Improve India’s talent pool, increase the number of skilled workforce

The call from academicians and from cross section of corporate India was loud and clear at IFIM Business School’s 2nd International conference on ‘Doing business in India.’ They were of the collective opinion that there was an immediate need in India to improve the quality of talent, in all sectors including IT, and the creation of a skill oriented work force. Giving attention to these two factors, according to them, would give India a great advantage in presenting itself as a favourable destination to do business for foreign nations.

The conference saw over 125 papers being presented in the field of general management, economics, finance, HR, marketing, IT, corporate social responsibility & business ethics. The participants included academicians and members from the corporate world from India, USA, UK, Germany, Iran & Bangladesh.

The participants were motivated to do continued, menaingful research in the areas in which they were presenting their papers by Mr. K. Kannan, retired Chairman Bank of Baroda, who was the chief guest at the inaugural function of the conference. Speaking on the ocassion, Prof. Swami Krishnan, CEO & director of IFIM Business School said, “India definitely has a very young talent pool and it will continue to do so till 2050.But the challenge for us academicians is to make the students industry ready as they graduate, as that is the need of the hour.”

The conference also witnessed an intriguing panel discussion on the topic of ‘Doing business in India’. The panelists included Ms. Sushma Abburi, Co-founder of minglebox.com, Mr. Sanjay Tambewekar, Netapps and Mr. Rajesh Rathod, founder of Angst & partners. The panel discussion was moderated by Prof. Swami Krishnan, CEO & director of IFIM Business School.

The panelists urged the fresh graduates to be open to taking few risks at the beginning of their careers. This, according to them, would help them chart a good career path and catalyze growth. They also opined that a long internship program in colleges or B-schools will benefit both the student and the company. These fresh graduates will shape the destiny of India in becoming a great destination to do business and contribute immensely in the coming decade which possibly can be considered as the decade of India.

The conference concluded with cash prizes being awarded to 3 best papers presented at the conference.

• The first prize of Rs. 10,000 was awarded to Prof Nirmalya Bandhopadhay, faculty of International School of Business & Media, Kolkatta for his paper on ‘Application of SERVQUAL & Kano’s model in determining service quality in health club services.

• The second proze of Rs. 5,000 was awarded to Prof. Jaya Sankara Prasad, Department of Business Management, Krishna University, AP & Prof. Ramachandra Aryasri, school of management studies, Jawaharlal Nehru tehnological University, Hyderabad for co-authoring the paper on ‘A study on situational factors on store format choice behaviour in food and grocery retailing in India.’

• The third prize of Rs. 2,500 was awarded to Mr. Bikash Ranjan Mishra, research scholar, Department of humanities & social sciences, IIT Kanpur for his paper on ‘Mode of foreign market service: FDI V/s Export’.
   

The organizers of the conference were thrilled at the number of papers that they received, over 200, and look forward to have a conference on a larger scale in the years to come.