IIM Visakhapatnam hosts its 4th edition of Vriddhi-The Annual Business Conclave

IIM Visakhapatnam inaugurated the 4th edition of its annual business festival Vriddhi, at its permanent campus on Saturday. The event was inaugurated by IIMV Director Prof M Chandrashekhar. He briefed about the topic of the panel discussion and mentioned that around 25% of the start-ups are based on FinTech. Given this context, he added that IIMV is focusing on developing the entrepreneurial mindset in young minds using their TIDE program. He also talked about the importance of analytics and big data in today’s businesses, especially in supply chain and logistics management. The event was then taken forward by Prof Shivshanker Patel, who welcomed and addressed the esteemed guests and panellists from diverse backgrounds.

The first panel discussion of IIM Visakhapatnam Vriddhi was on the Borderless Brand Experience: The Hybrid Future of Brands. Prof Priyavrat Sanyal kicked off the event which was moderated by Prof Preeti Virdi. The other panellists included Radhika Subramanian (Head of Channel Management, Godrej and Boyce), Manish Gupta (India Sales Head for SMB Business, NielsenIQ), Javed Khan (VP, Head of Engineering, Arzooo) and Hari Prakash Karcherla (Strategic Leader, Ex-VP/GM, CEAT Valvoline, Tata Motors).

The discussion was around understanding if trust is hyper-local or hyper-national and establishing that omnichannel brands are the way forward. Panel members also discussed how e-commerce came to the rescue during the pandemic and changed the way consumers make purchases. The panel members argued that the next decade might see the next Google or Microsoft coming out of India.

The second panel discussion focused on Unfolding FinTech: A Paradigm Shift. The esteemed panel included Gaurav Sehgal (CFO, Ola Financial Services), Harshit H Jain (Founder & CEO, Sigma Advisory), Shivkumar M (Vice President, Wells Fargo) and Souparno Bagchi (COO, Balancehero India), moderated by Anuj Suneja (Equity Analyst, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance & Author).

The discussion was about the evolution, current and prospects of FinTech. They strongly believed that at the end of the day, it is about money and how one creates value. This was followed by an insightful keynote session by Karthik Yathindra, CMO of Jockey India.

He had the opinion that it is the intrinsic nature of human beings to try to evolve and get better and so it applies to businesses, products and services as well. He quoted, “Stick to your core promises rather than being stuck to your core promises. Business maturity is important and what has brought you here may not take you further.”

The third panel discussion that took place on the 2nd day of the conclave was on the topic: “Big data to Strategic Decisions: Optimizing stressed supply chains using analytics”. The panel included Chandan Shirbhayye (AVP & Head of Supply Chain, Aragen Life Sciences), Nirupam Srivastava (Vice President, Hero Corporate Services Pvt. Ltd), Venkat Sabbani (Senior Director, HCL Technologies Limited), Anand Garg (Vice President, Head India Supply Chain, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories) to be moderated by Farheen Rahman (AVP, Digital Transformation, Kotak Life).

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