IIFT – National Consulting Symposium 2008 organized

Dr Kalam took to the podium and spoke about the aRole of consultants in an emerging knowledge-based economya. Dr Kalam mentioned that of the $300 billion worth consultancy opportunity worldwide, India today caters only to only around $4.4 billion. He suggested strategies for increasing the Indian share of the global consultancy market from 1.5% to 10% within the next five years. He said that for an organised growth of Indian consultancy, agri-business, industry and services need to collaborate towards nullifying the urban-rural divide. He also spoke about, how out of the 10 million micro, small and medium industries in our country, nearly half a million small scale industries are known to be in the red. Consultancy industry can determine the methods by which they can be provided with the right technology and financial support to make them succeed. He also encouraged students to take an active part in politics, for that was the only way political will could be created to execute the vision for Indian as a developed nation. aPolitics today is 70% political politics and 30% development politics, when it should be the other way round,a he said.

SAIL chairman Mr SK Roongta, an IIFT alumnus, was the guest of honour on the occasion. He spoke about the need for a consistent approach towards development across all sectors of India. He stressed that the parameters of industry-wide consulting were not based on domain-specific knowledge; rather it was the identification of the common underlying principles that enabled the comprehensive analysis of the situation under purview.

The first session was chaired by Mr Thomas Kuruvilla, the managing director for Arthur D Little in the Middle East. He dealt with the Development of the Knowledge Economy both globally and in India. Mr Kuruvilla emphasized on knowledge resource retention by India as the key point for success in the future. He was critical about Indians being very generous in knowledge sharing and how MNCs abroad were creating value for themselves while paying Indians for time spent. India needs to focus on improving literacy rates, sustainable shift in governmental policies in agricultural practices and for better knowledge retention policies to be followed by Indian corporates in order to become a knowledge economy.

Mr Ramit Gupta, Vice President of Avalon Consulting, was the second speaker presenting the case on how to manage innovation. He emphasized how the current economy is an innovation economy, powered by creativity, imagination and passion. Underscoring the view that India is an innovation hub, he related how 91% of Indian CEOs considered innovation as one of their top three strategies for growth compared to 73% in the West. Indian companies like Airtel, TCS, CTS flesh out this point of view. According to him, innovation is an evolving process that effectively converts knowledge to money. It has to be marketed well to succeed even as R&D; is crucial.

Mr Arsh Maini, Director Deloitte and Touche Ltd, spoke about interdependencies between innovation and marketing, the transition of the market from being product centric to customer centric. Citing excellent examples, he spoke about how innovative ideas have multiple triggers from R&D; and production to competition and consumer insight. Mr Maini emphasised how innovation in research has to be backed up with innovation in the processes followed in product development for any product to be a success.

The first session concluded with Mr Guru Malladi, Associate Director for Ernest & Young speaking on Innovation through Knowledge Management. He was of the view that innovation is not the breakthrough idea but an evolution of ideas to cater to changing consumer needs as in the transition from the gramophone to the Ipod. Knowledge management is crucial for access to the next level and is highly individual specific. He stressed on the benefits of this aspect as the assets of a consulting company are the people and the knowledge they possess.

The second session of the National Consulting Symposium at IIFT Delhi was focused on aProductivity Enhancementa. Ms Padma Ravichander, MD, Mercer India Ltd, presented a detailed analysis of the subject, Enhancing Productivity with Employee Engagement, citing real life examples and case studies from Mercer. She emphasized on the four drivers that organizations need to focus on in order to achieve employee engagement. These drivers, according to her, are a Acquire, Bond, Comprehend and Defend. Based on these drivers, Mercer has developed a aTotal Rewardsa program that takes into account factors such as compensations, learning, career development and rewards management.

Next up was Mr Debu Bandopadhyay, Executive Director, Eicher Consultancy Services who spoke on The Importance of Value Chain Productivity. He started with a definition of value chain and described how value is perceived differently by buyers and sellers. He then presented a simplistic yet insightful method of measuring value and showed how various factors such as Vision, Strategy, and Industry Structure affect the value chain of an organization.

Mr Amol Deshpande, Associate Director, Technopak was the last one to speak. He spoke on Role of IT in Productivity Improvement. His described how Technopak has been helping in designing and implementing productivity improvement in the Fashion, Retail and Healthcare sectors.