The problem of ever widening industry- academia gap is much discussed and deliberated upon in academia as well as industry. To bridge this gap and to promote intellectual capital in all facets of management and related social sciences, Amity Business School organized 8th Renvoi- International Case Study Competition on the theme ‘Challenges and Opportunities for the Indian Industries after two decades of Liberalization’ at Amity Campus, Sector- 125, Noida

Welcoming the distinguished speakers and august gathering, Dr. Sanjay Srivastava presented a bird’s eye-view of the case study competition and various sessions that will unfold during the day. Dr. Srivastava highlighted the dearth of cutting edge researchers in India, which, he said, is a big area of concern for academia as well as industry. He stressed that it is very imperative to add value to already existing vessel of knowledge, therefore academia and industry should come together to bring out contemporary researches in cutting edge areas.Wishing great success to the 8th Renvoi Dr. Ashok K Chauhan, Founder President, Amity Group urged the budding professionals to make the most out of this opportunity of learning and said that the future management professionals should endeavour to gain practical knowledge from these case studies presented by the corporates during the 8th Renvoi so that they can implement the same with further innovation, when it is time for them to directly function in the industries.

Dwelling on the challenges faced by Indian industry and academia, Dr. Anand Prasad- Professor and Head of Psychology, Delhi University said that time is the biggest resource that cannot be generated and the terror of time is being experienced by everyone. Knowledge and learning is based on past which may not be useful for future, therefore education imparted in the portals of colleges and universities should be relevant for tomorrow. Today, knowledge has become perishable ie.what is useful today may become redundant tomorrow. Knowledge should be created to update itself creatively and productively. The academia, with the apt synthesis of theory and practice, should aim for internationalization of the students’ minds as the competition they face is not just from their own counterparts in the country but across the globe. In the industry one is faced with too many challenges, the real challenge comes when one has to decide between two right options. The academia has to prepare and equip the budding managers with a knowledge which can help them to make this difficult choice.

Sharing his views with the gathering, Mr. M K Venu – Managing Editor, The Financial Express said that Indian industry has entered next phase of globalization, which poses a host of challenges and opportunities. Continuing uncertainties provide great opportunities to Indian economy and opportunities become challenges if not properly leveraged. The axis of growth is shifting from West to Asia. Western world is slowing down. OECD economies are growing by just 1 % whereas on the other hand, BRICs countries are growing by 6 ½ % . In the coming years, countries like India and China will contribute larger to the global output as 75-80% in the next 15-20 years. The shift of this power or transition will pose opportunities as well as challenges to BRICS countries. Lot of employment will be generated, leading to world class society but at the same time, India, with its 600 million people at the bottom of consumption will face resources crunch leading to over- exploitation of resources, climate change protocol etc. Indian industries need to work closely with civil society. India needs to do a lot of strategizing; new thinking and changed mindset is required. Problem of growing corruption has to be addressed in the country. Indian needs to think evolve as “Brand India” image like other countries , which will distinguish India from other countries

The inauguration was followed by four technical sessions spread during the day on Operations, General Management, Marketing and IT and Finance and HR. Prolific speakers from industry and academia presented the real life case studies and enriched the knowledge of the budding managers.

Mr. Prem Narayan -Director of Estates, Ministry of Urban Development while presenting a case study on “Improvement of catering services through sustainable cost and effective approach by Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC)” shared how IRCTC identified the problems plaguing its catering services and how it eventually managed to overcome those problems successfully. Outlining the various causes leading to poor catering services, identified after the causal analysis of the situation from 2007- 09 by applying “ Fish Bone Diagram, Mr. Narayan said that it was found that Untrained kitchen staff , Inability of the Attendants to handle packaged food, Unavailability of trained chef, Inferior quality raw materials, Non- Established material procurement procedure, Preservation of perishable item in ordinary freezers- all these reasons led to the deterioration of catering services of railways. Emphasizing on the identified solutions, Mr. Narayan said that IRCTC trained its kitchen staff on hygiene, personal grooming and methods of food preparation; it replaced old inefficient staff with new trained staff from hospitality sector, standardized the recipes, developed the infrastructure of base kitchens and redefined procurement procedures to overcome the problem. Stressing on the cost savings achieved by IRCTC, Mr. Narayan revealed that as part of the solutions implemented in Shatabdi, Rajdhani and Express Trains, IRCTC signed a MoU with HPCL for supply of 19 KG LPG commercial gas cylinders as a result of which IRCTC saved Rs. 36.5 Lac annually; by signing Centralized Rate Contracts with national reputed brands, IRCTC had a net saving of Rs. 8.38 crores and by attaining fuel efficiency by several measures, IRCTC managed to save Rs. 1.85 lacs on consumption of fuel over precious years.

While presenting his case study – ‘Are we headed the right way?, Mr. Subhendu Shekhar, MD, Esscon Engineering Pvt Ltd said that the development of India is a highly lopsided one as even after two decades of liberalization there exists stark contrast between the picture of urban development in terms of skyscrapers, Malls, technological advancement etc and rural backwardness in terms of denial of basic necessities of life such as drinking water, sewage systems and numerous others. He suggested “Strategies of development in India ought to be designed in a way that its benefits are evenly distributed across all the layers of society. The prime remedy to this chronic problem is to make quality education accessible to the people at the grass root level and the policy makers of the country should invest their potential in this direction to attain progress and development in the real sense of the terms.

Presenting the case study on “Panchayati Raj and Rural Development” Dr. Rita Singh, Chairperson Zilaparishad Sikar said that the purpose of quality education is not just drawing handsome salaries from plush jobs in the MNCs. It is more importantly about implementing the skills acquired to make a contribution towards welfare of the country. Therefore all the sharp and bright professionals of tomorrow should endeavour to understand the key to India’s prosperity which lies in making efforts to develop the rural belts. Apart from advancing in their respective careers the budding professionals should use their lessons, intellect and time to work for the country and also engage themselves in effective rural development in direct or indirect ways.

“Waste energies should be used to conserve energy. Scientists and Economists should jointly work on developing a new realistic models of waste heat recovery keeping the cost benefit in view and more waste heat recovery applications should be explored in hospitals and small scale industries” said Mr. Saumya Garnaik, Energy Economist, BEE while making his presentation on “Energy saving through waste heat recovery in an engineering industry: A success story”

During his case study presentation on “Safeed Teeka – Communicating Boroplus Antiseptic cream” Mr. Subhadip Roy, Professor Marketing, IBS Hyderabad outlined the various branding strategies adopted by the company over a period of time through which the product Boroplus changed its image from being a mere antiseptic cream to an all purpose cream in the eyes of the customers. He apprised the budding professionals with the various tools of marketing and communication for a brand. He said that the marketing strategies of a brand should constantly evolve to engage the customers with emotional appeal apart from rational appeal. The future marketing professionals should endeavour to think out of the box and utilize all the options of branding their products ranging from personal selling, to event sponsoring and advertisements. The challenge in this field is to create the brand recall rate which needs to be achieved by constant communication and idea exchange amongst the professionals to keep the innovation going and touch the target audience differently each time.

Various other case studies that were discussed during the day included “Work Value and Work Style Impact due to globalization and Liberalization in Indian Industry” by Mr. Anoop Saxena- Site Manager, ST Ericsson India Pvt. Ltd.; “ HCL Learning as a Strong Brand in the Education Industry” by Dr. Rachita Rana- Professor and PGDBM Director, IITM; “Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL) misses opportunity in Bangladesh” by Mr. Kohinoor Biswas and Mr. M Sayeed Alam -Assistant Professor, East West University, Dhaka; “Ethics and Business- A case study of Infosys” by Ms Meenakshi Sharma-Company Secretary; Nucleus and many more