Coffee With Alumni - Ms. Nafisa Thingna

 "Enjoy your work thoroughly. If you don’t wake up every morning with a spring in your step, looking forward to your work, you are in the wrong job.” 

The most resounding of many valuable messages that were given by Ms. Nafisa Thingna (Vice President at The Times of India) , alumna of the 1984 batch. The occasion was the second edition of 'Coffee with Alumni' organized by the Alumni Committee on 28th January 2014, and the venue was the swanky office of the Times Group in Lower Parel. With an experience of over 27 years with the Times Group and the enthusiasm of a newly joined employee, Ms. Thingna tackled a range of questions, routine and controversial alike with great aplomb.

The interaction started with Ms. Thingna introducing her background and covered a wide array of topics that included pricing of advertisements, the structural intricacies of advertisements, impact of digital on print media, brand initiatives of the Times Group, Intellectual Properties, Censorship and Innovative Advertising among other topics. Ms. Thingna also elaborated on Media NET and Brand Capital, two of Times Group’s major offerings to clients which help differentiate them from their competition. One of the most interesting areas of discussion was the strategy behind Mumbai Mirror and how it was an attempt to kill two birds with one stone by bumping off competition as well as creating another price point for advertising.

As the session came to a close, Ms. Thingna gave the students a four point mantra to live by - Passion, Commitment, Enjoyment and Knowledge. Every student enjoyed the interaction thoroughly and benefited immensely from the same.

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SIMSREE - The Only B-School in India to have organised 'Storewars'

Started with the aim of imparting practical knowledge of business and technicalities in it, SIMSREE has taken one more step to make its students ready for future challenges. Apparently, SIMSREE has become the first ever B-school in India to have organised ‘Storewars – A Business Simulation Game’. It is more interactive than other programs and it helps in gaining insights on the skills that are essential in a real business world. The rationale was to polish the knowledge and strategies of the students with necessary feedback from the coordinators. 

‘Storewars’ is one of the world's most sophisticated total business simulations used by the leading FMCG manufacturers & retailers in over 40 countries. It is a unique management development program that examines the interaction between suppliers and retailers. The participants of the game essentially run an FMCG business and manage its strategy and resources. This way, participants develop an intuitive understanding of business, its functional elements and ways to achieve a strong profitable position in the market by establishing win-win cooperation. 

It was a 2-days event, which took place on 27th & 28th January, 2014 in SIMSREE. Students were extremely zealous to be a part of the event. It was a very intense program which not only made the student look at the broader picture but also taught them to systematically analyse data. The ‘Negotiation’ round of the simulation was definitely one of the highlights of the program which gave a fair idea of how deals are consummated in the corporate world. Participants were divided into 5 teams – 3 manufacturers & 2 retailers. Manufacturers were competing against each other and so were the 2 retailers. 

The event had different decision cycles. Each decision cycle lasted for 6 months (in the virtual world). After each decision, the manufacturers and retailers were supposed to negotiate with each other. From participants’ point of view, negotiating was the most important experience and an exciting one too. It was evident from the comment of one of the participants, who was playing a role of retailer: “Our Strategy was to be price sensitive in Limburg market and mid-premium in Oland Market, we also increased the share of private labels in our portfolio which initially helped us a lot and was performing well till the first period. Prior to 2nd period we analyzed the sales and customer expectations and changed our strategy especially for Oland market and increased our stock levels. Some manufacturers stuck to their clauses and were difficult to crack whereas some due to their high inventory levels were ready to give heavy discounts. If we could change anything from the starting point was surely to increase our profit along with being the market leaders.” 

The event certainly provided the real life experiences to the participants, as their creativity in the negotiation was at stake. Key lessons were reinforced with detailed coaching and feedback on the impact of strategic and tactical decisions made during the simulation. Additionally there were breakout sessions and lectures on burning up-to-date topics that related the lessons back to real market issues. 

Special thanks to the event coordinators, Mr. Umesh Dhand and Nastia ma’am who continuously helped and guided the participants throughout both the days. Also thanks to SIMSREE’s coordinators Satyajit Sarak and Chintan Shah and all the fellow participants for making this event a life time experience. It was indeed one more feather in the cap of SIMSREE. 

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SIMSREE carries out 'Voter Registration Drive' on 65th Republic Day

SIMSREE celebrated 65th Republic Day of India in a unique way this year. What is the meaning of a Republic Country? It is a country in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives. So it is quite evident that people should vote for an appropriate candidate to have good governance. Therefore, SIMSREE’ites tried to make people aware about the importance of voting and enroll them with Election Commission of India on this Republic Day. In the wake of upcoming parliament elections which are going to be in the months of April and May, SIMSREE’ites tried to contribute in small manner to it.

Student Social Responsibility (SSR) committee of the institute took a pledge to bring about a change and it carried out voter registration drive in association with ‘Vote for Better India’. It is a non-profit, non-political and non-governmental organization which aims at creating awareness among people for voting. In the upcoming election about 15 crore voters are going to cast vote for the first time, which are nothing but young people. ‘Vote for Better India’ is focusing on creating awareness among the youth and thereby developing a sense of responsibility towards the country in them.
    

40 enthusiastic students from the institute participated in this drive with one common objective of making maximum people aware about voting & registering them for the same. The location chosen was Cuffe Parade, Mumbai. Since people from this part of the city are known to be less enthusiastic about voting despite many highly educated and high-profile people living in this part. As in the past it was observed that the results of few seats in some other parts of the country were decided by a minute difference of votes, SIMSREE’ites identified this opportunity to change the trend. The rationale was very clear, ‘Vote and vote wisely, else keep regretting for the next 5 years’.

The drive started at 11:00 AM with excitement on every volunteer’s face. During the drive, team met many people having various questions regarding voting process and registration. The team was successful in enrolling and making people across different strata aware about the entire process. The drive covered people from security guard to managing director of top notch MNCs. There was a massive response from people, which actually made the drive and its purpose successful. In the end the drive gave volunteers a unique sense of pride.  This pride was a testimony of a productive 65th Republic Day celebration.

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SIMCON organizes Confluence'14 successfully

Confluence, an annual consulting conclave at Sydenham institute of Management Studies, Research and Entrepreneurship Education (SIMSREE) is a platform to discuss the current issues plaguing the nation from the viewpoint of a consultant. Confluence ’14, sponsored by LIC India in association with Syndicate Bank was held on 25th January, 2014. Organized by SIMCON, the consulting club of SIMSREE, Confluence’14 saw a plethora of senior professionals from diverse functions and industry discuss the challenges and possible solutions to the problem that is currently grappling the nation and also the theme of Confluence ’14 – “Business Sustainability in a VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) world". 

With the lineup of star professionals as speakers and panelists, quality opinions and discussions on sustainability and an enthusiastic and an inquisitive audience to complement the above, the event surely had to be a huge success!

Confluence ’14 began on a high note with the Chief Guest for the day Mr. Sridar Iyengar, Ex- Chairman and CEO, KPMG and Co-Founder, The Sounding Board addressing the batch on the attributes necessary to achieve stability in times of uncertainty. He stressed on the importance of an individual needing to connect different aspects of business viz. Human Capital, Technology, Data, and Experience among others. 

This was followed by the speech by the Chief Speaker Dr. Nachiket Mor, Head of the financial inclusion committee setup by RBI and the chairman of CARE. Mr. Mor spoke about the need for financial inclusion in the nation and stressed how banking needs to spread across the nation covering thoroughly the rural areas of India. He opined that currently supply side needs to broaden to cater the banking demand and he suggested serving this need through use of technology like ‘Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPI)’ with the help of mobile service providers, through appointing business correspondents who would act on behalf of the banks inter alia. 

Post the speeches by the chief guests, panel discussions took place. The first panel had an incredible lineup of speakers coming from background ranging from management consulting to banking to entrepreneurship. The panel comprised of Mr. Gaurav Bagaria, Senior Manager at EY, Mr. A. Narayanan, COO Finance, HSBC and Mr. Chandrasekharan Tatapudy, Co-founder, Yasham P2D Lifesciences Pvt. Ltd.  The panel was moderated by Mr. Yatrik Vin, Sr. VP, NSE. The panel discussed about the “Opportunities for investment in India”. They concluded the discussion by suggesting on having a balance of inorganic growth (through M&A overseas and within the nation) and organic growth through correction of policy paralysis resulting in an investment friendly business environment.

The second panel discussion began post the lunch break and this panel comprised of Mr. Anuj Bharagava, CEO, A B Associates, Mr. Sandeep Kothari, Director, Capgemini Consulting and the very own alumnus of SIMSREE Mr. Parag Risbud, VP, Avalon Consulting. The path for the discussion was traced by the moderator Mr. Suresh Mhatre, VP, TCS and the President of IMCI. The topic for the panel was – “Overseas avenues for Indian products and services”.  The panel suggested improvement in our trade competitiveness through increased exports is possible through policies that aim at catalyzing them, identifying specialized products and services which India is capable of offering at a premium price, developing ability to value add and finally tapping the full potential of Indian consumption.

The speakers were deeply impressed with the nature of the questions posed to them by the batch and according to them this reflected the batch’s awareness about the recent happenings in the world. 

SIMCON is determined to continue its tradition of linking the theoretical management concepts to the real world business problems by interfacing with the industry and we strive to make sure that the next version of Confluence is bigger than Confluence’14.

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The Corporate Connect - Mr. Bhupendra Bhate

The Corporate Connect gave SIMSREE students a chance to interact with another veteran from the corporate world - Mr. Bhupendra Bhate, Head, Industrial Products, Integrated Engineering Services (IES), L&T.

Mr. Bhate has a strong experience of more than 30 years. Sir started his career with Godrej & Boyce Ltd. where he worked for nearly 10 years. After that, he joined Atos Origin as General Manager and then moved onto Softdell Systems Inc. where he was the COO. For the last 11 years , he has been working with L&T.

The session was conducted at L&T office, Powai on January 23, 2014. Mr. Bhate started the session with an introduction to the company and its verticals. While talking about the culture of his current organization, he said that the mind-set and culture of the company, which is influenced by top management, play a vital role in product development and its success. The designer or the architect should be given utmost importance in any undertaking. But in Indian companies they hardly get their due attention. Improvement on this front will help in developing better products.

He compared western culture to the Indian culture .He elaborated how the analytical ability accompanied by individual goals has resulted in a lot of inventions and discoveries in the Western world. A small country like Israel has achieved its success on the same principles. He stressed upon the need of more rational and analytical thinking.

Mr. Bhate talked about the importance of core education. He advised that students should possess thorough knowledge in their graduation specialization and a post graduate degree like MBA should act as polishing tool.

Mr Bhate then illustrated how the application of these principles has guided his organization to the number one spot in all respects. His organization encourages employees to develop new ideas and to act upon them. The result is that IES has 79 intellectual properties to its name. This has helped IES to stay way ahead of its competitors.

It was a pleasure interacting with Mr Bhupendra Bhate and learning many things in the little time that we got. We whole heartedly thank Mr Bhate and hope that we find many more opportunities to interact with him in the future.

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The Corporate Connect - Mr. Rajendra Saboo

The Corporate Connect continued going from strength to strength, this time having a freewheeling interaction with Mr. Rajendra Saboo, Senior General Manager (Corporate Affairs) & Company Secretary, Supreme Industries Limited.

Mr. Saboo has been with Supreme since 1987 and is involved in every aspect of corporate management, such as strategy, planning, review of acquisition and joint venture proposals, driving top line growth and net results to name a few.

The session was held at Supreme’s office at Nariman Point on January 15, 2014. Mr. Saboo started the session with an introduction about Supreme and the sector in general. He explained about how the company came into existence and how it has grown leaps and bounds, especially in the last decade, the products that Supreme develops and why they are the leader in the sector.

The session then turned to technicalities with Mr. Saboo giving intrinsic details about every sector Supreme is in and what their future targets are. He talked about how a strong distribution network is essential for business like theirs. He said that the company’s focus is on localised marketing, which is the key to success in this industry. On being questioned about China being a competitor, he turned it down straightaway, explaining about the manufacturing processes and constraints plaguing the imports in this sector due to high freight cost and when asked if he sees volatility as a challenge, his answer was simple: Volatility is the game now.

Mr. Saboo also talked about the management principles followed in Supreme Industries. He talked about how good management and good business model, both are essential; one factor cannot substitute for the other. He also advised students to be aware of what his happening in the world around and read at least one financial newspaper daily for developing business acumen.

It was a pleasure interacting with Mr. Saboo and learn so much in so little time. We whole-heartedly thank Mr. Saboo and hope that we get many more opportunities to interact with him in the coming time.

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'Times Television Network' CEO at SIMSREE Campus

In a homecoming of sorts, one of SIMSREE’s most illustrious alumni, Mr. Avinash Kaul, visited its campus on January 10, 2014 for a guest lecture organized by the SIMSREE Alumni Committee. Mr. Kaul, a 1998 alumnus, is a marketing major from SIMSREE and is currently the CEO at the Times Television Network managing three channels of the Times Group (Times Now, ET Now, zoOm). He is a seasoned broadcast professional with 15+ years of experience across business verticals such as advertising, sales, distribution, programming and marketing.

Mr. Kaul commenced the lecture by recounting his journey of life in front of an enthusiastic audience of nearly 180 students. From humble beginnings as an engineer, through the exciting times as an MBA student in SIMSREE where he met his life partner to becoming the CEO of one of the nation’s premier media powerhouses, he had one mantra all along – ‘Go with the flow’. He attributed his successes to maintaining a positive attitude in life and the desire to learn from life’s experiences, good or bad. He elaborated on each of his previously held jobs in the media domain giving the absorbed listeners an insider’s view of the corporate world and the learning that can be derived from it. He encouraged the students to keep on challenging themselves, to explore new things and not be afraid to jump into the unknown. The right balance of risk taking ability and preparation can go miles in helping one achieve success.

 

When following your dreams, Mr. Kaul emphasized on three crucial aspects – give everything you’ve got and things will fall in place, prepare well and finally, do not have a fear of rejection or failure. He compared the corporate life, quite appropriately, to a hundred meter hurdle dash wherein the defining motto is ‘Go on and go ahead’. He also stressed on the need of staying updated with an apt quote – ‘If you’re not ready for the future, the future will not be ready for you’.

In the closing Q&A round, Mr. Kaul answered questions from an engrossed audience with effortless ease and a tinge of humor. The questions ranged from outlining the architecture of a media house to the inevitable reference to the popular, enigmatic news anchor Mr. Arnab Goswami who is the Editor-in-Chief at ‘Times Now’. The students were duly impressed with the detailed answers by Mr. Kaul and left with renewed vigor and enthusiasm at the end of an enthralling session that lasted for about two hours.

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Guest lecture by Mr. Rakesh Vanarse

On the 8th of January, 2014, SIMSREE welcomed back to campus Mr. Rakesh Vanarse, an alumnus of the 1995 batch, for a guest lecture organized by the Alumni Committee. Mr. Vanarse is the Founder and CEO at Brandcepts Advertising & Communications Management Consulting, and had worked with various advertising agencies before starting his own company.  He interacted with the batch of 2013-15, talking about ‘Brand Personality and how to build brand image’.

Mr. Vanarse started the interaction by talking about the ‘Mission’ and ‘Vision’ of organizations and how they revolve around the image that the company tries to create for itself. He also showed how the concepts studied in business school translate into the real life ideals of an organization, with examples of brands like Tata Sons and RIL.

He also spoke about how every company has different motives and target audiences, and uses different marketing activities to reach out to the desired segment of people. Giving examples of the differing price points of cars from different manufacturers, he demonstrated how every manufacturer builds cars that appeal to different audiences, and thus emphasized the importance of understanding what a brand is trying to achieve in the short term so it can build an image in the long term.

Mr. Vanarse also showed the batch videos of an advertisement series in which progressive messaging was used to put across a powerful message about the image of the brand and create an identity for the brand in the minds of the target audience. He explained how the brand had clearly identified the age and income group that it wanted to appeal to, and accordingly based its advertising and promotional material on the psychological characteristics of the desired segment so that the audience could relate to it.

The batch immensely enjoyed the practical applications of advertising and brand building demonstrated by Mr. Vanarse, and came up with various questions regarding the behaviour of consumers and their response to various marketing techniques. Needless to say, Mr. Vanarse solved all doubts with aplomb, enriching the batch with his vast knowledge and experience in marketing.

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Guest Lecture by Mr. Salil Kallianpur

The Corporate Relations Committtee, SIMSREE organized a Guest Lecture by Mr. Salil Kallianpur, Commercial Head – Classic Brands and Established Products, GlaxoSmithKline at SIMSREE on 7th January, 2014. He leads the commercialization of GSK’s off-patent (classic) products and branded generic products in four therapy areas- Respiratory, Cardiovascular, Metabolism and Virology across geography of emerging markets. The topic of interaction was “Changing Landscape of Pharmaceutical Industry”. 

Mr. Kallianpur spoke on the gamut of opportunities available for management graduates in the pharmaceutical sector. He began the session with how the pharma sector had thrived in spite of the global economic downturn. In spite of the presence of about 23000 pharmaceutical companies in India, only 30% of the 1.2 billion Indian population has access to basic medicines. The major reason for this is policy paralysis and the only solution to this is Public Private Partnerships (PPP).

Currently, India spends only 0.9% of its GDP on health care and the government has plans to increase this amount to 1.58% of the GDP in the next five years. However, the WHO recommends that 6% of the GDP should be spent on Healthcare. He explained how the pharma companies thrive despite the increase in the number of essential medicines (whose prices are regulated) from 74 to 378 by the Drug Price Control Order. The concept of Evergreen Patenting (and how ethical is it?) along with section 3D was explained in details. He stated that the top 10 companies together have 39% market share and the leading company enjoys a market share of only 5.1%. In the end there was a Q&A round and he enthusiastically answered all the queries put forth by the students. He also shared ideas about the possible entrepreneurial initiatives in the pharmaceutical sector.

The Corporate Relations Committee, along with the whole batch is thankful to Mr. Salil Kallianpur for taking out time from his busy schedule and presenting an insightful session on the pharmaceutical sector.

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Strengths Workshop for Career Development by Mr. Ganesh Ramakrishnan

The Corporate Relations Committee, SIMSREE organized a workshop on “Strengths Workshop for Career Development” on January 5, 2014 for the first year students. The workshop was conducted by Mr. Ganesh Ramakrishnan who is Senior Director, Human Resources at Oracle Financial Services Software Ltd. He has spent over 24 years in the IT industry in various areas of the business including software development, product architecture, quality management, pre-sales and relationship management. In recent years he has conducted workshops on strengths approach for career development under the aegis of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and HR Infotech Association.

Mr. Ramakrishnan began by giving us an overview on what exactly is the Strengths Approach. It is an innovative and practical tool for helping one with one’s career planning and development over one’s lifelong journey. It provides useful guidelines that are based on research, to identify areas to attain excellence. The workshop involved lots of interesting activities that were done by each participant individually and in groups, to aid self-exploration and self-understanding.

While tracing the path to excellence, he made the citation from the movie ‘3 Idiots’ – ‘Don’t run after Success, run after Excellence, success will follow you’. Building on one’s strengths helps one to achieve excellence. Strength is not having some attribute or ability. In strengths’ approach, strength is a consistent, outstanding performance using the abilities that one is good at or those in which one has a natural preference. Any job requires numerous competencies but if one were to aspire to achieve excellence in all of them one would end up with excelling in none. Mr Ramakrishnan illustrated this with the example of people with outstanding performance in various fields. He emphasized that their excellence stands out in some areas but their performance in other areas is average.

Talents, skills and knowledge are components that make up strengths. Mr. Ramakrishnan elucidated how to identify one’s dominant talents. He stressed that one should be sincere and honest with one’s inner-self and pointed up that self-awareness is a lifelong journey. He expressed that ‘Fixing Weakness is damage control and damage control is not the path to Excellence’. We should overcome them to the extent that we do our job well. But there could still be things that one may find difficult or unpleasant despite the efforts. One should work around our weaknesses and retain enough time to build on one’s strengths.

The entire workshop was extremely interactive and quite unique in terms of the learning methodology.
We all, at SIMSREE are indeed thankful to Mr Ganesh Ramakrishnan for sharing his valuable insights through such an interesting workshop.

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Guest Lecture on “DIGITAL MARKETING” by Mr. Gaurav Sharma

On 4th of January, 2014 Corporate Relations Committee, SIMSREE organised a guest lecture for the first year students. The Guest Lecture was conducted by Mr. Gaurav Sharma, General Manager for Digital and Mobility at Omnicom Media Group, which is the media services division of Omnicom Group Inc., one of the “Big Four Agency” companies globally. Prior to joining Omnicom Media Group, Sir has worked as Regional Head for Digital Ad Sales at Disney UTV. Sir has also worked with likes of Media2Win, C2W Digital and Sony BMG. On this occasion, Sir addressed students on the topic: ‘Digital Marketing and its Magic’.

Sir began the session by briefing students about 'The World of Digital Marketing' with the help of examples like online banking, online coupons, e-library and Instant Messengers. He cited a few statistics to explain how mobile internet usage overpowered desktop internet usage in 2012.

Sir explained the use of Digital Marketing by various brands like Titan, Red Bull, Tesco, McDonald’s, Britannia, Burger King, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, VERTU, Evian and Volkswagen with the help of various engaging videos. He shared interesting insights explaining the effective use of social media to reach the masses. Apart from the use of Digital Marketing by various brands, Sir also stressed on the Digital Campaign by Mr. Barack Obama in 2012 and the use of Digital tools and Social Media for bringing about Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia. 

While talking about Digital Marketing, Sir also gave 15 Commandments that could be applied while pitching and commencing sales. He explained them with the help of snapshots and videos from Hollywood movies. He also suggested various Career Opportunities that MBA students can look up to in the field of Marketing. Some of the options highlighted were Sales, Content Writing, Programming, Designer, Client Servicing, etc. 

With his immense knowledge and understanding, Sir addressed various doubts of students on Digital Marketing and its reach. The lecture will not just benefit students in understanding Digital Marketing but also exploring the various career opportunities that they could look forward to in near future.

SIMSREE is indeed thankful to Mr. Gaurav Sharma for visiting the campus and sharing his valuable insights with the students.

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