Guest Lectures

CK Prahlad on campus On Saturday, 19th of July, CK Prahlad was on our campus. The visionary professor of University of Michigan and author of ‘Fortune at the bottom of Pyramid’ was here in Mumbai to interact with the students of our university on the theme India@75. I couldn’t attend this session due to some reasons (ok, my decisions) but I caught up with friends later on. They had found the session a bit boring as the speaker had not been able to connect with the audience on the core of the theme. When the best of the authors and speakers try to reach out to the audiences beyond a limit, there is always a risk of being self-infatuated and missing the ‘magic’. And today, when one of our professors gave an assignment to a group on the topic “CK Prahalad’s contribution to the management practices in India”, the junta laughed :) This was neither because Indians are over-critical of other successful Indians, nor because Prof. Prahalad had not contributed enough. It was just a sample of the interesting phenomenon when many a times, sound principles become reduced to management jargons… SCM Head, Cadbury On 26th of July, Mr. Saurabh Tiwari, Supply Chain Head, Cadbury India was on campus to deliver a guest lecture on the topic “Exploring the beautiful world of business – from lens of Supply Chain”. He started from setting the context in the changing times in India, and then went ahead giving the snapshots of supply chain challenges in Cadbury, the framework approach, sales and operations planning (S&OP), and the skill sets and careers in the field. Apart from all technical insights, Mr. Tiwari’s presentation skills and his connection with the young audience were commendable. The simplicity in delivery and the easiness with which he described the models were exceptional. The loads of chocolates that he brought for the students were just a sample of enthusiasm that he showed in delivering this lecture. The audience, which was dominated by freshly joined first year students, got really enlightened and were tremendously motivated by the speaker. After the lecture, the crowd waited to touch and feel him :), and I hoped he would have returned back with the feeling of a job well done… Other guest lectures: Mr. Pradeep Chechani, Supply Chain Head, RPG Spencers interacted with the students in a guest lecture on 23rd of July, under the theme of “The story of the Watermelon Seller”. This event was organised by Optumiz – the Operations Cell in coordination with IIPC. Mr. D Shivkumar - VP & MD Nokia India Limited was on campus on 31st of July for a Guest Lecture titled, "Where did the Leader learn Leadership?" Dr. Narayan Rangraj (co author of the book Logistics and Supply Chain Management – Concepts and Cases) was on campus along with Mr. Pulkit Jain, a student of M.Tech. on 7th of August. IIT Mumbai had designed a simulator for suburban section of Western railway. They demonstrated the logic, software and the constraints. This event was organised by Optumiz – the Operations Cell.