Guest Lecture by Mr. Ramu Menon

SIMSREE was honoured to have Mr. Ramu Menon, (Director Consulting - Consumer Goods/FMCG at Cognizant Business Consulting) on 7th August, 2014. He is an alumnus of IIM-K & an IT leader with 23+years of global experience in managing IT value creation for the consumer goods industry leaders namely P&G and PepsiCo.

The topic for the guest lecture was - Breakthrough Technologies in IT Sector like Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud (SMAC).

The enthralling session began with what traditional business meant. In earlier days, traditional business was characterised by Captive Markets, Brand Driven Messaging (which was one way i. e from producers to consumers), Limited Choice, Lack of Information (Both ways – From producers to consumers & vice versa), Reined in by umpteen regulations and Unfulfilled Regulations to go beyond. On the other hand, current business is characterised by Open Market Access, Customer Driven Communication, Inclusive Organisations, Democratisation of Information, Open Regulations and Abundance of Supply and Opportunity Creators.

Next topic was drivers of this transformation in business. The below factors responsible for bringing about this change were discussed.

• Digital Metamorphosis
• Inclusive Internet
• Belongingness
• Magnification
• Sliver Casting – Self Directed Communication (Fetching information from small group)

Then the discussion veered to impact of business. The new business comes with new rules and new players, for example - Kishore Biyani’s new model for Big Bazaar. New business has also led to extreme transformation, for example Philips foraying in to an entirely new category of Healthcare. Challenging core competency is one of the important changes happening due to new nature of businesses.  Also the concepts of Fluid Core, Radical Adjacencies and Externalisation were duly explained.

Next in line were the technologies enabling these transformations collectively named as SMAC – Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud. At the centre of SMAC there are intense social users, volumes of data created by consumers, leveraging footprint i.e. electronic DNA, multitude of platforms, own control & drive your own experience kind of things.

Some of the popular examples of application of SMAC are:- 

• Amazon Pre Shop – Shipping products to consumers based on forecasting
• Coke Freestyle Fountain – A dispenser giving coke with customized flavours
• Miller Colors Smart SKU – Based on Customer spread anticipate sales & perform community sensing
• Dynamic Car Insurance

Active participation of the students was marked by the number of quality questions asked by them and Mr. Ramu Menon answered each of them with due diligence. SIMSREE thanks him for taking out his valuable time and coming on to the campus to interact with students through a guest lecture.