XIM UNIVERSITY XAVIER INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT, BHUBANESWAR
Business Excellence Summit -2022
To Celebrate 35 years of its rich legacy, Xavier Institute of Management, Bhubaneswar organised the 4th edition of the annual Business Excellence Summit from 29th September to 1st October 2022. The theme for this year’s summit was Transcending boundaries.
The first day consisted of the inauguration ceremony, which was presided over by Vice-chancellor Rev. Father Antony R. Uvari SJ, Registrar Father S. Antony Raj SJ, Deputy registrar, and CFO Father V. Arokiya Dass SJ and Dean academics Mr. Biswa Swarup Mishra, and the honorable keynote speaker, Group Captain Atanu Guru.
The welcome address was delivered by Vice Chancellor Rev. Father Antony R. Uvari SJ, who also declared the Business Excellence Summit 2022, open. Dean of academics, Biswa Swarup Mishra delivered a thought-provoking speech. CFO, Father Arokiya took the opportunity to introduce the keynote speaker.
Group Captain Atanu Guru, took center stage to deliver a powerful speech to the young leaders of tomorrow and motivated the students to transcend boundaries, search beyond the ordinary, question the status quo, appealed to balance between our emotional quotient and intelligence quotient, rely on intuition, plan for contingencies, and aim to achieve things beyond one’s perceived potential.
Mr. A. L. Jaganath, the Head of Marketing, ThoughtWorks, an esteemed alumnus of XIM, Bhubaneswar delivered a speech on the topic ‘Customer Centricity’, “See the world’s problems through customers’ point of view. This cannot be achieved by sitting in offices. You have to go to the ground and collect information about what the customers require. Only then will you have insights into the actual customer needs”.
Col. Rajeev Bharwan, the youngest officer in the Assam Rifles shared his experiences from his academy days, providing insights on how tough the life of any soldier can be. He ended his talk with two keynotes: life is not a business and we should not gauge it by just profits and losses and the fact that the best investments are the ones we make on ourselves.
Shefali Vijaywargiya, Brand Manager, Amul started her talk by sharing her journey and talked about the importance of symphony and vision, “Brand management is something that requires all stakeholders to come together and give their best. It’s like a train where all wheels need to work in a perfect symphony just like all parts of a company.”
Shri Debendra Narayan Kar, Chief Commissioner of Income Tax in Chennai, shared his views on how future leaders should be prepared to work hard before entering the corporate world. He mentioned, “Those of you who are new to various subjects, work hard. For the ones who know it, don’t be complacent”.
A Forbes 30 under 30 panel was also organized at the campus which was presided by Shefali Vijaywargi, Brand Manager, Amul Kool; Nishita Baliarsingh, Co-founder and CEO of Nexus Power and Sahithi Devi, Director of Mohanam. The topic before the panel was “Prism of Possibilities.”
The second day of the summit witnessed Ashwamedh- The Annual Operations Conclave of XIM, Bhubaneswar, conducted by X-Ops. The theme of the conclave was “Agility, Vision, and Resilience in Modern Supply Chain Business”. The first speaker was Mr. Partha Roy, who shared insights about his career journey, challenges, and disruptions in the supply chain and also highlighted the requirement of functional agility in businesses. The second speaker, Mrs. Reena Evans, discussed her journey in the e-commerce world and shared her learnings about flexibility, data reliability, and core vision, all of which are quintessential in supply chain management. The next speaker, Mr. Pravaat Kumar Kar spoke to the enthralled audience regarding his experience of working in close contact with the Odisha Government. The last speaker of the event, Mr. Jaya Krishna Das engaged in an insightful discussion with the audience on the management of the Works Department of Odisha. The event closed with an engaging Q&A session between the audience and the speakers and a vote of thanks by the Coordinator, Piyush Kumar Nayak.
The morning session began with speaker Manoj Kumar Swain, Founder, SOCH, sharing his views on the topic “Beyond Conventional”. He mentioned, “If you want to start a venture, one thing that is the most important is a match of values with your investors, and your investors should complement your skills”. The keynote was to find a balance between being professional and giving back to society.
Mr. Shubham Singh, Co-Founder and CEO of CRASTE, delivered a speech on ‘The Art of Social Entrepreneurship’, wherein he highlighted, “A social entrepreneur is someone who relates to others’ problems. We all do have a long list of our own problems, but there are hardly a few of us who bother to do something for others.” He shared his experiences from his start-up and ended the talk on two keynotes: Firstly, “It is important to be passionate and it is okay if you do not have an idea, what is more important is that you have a passion that keeps you moving” and secondly, “Harness your potential through volunteering, a small act of kindness can change your life.”
The afternoon session started with Mr. Subhash Bhutoria, partner at DSK Global, who briefly discussed Intellectual property rights “Everything has a law, and we should know some bit of it for our own benefit”, and “As professionals, it is important that we look into contracts and deals, we don’t want to be agreeing to something we don’t like. Understand every bit, then only sign. Always be 100% sure” was correctly stated by the speaker.
The session with Rajesh Srivastava, Penguin’s best-selling author of ‘The new rules of business’ discussed how every brand has an essence that needs to be understood. He emphasized that every industry that you work for needs to be reimagined. He said that “we have two choices: either do the things that have already been done or go out there and reimagine the industry”. He mentioned that, to understand the essence of any brand we must create an ecosystem based on the consumer insights.
The final speaker for the day was Prema Suresh, the Director of Mumbai Operations of Technip Energies and the first person from her family to become an engineer. She explained about the roadmap of software engineers, their futures, and their uncertainties. Subsequently, she talked about the future and uncertainties. She explained about the VUCA model, 3Ps of a business, and the importance of learning, unlearning, and relearning. She concluded her talk by addressing that “the future is how we mould it!”
Day 3 of Business Excellence Summit 2022 initiated with Mr. Vivek Atray, an ex-IAS delivering a speech on the topic ‘IQ and EQ in the Corporate World’, where he highlighted ‘Your IQ & EQ have to be high enough to understand the bigger picture.’ He mentioned three stories, each giving insight into being humble, having a sense of humour, and how to achieve balance and calmness in all situations.
Sharbani Sengupta, Vice President – Customer Service at DHL Express, delivered a speech on ‘Magic of Mindful Leadership. She shared her dateless diary points wherein she emphasized always being in a positive energy zone. “Being in a zone of mindfulness and high energy is what makes you successful. You will find insights that will help you change the world”.
The session with Mr. Rohit Kilam, the CTO – CMS Info Systems, was extremely insightful where he explained that the process behind any start-up begins with identifying the problem, trying to solve it using innovation, and modern techniques, uniquely building the solution and scaling up the organization at a fast pace. He also stressed on how the world has swiftly moved from physical to digital and how new age companies are capitalizing on it by citing examples of Nykaa, Zomato, Zerodha.
Mr Ashish Garg, Managing Director of Group G, started his talk with an anecdote describing his humble childhood where they lived a simple life despite having ample wealth. He mentioned that the teaching, “It’s not about the fish, it’s about the art of fishing,” awakened an entrepreneurial spirit and helped him become a successful being. This was passed on to him by his forefathers over generations meaning that inherited wealth wouldn’t make one happy. Instead, the hustle and the art of fishing give real happiness. Finally, he parted with his enriching words of wisdom “Simplicity wins over shrewdness as simplicity creates goodwill, and goodwill creates business. You do not have to be shrewd to make businesses successful.”
The next speaker, Dr. Swatee Sarangi, HR Head of Global Generics India, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, presented her views on the subject, “Thriving Through Innovation”. She started the session by introducing the two terms, thriving and innovation and explained that to thrive one needs to innovate and for innovation, we need to think creatively and look past existing ways of seeing the world. She briefly discussed the mindset, skillset and culture that drives innovation where she mentioned, “Innovation is not a fad. You cannot jump into it just because everyone is doing it. You must do it because you believe that your innovations will solve real problems and benefit society”.
The last speaker of the day was Mr. Shailesh Paul, Vice president of VISA shared his opinions on the topic, “Changing the paradigm of the payment structure in the country”. He started the talk by sharing his personal experiences of growth through his career journey. He later explained, in detail, the work that VISA does and how it has been instrumental in changing the way payments around the world work. He also discussed the future of the payment system. The session ended with an engaging Q&A session.
The event concluded successfully with students taking away key learnings acquired during the three fruitful days of Business Excellence Summit 2022.
