systematic innovation –the challenge for India”, he said “In India innovation is hindered by two forces namely, challenges at organizational level and secondly cultural hindrances at societal level. Prof. Krishnan suggested India should go for “experimenting with low cost at high speed” and cited examples from Shaadi.com and Biocon.
Mr. Abhishek Bachchan, Actor and Sports Entrepreneur spoke about how Bollywood is playing a leading role in globalizing the identity of India. Mr. Bachchan also spoke how Indian sports should be respected and placed on the global map as a sports category. He said, “Indian sport like ‘Kabadi’ can be an Olympic Sport. But it requires a 10-15 years of planning and promotions.”
Emphasising the importance of conference theme, Dr Kulbhushan Balooni, Director, IIM Kozhikode said, “IIMs have different functional and sectoral expertise, region specific industry access and clout and understanding of local practices. Collectively IIMs can emerge as a formidable force in exploring newer frontiers of management science. The west is increasingly interested today in decoding the phenomena in the emerging markets."
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