Austria Meets India

As I was the first student from my home university FH Wiener Neustadt (Austria) going to India, I could not refer to any previous experiences or references. That is why I did not know what to expect from my time here. When I arrived in Delhi, I immediately knew that I would like the place and enjoy my time here. I was fascinated by the very different and diverse culture of the country, the great historical places to visit and about how people welcomed me.  IILM Lodhi Road helped me to arrange a nice apartment close to university, provided me with general information about my stay in India and introduced me to their academic rules. During the orientation process, I also got to know the other exchange student and we directly decided to visit some new places in Delhi together. Although I was not sure if people in the class will accept my different mindset, I was very lucky that many people in my courses were very open minded. In the initial days, the buddy mentors gave me good advice concerning academic work and helped me to arrange my first trip. As I was expected to do group work in classes, I got to know other students better and we spent a lot of time together. They showed me the highlights of Indian cuisine, lesser known places in Delhi and gave me a great insight into the culture of the country. Talking about the classes at IILM, they were simply great. The content of the courses was very well structured and comprehensive. During the lecture, the faculty members ensured that students participated in discussions and facilitated a friendly environment. The business school provided not only highly skilled academic professors, but also guest lecturers from partner universities abroad and Indian corporates. Furthermore, I got a chance to participate at the PRME conference which gave me great knowledge about sustainable projects in industries and businesses in India. I could also be a part of the 25th anniversary celebrations of IILM.

Overall, I have to say that my time at IILM Lodhi Road was a fantastic experience. Apart from getting to know different mentalities as I was travelling around India, widened my horizon and won friends for life. I would like to say thank you to everyone that made my stay here unforgettable. India is indeed a magical place.

Changing Role of HR – Perspective of HR Analytics

HR analytics, is analysis used to make better decisions about all aspects of HR strategy with the goal of improving business performance.The future of HR analytics depends on integration within a company.The current state of HR analytics for predicting for its future suggests that the future of HR analytics depends heavily on data integration with emphases on integrating business disciplines and centralizing data.According to Deloitte’s 2016 Global Human Capital Trends report, 86% of Australian businesses surveyed rate HR analytics as being a highly important factor in their workforce planning.

Companies can easily take advantage of a single platform that supports a full range of HR processes, including talent strategy and planning; sourcing and recruiting; performance management, learning and development; talent review and succession planning and compensation.

Analytics can also give HR professionals a better understanding of how effective their actions are. For example, analysts can look for patterns in HR data that can help companies improve hiring or reduce attrition, or pinpoint areas where labour-related savings can be achieved.

Analytics can also be used to support training, development and other activities that are more closely tailored to individual employee needs – thereby helping HR deliver more customized options for employees. As the Accenture research notes, HR can use analytics to segment employees in much the same way that marketers segment customers. For instance, companies can group employees by a wider range of criteria that include learning styles, values, personality, wellness profiles, mobility, behavioural patterns, and networking and communication styles.” Using that approach, HR can customize programs for smaller and smaller segments, helping to increase employee performance, engagement and retention.

Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) are the databases, software and computer systems that companies use to maintain their human resources: payroll, time off, employee records, benefits, and more.HR metrics is the data used to quantify the cost and the impact of talent management programs and HR processes and measure the success of HR initiatives.

R is the most used HR analytics tool. R is great for statistical analysis and visualization which is very suited to explore huge data sets. It enables you to analyse and clean data sets with millions of data.

R-Studio is an open source and enterprise-ready professional software package for R. It basically does everything that R does but has a friendlier user interface. The interface contains a code editor, the R console, an easily accessible workspace, and history and room for plots and files.

Microsoft’s Power BI It makes the aggregation, analysis, and visualization of data very simple. With Power BI, it’s a cinch to connect to multiple source systems, like SQL databases with people data, a live twitter feed and/or machine learning APIs. All these different data sources are then combined in Power BI. This simple aggregation process enables you to combine multiple data sources in one large database.

Some of the other HR analytic Software which are hugely popular are – Oracle HR Analytics, Talent Soft Analytics, People Insight, Sum HR to name a few.

In short term there are and will be start-ups in specialist areas, like in team or network analysis, engagement, performance, strategic workforce planning etc and the cloud-based HR management systems (delivering most of the data). These two areas will soon see the consolidation into larger systems and service offerings.
Finally, the costs of these technologies will reduce which will help spread the use and demands for analytics as smaller organizations will be able to afford to deploy this.

Book Review : The Geography Of Transport Systems

Book Review
THE GEOGRAPHY OF TRANSPORT SYSTEMS

By
Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Claude Comtois and Brian Slack
Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group) (2016)

Mobility is fundamental to the socio-economic development of a geography. Transportation has become such an integral part of our daily lives that we as consumers are not able to clearly see transportation as a separate function. Various corporates are heavily dependent on efficient logistics to grab a comfortable portion of the market. Acknowledging this importance of transportation systems, the authors Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Claude Comtois and Brian Slack have worked on this book – The Geography of Transport Systems – to address various areas of concern that the managers and policy makers related to transportation face at present.

Divided into ten chapters, the book focusses on Transport Geography which is defined as a sub-discipline of geography concerned with movements of freight, people and information.

In the first part the authors present a new angle to look at transportations systems. They opine that transportation must be understood as having a spatial network structure and having close relation to commercial geography. In the next section, the authors talk about the necessity and the challenges related to various modes of transportation. The focus of this section is on inter-modal transportation which falls in line with the spatial network concept talked about in the first part. The chapters towards the end of the book describe the relation of transportation with economy, energy & environment and policy. The last chapter focuses on methods of analysisin transport geography.

The beauty of the book is that all the basic concepts of logistics and transportation viz. various modes, network models like hub and spoke, cross-dock, etc. have been covered. However, they have been presented and discussed in a non-traditional way, that links these concepts to the subject of transport geography. The authors mention that transportation is of no value unless it transforms the geographical attributes of freight, people or information, from an origin to destination, conferring on them an added value in the process.

According to authors, transportation plays a major role in international trade as well as at local urban level. It is associated with adding the maximum value in terms of time and location; whether it is passengers or goods that are being transported. The authors analyse urban logistics or city logistics using the concept of Urban Sprawl. This is defined as the spread of city buildings and houses into an area that was earlier a countryside or a less densely populated area.

A unique feature of the book is that it has a separate dedicated chapter on addressing the environmental concerns arising out of transportation. The authors mention that environmental impacts of transportation can be classified as direct, indirect and cumulative impacts. To understand the link between transportation and the environment, the managers must look at the main environmental dimensions of transportation – causes, activities, outputs and end-results of transport systems.

Transportation is a value-adding activity and to do so, it consumes energy just like any other commercial activity does. It accounts for 25 per cent of the world’s energy demand and 61.5 per cent of all the oil used each year. It is important therefore, that technological development in transportation must not only focus on economic and service level performance but also at minimizing fuel consumption and reducing the negative impact of transportation on the environment. This will help in making transportation truly sustainable.

The book clearly distinguishes policy from planning. Policy involves making strategies while planning involves implementation. The outcome of policy and planning is creation of suitable transportation infrastructure, by both public and private agencies. However, the challenge is that policies and plans are continuously changing as they address key changes in society and contemporary issues.

An essential feature of the book is the large number of case studies. Since the authors explain the concepts from new perspectives of transport-geography and sustainability, the inclusion of cases to demonstrate this was imperative and extremely useful. Each chapter has about three case studies incorporated.

This book is a suitable read by practicing managers and academicians who actively engage in research and consulting. However, it is not recommended as a text book for beginners or students in their management course, as to understand the perspectives present in the book, a basic and simple understanding of logistics and transportation is desired. It can definitely be picked up as a reference book.

Ms. Pragya Arya
Assistant Professor – Operations
IILM Institute of Higher Education
Lodhi Road, New Delhi

Impact of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is expected to change the way every industry works. It involves creating machines that can work intelligently like humans. The use of data is increasingly driving major decisions in different industries. This data when fed and used by machines give machines the wisdom to think like humans. Hence there is huge dependency on integrity of data. The need of the hour is data centric technologies and institutions will need to upgrade their curriculum to remain competitive. The key to getting employment in future is to upgrade skills of people and work towards specialization. The necessary skills required for data centric technologies are being identified to align educational institutions.

While changes are being introduced in the companies, one has to find a way to continue sustaining an income until the skills get upgraded.The limitations of humans will no longer be a concern with advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. With the use of Robots, the number of errors will reduce and the speed and quality of work will improve. Many countries that face limitations due to lack of youth in large numbers will no longer be behind in the race towards advancement. Labour intensive work will be automated and humans will take the activities that require critical thinking and analysis. The cost of performance in the long run will reduce though initial years will require huge investment towards automation. As per Mckinsey’s report, by 2055, half of the work activities could be automated. Humans would need to start getting used to working with machines. New skills will need to be acquired and the policies created by the government will have to be innovative to accommodate this major impact in type of employment.

AI has started delivering value in various sectors. Retail sector is using AI robots to check inventory and place orders automatically when the inventory levels are low. With the analysis of big data, retailers are able to predict sales and are able to manage inventory and make profits. Robots can work alongside humans in retailers warehouses and increase productivity. Delivery to customers can be done by drones like Flirtey. Check in and issuing of boarding passes have started without the requirement of human intervention in the airline industry. Manufacturing industry is seeing a drastic change. Optimization of processes across the value chain from refinement in product design to using AI based tools throughout the supply chain is possible.  In healthcare, AI can lead to better diagnosis with the use of big data analysis of patient history, other similar cases and treatment details. The insurance companies can use big data to improve their business model. Routine patient interactions can be done by AI enabled robots which have all the basic information.

Educational institutes will also have to rethink their strategy for sustainability. In Education, there are going to be virtual tutors who can tailor the curriculum for students. The education system will see a dramatic shift as AI will be able to forecast the need of future employers. Institutes are exploring how AI applications can be used to improve retention problems in students. Programs teaching computer applications are using a personal tutor which gives questions to students along with hints as well as increases complexity level of questions based on performance. Big data and analytics can be used to reduce drop-out rates in students. Educational institutes will have to promote adaptive learning and teaching, looking at student data and use personalized and effective teaching methods.Value add work will continue to remain with humans and thus teachers will be expected to mentor and coach students. The primary areas would be creativity, emotional intelligence and communication which maybe beyond machine’s capability. Machines will cater to the routine queries of students can be automated to save time and effort. The technology is pervasive and has also entered grading. A company GradeScope uses machine learning to grade students on the basis of teachers instructions and students handwriting, though it is more for objective type of questions. Thus the focus of the teacher can be on higher level value add areas rather than routine queries, administrative work and basic lecturing.

Several key factors will determine the level of automation and its adoption. The technical feasibility of automating the task at hand for every industry will need to be evaluated. Since automation will take time and investment, the adoption will be dependent on the cost of development and implementation. The economy will struggle with the shift from cheap labour to buying expensive machines and experimenting. Though the economy will benefit because of better quality and speed of work, the acceptance of this change will determine the speed of adoption. Thus the day to day activities are not forecasted to change fast. At the micro level, changes are expected, however at the macro level it will take decades before complete adoption is seen.

4th Annual Entrepreneurship & Family Business Conference on “Changing Paradigms: Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Family Business”

IILM institute for Higher Education organized the Fourth Annual Entrepreneurship and Family Business Conference on 6th April 2018 at its Lodhi Road Campus.  The conference was centered on the theme “Changing Paradigms: Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Family Business”. This conference aimed to explore the importance of innovation and sustainability for an entrepreneur and associated opportunities and risks. The conference also uncovered the key challenges faced by Family Businesses in high potential economies such as India in the era of digitization and the need for digital transformation for sustenance. The Conference was structured around three key sessions.

The conference began with the welcome remarks by Dr. Daisy Mathur Jain, Dean IILM-UBS. In her welcome address Dr. Daisy gave an overview of the Entrepreneurship focus at IILM with special focus on opportunities that students get to gain experience and hone their skills. She also spoke about the various international affiliations IILM has with Universities across the globe. IILM is also affiliated with the Family Firm Institute (FFI), Boston. This year, IILM is also introducing an M.Sc. in Family Business as a post graduate specialization in partnership with SBS Swiss Business School, Switzerland.

The Inaugural session comprised a keynote session by Ms. Sonu Bhasin, Founder, Families and Business, highlighted that family businesses are the unsung heroes of the Indian economy by citing interesting figures to support her claim. She fervently held that Entrepreneurship is a state of mind and an ability to get things done, using the analogy of a line black ants and the flow of water. She also underlines that failure does not stop entrepreneurs, rather it eggs them on, because they believe in their purpose. She added that it is important to remember and keep the focus on the family values for a family business to succeed and remain successful. She ended on a positive note that today the time is right to start and entrepreneurship because digitization has reduced capital requirements, technology is an enabler that has opened a plethora of opportunities to this generation that earlier ones did not have access to. She urged the youngsters to go ahead and start something new.

The first plenary sessionwas entitled “Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Sustainability”wherein Ms. Guneesha Kohli, Business Head Malika International, Mr. Sameer Talwar, Founder Entrepreneur of Excellence, Mr. Raman Talwar, Founder Simulanis and Mr. Rijul Bajaj, Co-founder Samshek Foundation shared their insights. The speakers emphasized that innovation is nothing but challenging every assumption and reinventing what you do to make it faster, more efficient and better. Each of them, through personal examples,  underscored the need to be open to failures, to learn from them, to stand up once again and to not give up on the dreams.

The second plenary session on the topic “Digital Transformation of Family Business Firms” was also the closing plenary. Mr. Virendra Teotia, Owner Umrao Hotels, Mr. Ridhay Khanna, Owner, HH Global and Mr. Aviral Aggarwal, Director Bikanerwala, shared their experience and paved the possible way forward.Each of them spoke about the role that technology and digitization plays in reducing costs in massive ways for marketing and for reach, for building customer relationship and branding. They also underlined the need to be flexible and adapt to technological change by transforming business and the way it is run.

Active participation from students and faculty made the conference a great success.Itprovided an opportunity for students and faculty to engage with and listen to new ideas and experiences from distinguished speakers and also to network with established entrepreneurs and investors.

IILM Global Study Program – ISM Dortmund

We started with the global study program for three weeks from 5th August-25th August at ISM Dortmund with 34 students, (from Lodhi Road and Gurgaon)accompanied by two faculty members. Prior to the departure an orientation was held for the students and their parents briefing them on the process of the global study.The week started with the orientation at the ISM Campus and the students received a very warm welcome from the International Cell.

The first week was designed for studying the module titled Strategic Management. The examples used by Prof. QeisKamran covered all disciplines including economics, politics, marketing etc.The last week of the program covered the second module titled Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The module was delivered Using multiple tools such as videos, live cases and in case presentations involving creative and innovative thinking activities

The pattern of delivering the modules was very well received by the students.

1. Lecture-Activity-Lecture pattern of teaching: The modus operandi of the Professor at ISM Dortmund was to follow Lecture-Activity-Lecture pattern of teaching &learning.The students were equally involved in the teaching learning process.Every 20 minutes of lecture was followed by a half an hour activity.This not only engaged the students but also ensured that they are able to apply the concepts,theories & strategies in a real-life scenario.Activities taken up with the students involved Video snippets, live company examples, group presentations, brain storming sessions etc.

2. Idea Generation/Brain storming sessions: The Entrepreneurship module was delivered using a lot of brain storming sessions wherein the students were made to work on entrepreneurial ideas/prospective business models. This was able to gain maximum participation from the students as they were required to present a business idea that could capture the untapped needs/segments, specific to the Indian Markets.The focus was also on considering CSR & environment protection as core to the ideas generated.

3. On the spot Case based class presentations: The students were provided with Stanford & HBR case studies on the spot as an element of surprise class presentations. The purpose of the discussion was to bring out the analytical and problem-solving skills of the student group. Each of the student was required to present.The rules of presentation was made clear to the students in the beginning.Each group presentation was followed by a series of Q&A by the Professor so as to judge the analysis involved in the points presented.

During the visit students were also taken for a city tour of Dortmund which they immensely enjoyed. The bus tour was very well conducted, and the students enjoyed the scenery and the places of interest which Dortmund offers.

Two company visits were organised one at Dasa and the other at Wilo.

– Dasa is an exhibition centre run by the bureau of occupational safety and health hazards and focussing on
– Safety measures for all kind of catastrophes be it earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes.
– The safety gear and equipment’s required to counter such catastrophes.
– Detailed explanation of all countermeasures to combat calamity.

The students were also taken for the second company visit to a German based company named-Wilo.The students experienced the production of pumps and other parts using robotic technology.The students were briefed about the made to order production philosophy followed by the company.

The closing ceremony was held prior to the departure with the dean thanking the students for the visit at the ISM Campus followed by the departure of the students from Germany.

Book Review – Intercultural Communication for Global Business – How leaders communicate for success by Elizabeth A. Tuleja (2017)

Communication, undeniably, is essential for any business to thrive. Especially in today’s context, when most of the organisations are located in various corners of the world, communication holds an all the more important role as people from different cultures come on a common platform to work together and therefore, ensuring effective exchange of ideas and information among people of diverse backgrounds becomes not only an important but a critical function of the leaders in order to drive success. Elizabeth A. Tuleja’s Intercultural Communication for Global Business – How leaders communicate for success offers a brilliant tool to those who wish to understand various dimensions of inter-culture at play, and importance of intercultural communication, consequently highlighting how to learn and hone communication skills. The book offers an exhaustive account of how the changing world is making intercultural communication imperative to the achievement of business objectives.

Tuleja interestingly draws historical references from classic works of Hall, Hofstede, Trompenaars and Kluckhohn among others to show the importance of intercultural communication in a business set-up and states that today culture and business are interwoven to an extent that “we have reached a point of no return with the cultural imperative – it is unavoidable, it demands our attention, it is an obligation, and it is a necessity if we are to survive.” And therefore, we must learn how to interact with people with higher levels of sensitivity and openness. Though the book acknowledges the plurality of definitions of culture as it is a wide, abstract and complex concept, the author also highlights that peoples’ values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours may be defined as the building blocks of culture.
Communication in a business environment requires us to comprehend human nature, social behaviour, and mental behaviour, and use communication to interact with others thereby making the four sciences, namely anthropology, sociology, psychology and communication the “four legs” when we “think of the field of management as being the seat of a chair”.

Intriguingly, the author makes the readers reflect upon who they are and better understand various aspects of their identity by focussing on their relationships, jobs, status and how these things define them because according to her, the people with whom we relate and network shape our self-image. Further, she suggests that recognising the different cultures of our own country can be the starting point to understand difference.

The author presents the Value Orientations Model developed by the anthropologists, Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck. According to them, world views may be imperceptible forces which influence our life and profession. In this context, to gain an understanding of people of different cultures, it is essential to understand their view of the world. The Value Orientations Method, therefore, serves as a tool to understand core cultural differences related to five fundamental orientations of the human beings, namely Time Sense, Activity, Social Relations, People and Nature and Human Nature. An understanding of these five aspects facilitates better understanding of the organization.

The author concludes by emphasising that certain norms of global leadership are universal. However, the manner in which they are carried out depends on the context and the situation in different cultures. Hence, people across various civilisations and organisations have distinct criteria for evaluating success of leaders.

Tuleja presents a series of case studies to show how organisations have set-up themselves in various corners of the world and gained prosperity by working with mixed cultures. Simultaneously, the book also offers an account of certain challenges encountered by some organisations while trying to work in cross cultural groups. The various case studies include experiences of Wal-Mart, Nike, Cheerios Commercial, McDonalds, Starbucks among others.

All in all, the book is a must for students and teachers of management, employees and leaders working in various organisations.

My Global Study Tour at ISM, Germany

My Global Study Tour at ISM, Germany
By – SurbhiDhasmana

IILM Undergraduate Business School offers a view and experience of a big World beyond the Horizon. To be in sync, with the Global vision of providing Economy with Responsible Entrepreneurs in today’s time. IILM gives the first-hand experience about multi-lingual cultures, organizations, and business practices around the world. All this encapsulated in a mandatory 3 weeks Global Study Program at Germany or Canada or Finland, to choose from.

Global Study Programs are also designed to strengthen student’s knowledge, skills and attitudes to create economic and social wealth everywhere. Giving a sense of living in harmony with the environment and becoming self-reliant in the known and unknown circumstances.

One of the options under Global Study Program offered to the students is in association with International School of Management (ISM), Dortmund, Germany.

On the 6th of August 2017, 35 students along with two faculty members, from both Lodhi Road and Gurgaon Campus boarded Lufthansa flight for Frankfurt, Germany to reach ISM. Modules taught consisted of “Advance Strategic Management” and “Entrepreneurship and Innovation”. Each set of Module is designed keeping in mind the fundamental importance of business learning. IILM students are required go through a well-planned and structured format of the conduction of the modules as per ISM curriculum. The teaching methodology applied during the program takes place in the shape of Interactive Classroom Teaching, Numerous Presentations, Harvard Case Study Sessions and much more. The icing on the cake was when Professor Kamran was happy with the students that he provided an additional teaching class on the subject “Design Thinking” which is certainly the next big thing in the industry.

This three weeks program was a blend of high standard teaching, Industrial visits to DASA and WILO, and Cultural interaction. Prof. Qeis Kamran is a person with vivid knowledge and vast experience, teaching students about What could be there rather than What is there. Our student Coordinator, Jana Dargel from ISM was kind enough to make our stay comfortable.

German Culture is about People being hard working, sincere, honest and punctual. They are very helpful, warm and welcoming to the visitors to their Country. During the week ends and spare time, we traveled across Europe. People we came across were very helpful, even when they didn’t know the way they used their Google Map to guide us. Some of the places the students planned and visited on their own, included Berlin, Paris, Praha, Zurich, Amsterdam, Brussels and Spain. It was overall Personal as well as Social skills development 3 weeks program.

To Conclude I would say;

Thank you IILM for giving me this golden opportunity to learn and experience the world beyond IILM campus and across the Continents. Global Studies by far has been one of my most delightful experiences. From cross-cultural diversity to different business trends and challenges, I learned an essential side of business studies. Faculty and Friends – they all made my Global Study Tour worth cherishing for life.

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PREPARING FOR PRESENTATION

 

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PRESENTATION GIVEN BY STUDENTS

 

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CITY TOUR OF DORTMUND

 

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(Left) : STUDENTS WAITING FOR BUS TO ISM | (Right) : TEACHING AT ISM BY PROF. KAMARAN

 

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PARIS FROM ABOVE EFFIFEL TOWER

 

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COMPANY VISIT TO DASA

 

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COMPANY VISIT TO WILO

 

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COMPANY VISIT TO WILO

 

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PROF. KAMRAN

 

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POST OPENING CEREMONY AT ISM

 

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COMPANY VISIT TO DASA

 

BBA Stage1 and 2 Students Visit Yakult Manufacturing Unit, Sonipat

Students of BBA batch visited Yakult Danone India Pvt Ltd on 5th December 2017 along with Prof Anindita Chatterjee. Yakult Danone India Pvt Ltd is a joint venture of Japan and France and company has a global presence in different countries such as China, Brazil, UK, America, Malaysia etc.

Students got useful information about the production process and beneficial bacteria. After presentation Yakult milk-drink was offered to students for taste. Once the presentation is finished, there was a question-answer session in which students asked various questions about testing, quality control, safety, micro bacteria etc. There after students went for factory visit and layout and production process was explained by operations executive in a detailed manner. The visit ended with a group photograph and vote of thanks.

The visit was very productive for the students as it brought new insight about the usage of bacteria, production process, automation and quality control. Students were mesmerized to see the state of the art infrastructure and maintenance of hygiene in the company. At last vote of thanks was given by the students for the nice hospitality shown by the management of the company.

The students were shown a presentation on the inception of Yakult, the benefits of Yakult Probiotic along with a round of the manufacturing unit.

The students enjoyed the visit immensely, and were presented with goodies from yakult.

Hr Conference On Organizational Execellence Through The Power Of Human Capital

IILM INSTITUTE FOR BUSINESS & MANAGEMENT
HR CONFERENCE ON
ORGANIZATIONAL EXECELLENCE THROUGH THE POWER OF HUMAN CAPITAL

Date – 7th October 2017

The competitive environment of the 21 century where most competition is global and innovation is the need of the hour, change becomes the core competency of any organization Human Capital can play an important role in helping organizations achieve change. Human Resource has always been central to organization. Today, it has taken on an even more central role in building a firm’s competitive advantage. The dynamics of change becomes one of the central facets of any business where the role, function and process of Human Resource must be redefined in the context of change. Human Resource Strategies and practices explain how to manage the transition smoothly, rapidly and successfully and make the organisation competitive and reach excellence. For every organization, human resources (HR) are like their treasured assets. In order to faster the employee performances, efforts should be directed to treat them carefully and effectively. Every entity wants to attract and retain talented employees to work for them at top levels. Hence, it is very difficult to achieve organizational objectives without managing human resources effectively.

The International Conference oriented to highlight the importance of human resource management for every organization be it government or private. There is no doubt that the conference has brought out the essence of the theme “Organizational Excellence through the power of human capital” in all its aspects and that too in a brilliant manner. The theme is so relevant in today’s context especially when HR as a function is facing lot of challenges and transition.

There was a time when employee management was once referred as workforce management, and then transformed to Personnel Management. Later the same transformed into human resource management and then Human Capital. And now it is Talent Management. In some organization HR is referred as Business partner and that is more strategic in nature. No doubt, HR has now become more dynamic and crucial to the success of the organization in creating excellence. And increasingly the organizations have started realizing that any mistake on this could be a costly one.
We had many leaders from different industry giving their views and perspective on the dynamics of HR. It is very interesting to note that these views came from multiple industry right from an Aircraft manufacturing company, Consulting, Insurance, Consumer durables and to Software

IILM Institute for Business and Management,Gurgaon organised an International HR conference on the topic:“Organizational Excellence through the Power of Human Capital” on 7th October 2017.

The day of conference began with all zeal and extol by lighting the lamp in the presence of our esteemed guest, Dr. Aquil Busrai, Mr, Anshu, Mr. V.P.Singh, participants from the corporate and academic sectors along with the IILM members.

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Dr.Sujata Sahi lighting the lamp

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Dr. Aquil Busrai lighting the lamp.

Conference started with the welcome speech given by Dr.P. Mala Rvizhi, Director Academics, IILM. She extended her warm welcome towards all the respected speakers of the conference with all fervour of gratitude and gaiety.
Starting with the conference topic “Organizational Excellence through the Power of Human Capital”, Dr. Pinky Goswami briefed the objective of the conference and gave a brief recapitulation of the HR Conference of 2016. In her speech, she stressed on giving importance to the concept of collective intelligence in order to bring about organizational excellence. She also remarked the need to cultivate a strong sense of team spirit, wherein each member will complement each other for organizational success.

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Dr. Pinky Goswami addressing the audience

Keynote Speaker:

Dr. Aquil Busrai, our esteemed Key note speaker – A man with exceptional knowledge about Human Resource and having an array of experience serving in the field of HR for more than 4 decades.Today, Mr Busrai owns his own consulting firm named “Aquil Busrai Consulting”. Mr. Busrai keeping his view point stated “Improvise-Adapt-Adopt” and deal with status quo of technology advancement, keeping hands on now HR people recharge the human capital for organisation.

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Plenary session: Leading the conference ahead plenary session begins.

Mr. Paramjit Singh Lamba, AVP HR, Orient Craft Pvt. Ltd. addressed the audience in the Plenary Session about the skill sets required for the future. He discussed about work life in future in which he told about the attributes which a company would be looking in a candidate in the future including social intelligence, new media literacy, etc. He also told how the export sector is the most affected sector by recent government reforms.

Mr. Dhananjay Singh, Director General NHRDN putting his view point said that focussing on Investing in good habits and ability to work in a team is all about organizational excellence through human capital.

Mr. V.P.Singh, Advisor OD Patanjali Ayurveda Ltd , Human capital leader with proven credentials for building process driven, people centric & customer focused organisations continued the session and said that “Fanatic discipline; Monomaniacal Creativity that is empirical and Productive Paranoia are required to be great”.

Mr. Ashutosh Anshu, General Manager, Head HR, Hitachi India addressed the session and enlightened the young PGDM students with his viewpoint. He said, “You can’t do today with yesterday’s methods and be in business tomorrow”. He also spoke about how to adopt today’s changes into our everyday lives. He stressed on the point of “ASK”, Attitude, Knowledge and Skill.

Session 1: Raising the Bar of Human Resources Management

Dr. Saima Rizvi, session moderator for the session welcomed the entire respected HR professional and talked about how Humana Resources Management is raising its bar from traditional shift to Strategic shift in the modern age.

Speakers of the Session were:

Ms. Ruma Batheja: Head Human Resource Knowledgetics and she talked about “Raising the bar through Inno-Create People Management Skills; Collaborating Humanity and Technology; Emotional and Organizational wellbeing.”

Mr. Gautam Rao: AVP Max Life stated”Four pillars required to raise the HR bar

1. Build Talent Pipeline and Capability
2. Enhance Business Performance
3. Innovate HR Excellence
4. Inspire Engagement”.

Corporate Paper presenter: Ms Shefali Bahi shah, Head HR Exicom presented a paper on “Impact of Organizational competencies on organizational performances in manufacturing industry”

Student Speakers: Sefali Mittal (PG 2017-2019, IILM Gurgaon) spoke on the changes in HR from the traditional world to the world of the Millennial. Ms. Ruchi Singh (PG 2016-2018, IILM Gurgaon) spoke on how technology becomes a boon to the world of HR.

Session two: Redesigning workforce for 21st Century Manager

Dr Vidhisa Vyas, session moderator for the session briefed the session explaining the need and redesigning demand for the workforce and work culture in 21st century

The session picked up steam with the topic 21st century manager Ms. Divya Jain, Director Grant Thornton talked about the Workplace for the Human Age. She said today’s workforce is even more powerful than their company itself. They decide the fate of the company and are very keen on learning. Hence, the most required thing in today’s era is an open and honest feedback which can lead to the betterment of the workforce which in turn can increase the output.

Ms. Anju Sabhrawal, Founder and CEO, People Bridges talked about Well-developed and embedded cultures that are the key to redesigning the workforce.

Mr. Ajay Mehra, Managing Director in South Asia of Airbus. He expressed how we first need to identify ourselves and then other employees as an HR manager. First we need to follow and then only implement the rules. He also talked about the sustained expansion of the service industry in today’s era.

Paper Presenter: Ms.Monika, Junior Research fellow from Jamia Millia Islamia presented a research paper on workplace spirituality and its impact on workforce. She emphasized how employee satisfaction is more important than consumer satisfaction.

Student Speaker: Charu Goswami (PG 2016-2018, IILM Gurgaon) talked about how vision leads the company. Whatever is the employees’ vision about his life is sufficient to judge his role in the company.
International student Paper Presentation: Neil from Sweden said, “Human Resources is the most important in India as here there are too many people involved as opposed to developed lands where more machines are involved”.

Session 3: Managing People Performance through HR Analytics

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Organising Team

This session focused on people performance through analytics that is so critical in today’s competitive job market with Dr. Sona moderating the session.

Mr. Deepak explained how we are between a cusp of technology and globalization and in the middle is HR. He also said whatever was difficult for the computer to understand has been made easy by humans through emotions. Hence, it is important to understand the needs and sentiments of the employees for better performances.
Mr. Gaurav Bakshi, Co-Founder and Managing Partner explained how predictive analytics in HR is the need of the hour today. He said future skills, future needs are to be anticipated by the HR keeping in mind both inside and outside factors.

Similar views were expressed by Ms. Malabika Bose, HR Head, Blackberry. She shared a quote relating to whatever gets measured gets managed and whatever gets managed gets executed. She also gave insight about the three stages of HR analytics namely predicting, analysis and reporting.
Ms. Prerna spoke about the transparency needed in the culture of the company which can only be brought by the HR.Towards the end, Mr. Siddharth Dutta a first year PGDM student presented a paper in which he focused on the Maslow’s theory in the Indian Context.

We, at IILM consciously make an effort to bring the industry and academia together, through such conferences and we will continue to strive for the same in future. On the behalf of IILM gurgaon, Prof Siva Ram Krishna delivered the vote of thanks to all the privileged guests, corporate jargons and students of IILM for their contribution in making the conference all a grand success.

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Organising Team

Conference Patron: Dr. Sujata Shahi
Conference Chair : Dr. Pinky Goswami
Conference Scientific Committee: Dr. P.Mala and Dr. Saima
Student Core Committee Members:
PG1: Shefali Mittal, Massom Garg, Nayan Saluja, Megha Mathur, Manan Porwal,Rishabh, Chirag, Alisha Suraj Gulati, Ketan Patwari, Harshit, Aman Godaria,Venika
Social Media Team : Ruchi Singh,Sunit Raj, Harbind Singh, Priya Gupta (PG 2016-2018)
Report Compiled By : Dr. Pinky Goswami, Prof. Rachna Madaan, Ms. Manya and Ruchi Singh (PG 2016-2018).