E-retail the buzzword at IIM-A's Confluence'11

With online retailing picking in India with each passing day, the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) is set to focus on the upcoming sector at its annual business summit - Confluence 2011.

To be held at its campus from November 25 onwards, Confluence, one of the biggest business festival and annual business summit will be hosting a focused session on 'Entrepreneurship in E-Retail'.

"We have tried to make Confluence this year centred around the Speakers sessions and have quite a diverse set of speakers. Moreover, there's a focused session on 'Entrepreneurship in E-Retail' which will feature representatives from the sector including Snapdeal, Inkfruit and Verisign," said Rahul Madhavan, the student coordinator for the Speaker Cell of Confluence.

The second day of the three-day event will see the likes of Rohit Bansal, the MD of Snapdeal, Kashyap Dalal, the MD of Inkfruit, Vishal Mehta, the MD of Infibeam and Kartik Taneja, the MD of Verisign talking about the burgeoning opportunities in the fast growing sector of e-retailing. Apart from that, speakers from other sectors will also offer talks and discussions on varied topics. "From the former Chief Election Commissioner to an Honourable Justice of the Supreme Court of India; from the MD of Sequoia to the MD of Google, from the young entrepreneurs in tech start-ups to the experienced heads in the Tatas will be present for the event," said Madhavan.

Being hosted in association with TAS, Confluence consists of speaker sessions where eminent speakers engage with the students on a variety of topics and competitions where the best brains from students across the country compete in events across the marketing, finance, strategy and agribusiness spheres.

Like every year, Confluence has continued its flagship events such as Masterplan, Mousetrap, Bizzquizitive and Corporate Combat along with the introduction of new events such as the TSMG – Strategy Quotient, TAS Altius, Oil Barons and a Model United Nations. Confluence is also known for the MSPs or Management Students’ Program that where B-school students from across the country can be taught by the renowned IIMA faculty on a variety of relevant management topics.

However, the topics to be discussed by the speakers will take forward the theme of Confluence this year, 'Fostering Change, Championing Excellence’ by focusing on business leadership, entrepreneurship and public policy.

Meanwhile, other speakers include GV Ravi Shankar, the MD of Sequoia capital, N. Thiruambalam, the MD of Heinz India, Kaushik Chatterjee, the CFO of Tata Steel, Renny Thomas, a partner of McKinsey, Vishal Mehta the founder of Infibeam and Rajan Anand, MD of Google India.