Panels 2014

Panelists:

  • Mr. Indranil Mitra, General Manager (HR), NTPC
  • Mr.Vijay Sethi, CIO, Hero MotoCorp
  • Mr.V K Singh
  • Ms. Bhawna Mittal

Panel Discussion

Hero Future Energies, born in October 2012, wanted to benchmark its HR practices across the energy sector in order to have the best practices being implemented in their company. The objectives of the panel discussion were as follows:

  • To understand and analyze the drivers of employee engagement
  • To analyze the various employee engagement practices across different organizations in the energy and other relevant sectors
  • Recommend the best employee engagement practices for Hero Future Energies considering their rising popularity in the renewable energy sector across organizations, both in the short and long term

The project approach included the analysis of employee engagement models used by organizations such as Aon Hewitt, CLC and Mercer. This was followed by interaction with HRBPs in organizations (Renewable energy sector) and interviews of current employees for primary benchmarking. Further, secondary benchmarking was done for identifying industry best practices in start-ups and the energy sector, and unique engagement best practices in other organizations. Organizations selected as part of the sample, to name a few, included American Express, KEC, Tata Power, IOCL, NTPC, Schneider Electric, HPCL, Wind World India Limited, Suzlon, Alstom, Welspun, and Lanco.

Panelists:

  • Mr. Hari Krishnan, MD, Zenithoptimedia
  • Mr. Amit Puri, GM, IBM
  • Mr. Sameer Pathak, Senior Manager PAC,Coca-Cola
  • Faculty Panelist- Prof. Soumendu Biswas

Panel Discussion:

About the campaign: In its continued endeavor to help build sustainable communities, Coca-Cola India and NDTV in association with their NGO partners, UN-Habitat, Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) and Sulabh International have embarked upon this unique initiative. The campaign aims to develop over 100 healthy, active and happy schools in rural and semi-urban towns by improving basic amenities and subsequently generating monetary resources, hence benefiting over 50,000 students across the country.

Aim of the project: The idea was to develop a comprehensive Digital Marketing plan to promote awareness, boost customer engagement & volunteer ship towards the cause.

Approach: The team of 14 students decided to split into half. Each team worked on different aspects from awareness generation to promotion to strategizing marketing plan. Both teams worked on their respective research areas for 8 weeks.

Discussion: The Panel Discussion started with a video of “Support My School” campaign sensitizing the audience on the issue and highlighting achievements of the campaign so far. The first part of the presentation discussed about how to improve awareness/promotion of the campaign.
Suggestions here were backed by extensive data analytics. The second part of the presentation focused on execution of promotional strategies. It suggested that “Volunteering” and not fund raising should be a way forward and proposed a “MILLION HOUR OF VOLUNTEERING” program.
The highlight was to seek assistance in the form of resources for the schools by bringing more and more people to join the cause and contribute man hours to help manage work at schools. Also the underlying assumption towards volunteerism is that it attracts attention and credibility, leading to higher satisfaction. This led to conceptualizing of big buddy program with tagline “Become Payal’s #bigbuddy and gift her school
memories just like yours!” Who to reach? Why them? The team suggested that “Teens & Twenty some things”, 18-28 year olds (College goers & Young
professionals) should be encouraged most for the reasons that firstly they contribute as the highest percentage of active social media audience and more importantly they wish to be engaged as change-makers in their lives, offer energy and vitality, mobilize their peers and invoke creativity & innovation.

Recommendations: The team suggested list of both online and offline activities that can be undertaken which included inviting tweets and shares by influencers to planning campus drives and many more. Campus ambassadors, motivators and interns posts were proposed to drive things.

Few more points of discussion:

  • Traditional media should also be included in the plan for at least Coca Cola
  • Raising money – build an element of Coke also contributing to the cause matching grand concept
  • Buddy pack – Rs. 2 from the coke bottle will go to SMS
  • Tackling with mistrust
  • Emphasis on the end goal
  • From pledge to actualization – 1000000 hours in pledge – critical to convert, assign them responsibility then and there
  • When you are posting your picture, pledge money then and there
  • WhatsApp consumption has gone up, latest trends and fads
  • Partnering with Coca Cola – think big, execute small
  • Warehouse idea – all stationary, easily get the contribution from B2B (Staples)

The discussions were carried to the next level with the participation of eminent panelists. The panel discussion brought very interesting insights and suggestions too.

Few new points of discussion added by panelists:

  • Tactical points – philanthropy summits
  • One Big idea – Clear communication
  • Impact stories, dignitaries’ take
  • Leveraging Coke assets – Coca Cola FB, Coke Studio

Their experience in the relevant industry made it altogether more impactful. Further, Expenses to be incurred and targets were detailed out.

Panelists:

Mr. Prashant Upadhyaya, Director Technology, Aricent Technologies

Mr. Shuja Mirza, Master Principle Solutions Consultant, Oracle India

Mr. Yogesh Malpani, Asia Pacific & Japan PMO Lead for SAP Labs India Pvt. Ltd.

Prof. M.P. Jaiswal, Professor Information Management systems, MDI, Gurgaon

Panel Discussion:

Cloud computing is one of the fastest growing segments of the IT industry. However with increase in sensitive data about individuals and companies being placed on the cloud, more relevant and vital becomes the need for data security. As with other major business decisions, an enterprise must evaluate the benefits and be prepared to address any risks and challenges cloud adoption brings.

The objectives of this panel were to seek answers for the following:

  • The Security threats that are faced by the current Cloud frameworks.
  • How does OpenStack address them?
  • Identify the threats and weaknesses in OpenStack cloud framework.
  • What can be the possible solutions to problems/weaknesses/issues, if any?
  • What is OpenStack doing differently from peer frameworks to provide a secure environment for storing sensitive data?
  • On the basis on the analysis, which data center management framework appears to be the most secure for cloud storage?

The panel discussed in detail the potential security threats involved with cloud computing, such as:

  • Data, applications, resources being located with the provider
  • User identity management being handled by the cloud provider
  • User access control rules, security policies and enforcement being managed by the cloud provider
  • Multi-tenancy
  • Consumer reliance on provider to ensure data security and privacy, resource availability, and monitoring and repairing of services/resources

Further, the discussion also threw light on some major security breach incidents in the recent past and their consequences, which involved names such as Amazon, Sony, Adobe, Target and Trustwave Holdings. This was followed by an overview of OpenStack, which has grown to be a global software community of developers collaborating on a standard and massively scalable open source cloud operating system. A security analysis of the same was conducted, and OpenStack was compared to Amazon Web Services on the basis of features, architecture, cost and security.

The panel concluded that OpenStack is fit for organizations which want to relieve themselves from the heat of  Amazon and can afford to wait for OpenStack to actually reach its potential as a complete Private Cloud service platform since the development velocity for it is very high and many big firms like HP and Rackspace have bet on it.

Panelists:

  • Mr. Nilay Khandelwal, Regional Director, Michael Page
  • Mr. Nikhil Jaiswal, Assosiate Director, Michael Page India
  • Mr. Rajesh Sharda, GM-HR SC, GSK- Consumer Health Care
  • Mr. Deepak Jain, TCI
  • Mr. Puneet Malhotra, Magneti Marelli
  • Dr. S. Chatterjee, Prof., MDI Gurgaon

Panel Discussion:
The panel discussion, which followed a project spanning two months, revolved around the following objectives:

  • Analysis of various sectors by studying present and future market trends
  • Understanding the effect of regulation and government policies on various sectors
  • Forecasting the demand based on client landscape and market trends
  • Identifying the recruitment source mix across sectors
  • Spotting the challenges in recruitment of procurement and supply chain professionals

The methodology used for collecting data involved both secondary research as well as primary research, which was in the form of a survey. The organizations that formed a part of the survey sample included prominent names such as ITC Limited, Dabur, Reckitt Benckiser, Walmart India, Snapdeal, Danone, Fortis, Jabong, Pernod Ricard, Cipla, Hero MotoCorp, Reliance Retail and United Colors Of Benetton, to name a few. The various sectors that were analyzed were FMCG, E-commerce, Retail, Healthcare and Manufacturing.

Some of the challenges found with procurement and SCM recruitment in India were:

  • Scarcity of talented all-round supply chain persons
  • High turnaround time to fill positions
  • Training & Developing in-house talent to get right mix of technical expertise
  • Not dedicating comprehensive effort in finding high quality supply chain staff leads to sub-optimal outcomes and high staff turnover
  • Companies have no time to scale up staffing needs
  • High recruitment costs does not guarantee a better quality outcome
  • Job seekers are looking for a 15-20% increase in packages in order to make a new move
  • Job seekers are keen to work for companies with quality brands, making it important for companies to invest in their employer branding

After in-depth analysis and discussion revolving around the state of the economy, market observations, government policies and recruiting practices and trends, two key industries were spotted:

E-commerce:

  • Nascent industry with spiralling growth rate & activity as shown by the CAGR of approximately 55% over the past three years, colossal investments and funding, and major M&As
  • High levels of current recruitment with companies like Snapdeal and Flipkart on a recruiting spree and others like Amazon offering huge salaries

Health Care & Pharma:

  • Consistent in growth rate and less volatility as shown by an expected CAGR of approximately 20% by 2020 and superior performance on stock markets
  • Consistent levels of recruitment, which is expected to rise with MNCs like Eli Lilly and BI making their presence felt, and Indian companies consistently growing

Panelists:

  • Mr. Rajesh Samson, Partner at EY LLP
  • Mr. Athar Shahab, CEO, Infrastructure & Real Estate, Vedanta Group
  • Dr. Pawan Singh, Director Finance, PTC India Financial Services
  • Dr. Mukesh Kumar, VP, SBI Capital Markets
  • Mr. Mayank Bansal, Director-Infrastructure Funds, IDFC Alternatives
  • Prof. Atmanand, Dean & Prof., Economics & Energy, MDI Gurgaon

Panel Discussion:

With an objective to analyze the attractiveness of long term capital into Indian Infrastructure sector, the team conducted a two month long research. Introducing the outcome on D-day, they divided the real estate sector into three sub-sectors namely Transport, Power and Real Estate, to better highlight the investment opportunity.

Starting with the Transport Subsector, the panel underlined the potential investment in ports, airports, road and railways. Discussing about ports, they touched upon the Maritime agenda 2010-20, containerization, hinterland connectivity, Port Management model, Government Clearances and traffic policy. The research team also anticipated a growth in Aviation sector owing to the Government’s policies like developing 100 low cost airports, national institute of aviation, and 100% tax exemption in 10 year airport project. They made their recommendation in Road and Railways to redress the regulatory and clearance related issues hindering the development of PPP projects in our buoyant Economy.

As the panel discussed about Power Sub sector, they highlighted on the major roadblocks and potential panacea to promote renewable energy and conventional thermal power generation. They brought the failure of major hydro power projects to the front, trying to underscore the hindrances starting from environmental clearances to protests by local groups. For the thermal power plants they identified potential risk and
mitigation measures, sources of funding and recommended ways to attract capital.

Coming to the final subsector of Real Estate, the research team underlined the factors affecting construction and housing. They identified the development of bond market, loans at low rate, and amendments in land acquisition bill as some of the main elements facilitating the capital flow. The concept of affordable housing and 100 smart cities project by our Prime minister was also brought to the foreground as the panel highlighted
the nature of risk and a risk combating framework to conclude their discussion.

Panelists:

  • Prof. Kirti Sharma, Marketing, MDI Gurgaon
  • Mr. Ved Prakash Khatri, Vice President – Curriculum Sales, Encyclopædia Britannica
  • Mr. Amit Kapoor, Head – Digital Learning, South Asia, Encyclopædia Britannica
  • Mr. Vikas Sharma, Sr. Manager Marketing, Encyclopaedia Britannica – South Asia
  • Ms. Triptii Kochar, Global Project Management Office – Asia Pacific & Japan Lead at SAP
  • Ms. Anshu Kumar Malik, Middle Wing Incharge, Blue Bells Model School

Panel Discussion:

For the 2-month duration of the project, students explored the following:

  • Internet availability to students as well as the location of accessing
  • Understanding the usage pattern of online resources among students for academic and co-curricular purposes
  • Support received from teachers and parents for using internet
  • Frequency of internet usage among students as well as the source of online resources used
  • How well the usage of online resource usage is perceived when compared to resources from Library or similar resources
  • How well the Schools/Homes are equipped to help students use the online resources
  • How an online resource will help students with their work

A team of 15 students was constituted to conduct primary research on the usage of Internet and other reference resources by students of classes 6th to 10th in schools in India. This research involved field research and analysis and final presentation comprised of major findings of research along with some key conclusions. The extensive research carried out by students was highly commendable. Students traversed various schools across different geographic locations in the country and covered schools under both public and private ownership. The team collected over 11000 responses of students from 100+ schools in different regions. The  study was a great learning experience for students planning for a career in the marketing domain. As Prof. C.P. Shrimali, Director, MDI rightly said, “You cannot create experience. You must undergo it”. The live project presented to students a challenge to test their skills thereby preparing them to be the future marketers. The analysis of survey results revealed that while students are exposed to a large pool of information online, they were often unsure of its credibility. Maximum students relied on Wikipedia as a major online tool for
studies. An astonishing discovery from the research revealed that maximum students access internet for academic purposes, rather than gaming, social media etc. The results also revealed that majority of students from north India accessed internet through desktops, whereas in south India, the trend was more towards using mobile for the same.

Mr. Vikas Sharma was quite contented with the quality of presentation and praised students for the hard work that had been put in. He appreciated students who went a notch higher and gathered more insights for Britannica Encyclopaedia. A recommendation made during the discussion was that parents and teachers must play a collaborative role to ensure a judicious use of the internet. The live project served as a means to further foster relationship between MDI and Britannica and shall be fruitful for both the institute and organization in the long run.