Contributed By: Khilav Joshi
The tenth batch of the Executive Post Graduate Program (EPGP) has inherited a wonderful legacy of initiatives from the alumni, be it Prayaas, Sparsh, Digital Summit or Samantran. We also wanted to leave our imprint and create a platform which could further help the coming generations of EPGP students. We turned over a new leaf by coalescing Digital Summit and Samantran into IIMB Business Conclave 2018. We believed that this would provide scale and transform the event into an annual flagship one. The intent was to have a power-packed two-day event featuring panel discussions, networking sessions and talks with industry experts, CXOs, entrepreneurs and IIMB professors.
The unifying theme for this year’s event was ‘Embracing Disruption’. While everyone talks about how industries will be disrupted in future, we believed that the disruption has already started and what mattered was how companies embraced it. To understand the phenomenon better, we had invited speakers from very diverse industries. The event was kicked off with the ceremony of lighting a lamp, followed up with the opening speech by IIM-B Director Professor Raghuram. Professor Raghuram pressed upon the importance of how the industry is disrupting not only technologically but also socially and how as future managers, it is imperative for us to think ahead.
First eminent speaker to grace the dais was T. Krishnakumar, PGP 83, President of Coca-Cola Company India and Southwest Asia and IIMB alumnus. He named and listed six stages of Disruption – Digitization, Deception, Disruption, Demonetization, Dematerialization and Democratization. “Most businesses like to play on averages. But the world has changed. Millennials are now playing on the edge and carving out niches for themselves and achieving great success” said Mr. T. Krishnakumar. “Big players are struggling today. They have a paradox of expertise and they think that they are too big to face any trouble from competitors! And because of this, they are often too slow to respond to disruptions in their industries.”
He talked in depth about how big companies need to adapt, be agile and aware of the changing needs of the customer.
