On Thursday, 1st March 2012, the
Convention Hall of the Bombay Stock Exchange saw an amalgamation of industry
stalwarts. The event was SIM’ergence 2012, the flagship corporate event of
SIMSREE. SIMSREE has been successfully hosting this event for the last decade.
SIM’ergence, a combination of SIMSREE and Convergence is meant to bring about
an interaction between management students and corporates.
SIM’ergence 2012 was kick-started by the ceremonial
lighting of the lamp by Chief Guests, Ms. Meera Sanyal, Mr. Motilal Oswal, Mr.
Ajit Mahadevan, Mr. Kashyap Deorah and Dr. M A Khan (Director, SIMSREE) Mr. Rohit Khatau, Head, Corporate
Communications at BSE and SIMSREE alumnus of the 2002 batch made the
inaugural speech.
The theme for SIM’ergence’12 was “Envisioning Emerging Economies”. Ms. Meera Sanayal, Chairperson and Country
Executive India at Royal Bank of Scotland, was the Chief Guest for the
event. In her address, she chronologically traced the path of India’s growth
and highlighted the important socio-political and economic changes that have
impacted India’s growth story. Mr.
Motilal Oswal, Chairman & MD, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Pvt. Ltd.
was the Special Guest Speaker for SIM’ergence’12. He made a very intriguing
presentation with valuable facts and data, highlighting the peculiarities of
the Indian economy. He spoke about the demographic advantages available in
India, consumption boom and the savings and investment boom in India.
Mr.
Ajit Mahadevan, Partner, Ernst & Young, was the
Corporate Speaker for the event. While expressing his views on the topic “Envisioning
Emerging Economies”, he said that India has a sustained growth momentum and
hence India will continue to grow steadily and strongly. Mr. Kashyap Deorah, Presidesnt, Futurebazaar.com was the Keynote
Speaker for SIM’ergence’12. He spoke about the emergence of e-commerce in India
and its role in India’s growth. Mr.
Prakash Gaba, Technical Analyst, Gaba & Gaba Financial Advisors Pvt. Ltd.,
conducted a session on Capital Markets in India. He shared with the eager
audience, interesting experiences from his own academic and professional journey.
His session was extremely insightful and interesting.
The post-lunch session
started with a panel discussion on the topic “Building India for Sustainable Economic Growth”. The panel
consisted of eminent corporates like Mr. Sanjay Parikh, CEO Taurus Mutual Fund ( Moderator ), Mr. Sachin Khandelwal, MD & CEO of ICICI Home Finance Co., Mr. Alok Churiwala, CEO, Churiwala Securities Pvt Ltd, Mr. Vikas
Sachdeva, MD & CEO, Edelweiss AMC Ltd., Mr. Ashis Sen, GM and Head Training and Balanced Scorecard at HPCL, Mr. Rajiv Ranjan,
CEO and MD, Reliance ARC. They spoke
on a variety of topics ranging from problems in bank regulations and practices,
the rise of SMEs to the need to create thought leaders. The conclusion that
came out of the discussion was that sustainable growth requires sustainable
businesses and meaningful profits. This would require all of us to be
responsible corporate citizens. The panel discussion was extremely engaging and
enriching.
The topic
for the second panel discussion was “Rise
of Indian Consumer Markets”. The panel consisted of industry stalwarts like
Dr. Hiru Bijlani, Board of Directors, Zenith Global
consultants Ltd (Moderator), Mr.
Brijgopal Jaju, Global CFO, Welspun
Corp, Mr. Rajesh Pant,
Founder, Kandor Solutions, Mr. Abhijit
Avasthi, Executive Creative
Director, Ogilvy & Mather, Mr. Roosvelt D’Souza, Executive
Director, The Nielsen Company. The corporates spoke on a host of issues
ranging from captivating consumers’ fancies to creation of niche markets. The discussion
turned out to be extremely insightful. Both
the discussions were followed by Question & Answer sessions in which the
students got a chance to get their queries cleared from the eminent panellists.
SIM’ergnece’12,
which saw an audience strength of around 400 people, comprising of students,
faculty members and professionals, turned out to be a grand success. The credit
of the success of the event goes to the students of the Corporate Relations
Committee of SIMSREE who worked very hard right from the inception to the
execution of the event. The constant support and guidance of our Director Sir,
Dr. M A Khan and all our faculty members was also instrumental in making this
event a grand success.
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