Indore : Indore Management Association (IMA) organised a 2-day silver jubilee edition of International Management Conclave at Abhay Prashal on Friday. The event is themed on ‘India Inc: Reinventing Growth’.
The event was inaugurated by managing director of Tata Steel, R Gopalakrishnan. He started his speech by talking about ‘corporate growth – challenges and initiatives’.
“Growth is a mindset and everybody is a salesman, whether he is selling a product or a service or even an idea,” he said after giving a number of examples of achievers, who started from scratch and achieved success because their mindset was pointing towards incredible growth and not just a figure. “Don’t be afraid of failures, have a fixed mindset to achieve success where you can’t afford failure,” he concluded.
He also brought light on the recent trend of startups and said, “Start ups are attractive and get high evaluation very soon but this start up fever has to be dealt with maturity and must be converted into Growth Driven Companies (GDC).”
The 7 hallmarks of GDC as told by Gopalakrishan include conscious speed combined with thoughtful acceleration, customer empathy or centricity, collaboration, cultivating talent, curiosity, commitment to employees and customers and courage to take the leap.
He insisted that to get success it is necessary for every organisation to be customer centric, have momentum driving leadership and to employ highly involved employees.
And to further talk about in detail, MD of Tata Steel, TV Narendran discussed ‘Manufacturing leap into digital era’. He discussed the effects of technology in auto industry. “Earlier, one had to modify the design based on the availability of material and services in the area, but the latest developments in the auto industry provides the designers the freedom to dream and apply it,” he said. Adding to that, he talked about the increasing requirement of efficiency and services expected from the auto industry.
Quoting an example of Rolls Royce, which holds its consumer market strongly because of its well-timed services, he said, “It is by optimizing its services, that it has attained success.”
He said, “History has witnessed three industrial revolutions starting from invention of steam engine to automation to artificial intelligence, it’s high time we realise and accept that we are on the verge of fourth industrial revolution that is the digital revolution and we will get stuck and not go forward until we adapt the change”.
Gopalakrishnan’s book ‘Six Lenses’ was also launched on this occasion, which is reality through individual’s perspective. District Collector P Narahari released the book. Talking about the book, Gopalakrishnan said, “It is not about management, it is not about philosophy, it is about both.”
To help the audience understand his concepts, he urged them to take the banana test, which he says is Gopala test. He said, “Eat half of a banana, and then pinch your nose until you feel breathless, further after releasing your nose eat the other half of the banana.” He claims that the other half would taste different.
Concluding on the gist of his book he said, “There is no reality, no life, it is just a perception of reality.”
Founder and MD of Bandhan Bank, Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, narrated his journey about how he left his high paying job to found an NGO for helping poverty ridden people and the challenges he faced in building Bandhan Bank. The bank has helped over 67 lakh families by giving them the opportunity to improve their economic condition by providing loans at very low interest rate.
To share his view on ‘The Talent Management in Future’, director of Oracle India, Pramod Sadar Joshi was invited as the next speaker on stage. He motivated the audience with his great enthusiasm and filled the hall with energy. He gave a presentation covering subject like transformation through great leadership and mental stability.
COO of UAE Exchange, Y Sudhir Kumar Shetty concluded the day with a discussion on ‘strategies to beat financial slowdown’.
With the vivacious beats of a Drum Jam by Roberto Narain, the conclave refreshed the delegates during the lunch break.
