Colloquium’— the Annual Business Conclave organised by IIM Indore had a great start on Monday with several eminent personalities gracing the occasion. The theme of the three-day conclave is ‘E-Commerce in India — From Bricks to Clicks’.
This is the trending topic in all business circles and the students turned up in huge numbers for each of the guest lectures. Day-1 of the conclave began with the inauguration and welcome address by Director Rishikesha Krishnan. The first lecture was given by Vaitheeswaran, commonly referred to as ‘Father of e-commerce in India’.
He was the founder and CEO of Indiaplaza.com, India’s first internet retail company. He has also very recently served as a strategic consultant for the TATA group on e-commerce. This was followed by the talk on Growth of e-commerce in India by Shanu Singh, an alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Bangalore. He currently heads the E-commerce and Digital transformation arm of Godrej and Boyce Mfg ltd. He highlighted the trends in the industry supported by data as well as about the challenges the sector faces.
The third talk was by Shyam Katuri, current AVP-Business unit head at FashionAndYou. Earlier he has served as Director, Jabong and DGM at Pantaloon India ltd. He is an alumnus of london Business School, UK. With several years’ experience in the sector his talk enlightened the students about the various models, trends in the sector. An enthusiastic question-answer session followed.
Post the lunch hour, a Panel Discussion on the topic ‘E-Commerce in India’ took place with all of the above mentioned speakers and one of the second year students’, John Jose Numpeli acting as the moderator. It was a very insightful session as various experts shared their diverse views on the questions raised. The last event planned for the day was ‘Elevator Pitch’.