Touched The Hard Questions From Business To Media

Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar keeping the tradition organized business conclave on 6^th and 7^th August 2016. Three Events took place during two day conclave – Finomics 2016 (organized by X-FIN, the Finance Association of XIMB); Mercatique 2016 (organized by MAXIM, The Marketing Association of XIMB) and Communique 2016 (organized by Illuminatix, Media and PR Cell of XIMB).

Finomics 2016

The theme for the Finomics was focused on “The Startup Funding and Valuation Bubble” and the presence of industry experts made it an insightful discussion among the participants and panelists. Mr. Vikram Gupta (Founder & Managing Partner of IvyCap Ventures Advisors Pvt Ltd), Mr. Chandru Badrinarayanan (Executive Director & Head of Client Coverage for South Asia at MSCT), Mr. Soundararajan V (Project Head at Bombay Stock Exchange), Mr. Sanjay Nishank (co-founder of GREX) and Mr. Chittaranjan Mohanty (Executive Director at JP Morgan Chase, were among the panelists who extensively talked about the present startup culture in India.

The first speaker of the event Mr. Gupta spoke about how startup ventures emerge and why some startup shut down prematurely. Similarly, Mr. Nishank accepted that “let it be a bubble, but we have changed the way business is done today”. The mismanagement in utilizing funds in the initial stages of a startup is one of the critical factors in their survival in the long run.

The third speaker of the day Mr. Mohanty told about the difference between an angel investor and a venture capitalist. “Angel investors are like Godfathers”, he said and venture capitalists are motivated by profit only. The interesting analogy between an atom and a startup presented by Mr. Badrinarayanan, cleared many doubts among the audiences about the formation and growth of an startup. The last speaker of the event Mr. Soundararajan said “valuation is a myth, everybody chases it” and emphasized on the need of focusing on value over valuation.

Mercatique 2016

It was held on the second day of the conclave on 7^th August. The topic of discussion was “Driving Customer Loyalty in Digital Age”. The speakers on this topic belonged to industries like Tata Sky, Titan Industries and Accor Hotels and their discussion gave a wonderful insight over why customer loyalty is important in the long run.

First speaker Ms. Madhu Joshi (Director, marketing and communication at Hotel Formule 1 Pan India) said “loyal customers don’t just come back; they don’t just recommend but they insist that their friends do business with you”. The next speaker, Mr. Sujoy Chakrabarti (Vice President, Tata Sky), spoke about how loyalty is no more just a transactional deal with the customers but continued excellence and cultivation of relationships. The third speaker of the event, Mr. Bidyut Nath (Head – Customer Loyalty and Analytics, Titan Industries) elaborated on the importance of personalized customer data in building a successful brand.

Communique 2016

“Communiqué 2016”, the media conclave which took place in the latter half of 7th August, aimed at addressing “Ethics in Media”. The eminent speakers for the event were Mr.Vishnu Som, Editor & Principal Anchor, NDTV; Mr. A.S. Panneerselvan, Reader’s Editor, The Hindu; Mr. Vikrant Shanbhag, CEO and Founder, Thatscoop Media Pvt. Ltd. And Mr. Sujit Mahapatra, Founder and Secretary, Bakul Foundation.

The moderator of the event, Dr. Sasmit Patra, set the tone for the proceedings of “Communique 2016”.  The first speaker of the afternoon was Mr. A.S. Panneerselvan who laid emphasis on the distinction between the crisis in the media industry and the crisis in journalism. He said “Journalism is reporting but the act of verification is what makes journalism, journalism.” The second speaker, Mr. Vikrant Shanbhag, brought forward the difference between featured content and reporting by analyzing the CSR Pyramid. Mr. Sujit Mahapatra, the next speaker, went on to highlight the trust deficit in the social sector and the cynicism of people towards the media. Mr. Vishnu Som, the final panelist of the day enlightened the audience by focusing on electronic & media journalism while stressing on the need to discriminate between credible media and the media which is not credible. Mr. Som concluded by saying “Let there be space for genuine ethics.”

All conclaves were concluded by a question and answer rounds with the audience.