SIM'ergence 12

On Thursday, 1^st 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.