CONFLUENCE 2013

The Corporate Interaction Division, which is the official student-driven interface between the students of FORE School of Management and the corporate world, organized a seminar on 29^th of August, 2013, aptly named “Confluence 2013”, where four highly esteemed experts from diverse backgrounds and organisations spoke and enlightened us on the topic of “Challenges and opportunities in catering to the bottom of the pyramid”.

The event was chaired by Prof. Freda Joseph Swaminathan , a senior member of the faculty at FSM. She began the proceedings by introducing the guest speakers to us. Then she gave us a brief overview of the topic under discussion and in the process made references to Mr C.K. Prahalad, whose book “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid” was a seminal work on the subject. She also looked back on her days at IIM Ahmedabad, when she was a student of Mr C.K. Prahalad. She lamented the fact that very few people nowadays want to cater to the bottom of the pyramid.

The first speaker invited to the lectern was Mr Ajay Chowdhury, who is the Vice President & Head HR at SRF Ltd. His speech was centred on harnessing the power of the people. He opined that all pyramids are contextual, which is why an economy class traveller is at the bottom of the pyramid in one context and at the top of the pyramid in another. He talked about the role he plays in catering to the bottom of the pyramid as member of his organization. As Mr Ajay Chowdhury has been in HRM all his life, he likes to get involved directly in the various rural development programmes that his company undertakes. He personally trains people in two or three sports in the rural areas. His company also organizes a Nature Resource Management Programme, whose function is to convert non-arable land into arable land.

The next person to speak was Mr Joginder Bajaj.  He has work experience of over 36 years in Punjab National Bank and is presently the General Manager there. He too advocated the idea of “eradicating poverty through profit” as propounded by Mr C.K. Prahalad. He outlined the major obstacles lying in the way of eradicating poverty through profit, such as the lack of awareness in the business community of the potential of the hitherto untapped market at the bottom of the pyramid, lack of money, lack of infrastructure and most importantly the lack of willingness across the business community to engage in developmental work in rural areas.

Mr Sanjay Kumar Nigam, Head, SCM and Procurement, Mara-ison Technologies Pvt. Ltd, was the next to take the lectern. He spoke at length about the present economic scenario, the depreciation of the rupee and the implications of the same for the people at the bottom of the pyramid.

The final speaker for the day was Mr. Samik Dasgupta, Deputy General Manger, IFCI. He gave a fiery speech on the need for a complete overhaul of the approach of the business community towards the bottom of the pyramid. He stressed on the need for a bottom-up approach and declared that a top-down model will never work.

Next we had a Q & A session, which gave the students an opportunity to interact freely with the experts.

And finally, Prof Swaminathan brought the event to a close by summing up the discourse, thanking the guests for their invaluable inputs, and gifting mementos to the guests.