Colloquium 2014

Industry experts visit IIM Indore during Colloquium 14

The two-day Annual Industry Conclave ‘Colloquium 14’, organised by the Industry Interaction Cell of PGP students at IIM Indore between 26 and 27, 2014, saw the presence of various industry experts who delivered engrossing presentations and interacted with the students. Colloquium ’14 with the theme ‘Consulting in the age of disruption’ provided the opportunity for the enthusiastic students of IIM Indore to discuss and deliberate with various panellists and industry experts, what disruptions to expect in this new age and how to tackle them effectively.

The experts delivered individual talks on the core theme of the conclave and also participated in two different panel discussions organised to enable brainstorming on interesting topics.

The industry executives who delivered individual presentations on various topics were Mr. Sudhanshu Saraf, Mr. Satyam Mehra, Mr. Amit Puri, Mr. Sudipta Ghosh and Mr. Akhilesh Tuteja.

Mr. Sudhanshu Saraf

Mr. Sudhanshu Saraf, Director at Goldratt India, is a certified master Black Belt in Lean and Six Sigma. Prior to his association with Goldratt India, he was a principal consultant with Eicher for 13 years. During the conclave, he spoke on the topic ‘Theory of Constraints’, focussing on the three pillars of organizational success; customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and making money.

Mr. Satyam Mehra

Mr. Satyam Mehra, Principal, Bain & Company has extensive consulting experience in major client projects across industry verticals such as Healthcare, Private Equity, Pharma, Consumer Goods and others. His areas of expertise include post-merger integration, due-diligence, growth strategy and performance improvement. During his interactive talk at IIM Indore, Mr. Mehra spoke about the healthcare industry and shared his views on the possible disruptions likely to happen in the field.

Mr. Amit Puri

Mr. Amit Puri, Vice President of Sales, RMZ Corp, was the former Director of Business Development in Ivanhoe Cambridge, which is one of the top ten real estate investment, development and management firms in the world. In his talk, Mr. Puri spoke about evolution of real estate and the future trends in the field.

Mr Sudipta Ghosh

Mr Sudipta Ghosh, Partner at Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC), and also the founder of Research and Analytics group at PwC, shared insights on how to use new technologies and data analytics as the engines to drive sustainable competitive advantages.

Mr. Akhilesh Tuteja

Mr. Akhilesh Tuteja, Partner at KMPG and lead for technology practice nationally, is passionate about the developments in the area of information technology and how these can help businesses drive smart processes and effective outcomes. At the conclave, he gave an engrossing talk about the technological evolution in the business environment elaborating on the manner in which companies like Google and Ted are leveraging technology to craft innovative business models.

The industry executives who participated in the panel discussions on topics ‘Future of Management Consulting’ and ‘Setting India’s Infrastructure right’ during the conclave were Mr. Srini Srinivasan, Dr. Rajnish Karki, Mr. Raghu Vekatnarayanan, Mr. Saugata Maitra, Professor V. Ranganathan, Mr. Sanjay Sah and Mr. Ganpathy P.G.

Mr Srini Srinivasan

Mr Srini Srinivasan , Managing Director of Arthur D Little India, has over 25 years of global consulting experience across industry sectors and in areas such as strategy, organisational structure, process/operations improvement and people processes.

Dr Rajnish Karki

Dr Rajnish Karki is the CEO of Karki Associates, a research-based advisory firm specialising in strategy and organisation. He is reckoned to be amongst the most experienced strategy consultants in the country, having advised over three-dozen medium and large organisations over a diverse array of sectors.

Mr. Raghu Venkatnarayanan

Mr. Raghu Venkatnarayanan, Partner & Co Founder of NeuQuo, has more than 15 years of consulting experience in various reputed firms such as Ernst & Young, KPMG, PwC, IBM and ECS.

Mr. Saugata Maitra

Mr. Saugata Maitra, Director, Jones Lang LaSalle, is responsible for managing and developing business of the Government & Infrastructure Advisory Practice for the firm in India and neighbouring markets as well as leading Public Private Partnership, transaction advisory engagements in the region.

Professor V Ranganathan

Professor Ranganathan was faculty at IIM Bangalore for 35 years and was RBI Chair Professor on Infrastructure at IIMB. He is now Adjunct Professor at IIMB and Mentor Professor at IIM Kashipur. He was also a member of TRAI, a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University and a Visiting Professor at University of Pennsylvania and Asian Institute of Technology.

Mr. Sanjay Sah

Mr. Sanjay Sah, Director KPMG, has over 12 years of experience in the infrastructure space in all aspects such as procurement, financial assessment, project finance aspects, regulations, entry strategy, contracting, bid advisory, due-diligence, risk assessment/management, valuation.

Mr. Ganapathy P. G.

Mr. Ganapathy P. G. has over 20 years of projects and consulting experience. His focus in the last 20 years has been in the areas of water & environment, urban infrastructure, housing and sustainability. After his association with Feedback Ventures, Mahindra Group and Black & Veatch, he decided to quit a typical corporate career and chose the path of an independent professional offering his services as a Mentor, Director and Strategic Advisor to various companies in the infrastructure and real estate space.

After the successful completion of the first day of one of the biggest annual business conclaves of Central India, Colloquium’14, conducted by the IIM Indore’s Industry Interaction Cell, continued to enthral the audience with enriching guest talks and panel discussion on its day 2 i.e. Sunday, July 27, 2014.

The day commenced with an engrossing talk from Mr. Sudhanshu Saraf, Director at Goldratt India. He is a certified master Black Belt in Lean and Six Sigma, and prior to his association with Goldratt India, Mr. Saraf was a principal consultant with Eicher for 13 years. He spoke on the topic theory of constraints, focussing on the three pillars of organizational success; customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and making money. Prior to his talk, he provided a real life challenge to the students to give them first hand understanding of the theory of constraints. Possible solutions to the problem were discussed at length in an interactive session with students towards the end of his talk.

This was followed by a very insightful talk by Mr. Satyam Mehra, Principal, Bain & Company. Mr. Mehra has extensive consulting experience in major client projects across Healthcare, Private Equity, Pharma, Consumer Goods, etc. His areas of expertise include post-merger integration, due-diligence, growth strategy and performance improvement. During his interactive talk, Mr. Mehra spoke about the healthcare industry and shared his views on the possible disruptions likely to happen in the field.

The final guest talk for this year’s conclave was delivered by Mr. Amit Puri, Vice President of Sales, RMZ Corp. Prior to RMZ, Mr. Puri was the Director of Business Development in Ivanhoe Cambridge, one of the top ten real estate investment, development and management firms in the world. In the past, Mr. Puri has been bestowed with awards such as “Most innovative professional of the year” and “Best retail transaction of the year”. In his talk, Mr. Puri spoke about the evolution of real estate and the future trends of the field.

The guest talks were followed by a panel discussion on the topic ‘Setting India’s Infrastructure Right’ which covered a variety of issues and stimulated students to think.

The discussion was be moderated by Professor Nageshwar Rao, Faculty, IIM Indore.

The panel discussion was followed by vote of thanks and valedictory ceremony, wherein Dr Rishikesha T Krishnan, Director, IIM Indore felicitated the students for their active contribution during the conclave.