Session on business challenges

B-SCHOOL BEAT

It was a day when professors from London Business School (LBS) came calling to Mumbai for the third year in succession.

The Aditya Birla India Centre at the London Business School (ABICLBS) held the third edition of its annual World-Class session in Mumbai and Delhi last week. The day-long session, which gets the LBS classroom into Indian five-star hotels, had more than 200 executives in Mumbai who participated actively in the theme "From market driven to market driving, innovating for customers".

Santrupt Misra, director, ABICLBS said, "Businesses are being constantly challenged to bring innovation to deliver a fulfilling experience to the higher income consumer and a more efficient delivery mechanism for the lower end of the market."

This year's world-class edition was led by Nirmalya Kumar, director, centre for marketing and co-director, ABICLBS. Using case studies of no-frills airline EasyJet and product design outfit, IDEO, Kumar pointed out how "market driving is about a new way of competing, by creating radical, rather than incremental business innovation and expanding our imagination of customer needs and delivery mechanisms".

Other speakers at the sessions included B V R Subbu, president, Hyundai Motors India, who spoke on how his company managed to build the Hyundai brand in India from scratch and Tom Bata Jr., chairman & CEO Bata group who spoke on his group's transition.

IIFT's convocation

The Delhi-based Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) had its 38th convocation ceremony on April 13. R A Mashelkar, director-general, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and secretary, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research delivered the convocation address. Commerce Secretary and IIFT Chairman Dipak Chatterjee presided over the function.