The schedule of events was as follows:

Date                Day                 Event                           Faculty in charge
06/02/10          Saturday          Inaguration                  Prof. Veni Nair
07/02/10          Sunday            Movie followed           Prof. J A Bhavsar
                                                by Q& A
08/02/10          Monday           Paheli -                       Prof. J A Bhavsar
                                              The Crossword Puzzle

09/02/10          Tuesday           Duvidha - Business
                                                Quiz                            Prof. Charu Shri
10/02/10          Wednesday     Samhita - Collage         Prof. Veni Nair
                                               Competition
11/02/10          Thursday         Parivartan - Business    Prof. Charu Shri
                                               Plan Competition
12/02/10          Friday             Shadyantra - The          Prof. Priti Bakshi
                                              Business Game
13/02/10          Saturday        Meet an Alumni              Prof. Priti Bakshi
                                              Entrepreneur

The week long events had students from a number of colleges participating in the numerous events. The Business Plan competition was the most attractive one with a first prize of Rs. 25000/- and the runners up reward of Rs. 10,000/-. Entries came in from IIM-K, IIT-B, NITIE, Bits Pilani, SIOM, K. J. Somaiya, etc.

The inauguration was done by Mr. Rajesh Kumar, Asst. VP, SIDBI, while the Business Plan finals were judged by Mr. Jay Gupta, MD of LOOT chain of stores. The grand finale was attended by three alumni entrepreneurs, Mr. Ajita Prasanna (Odyssey Consulting Services P Ltd.), Mr. Ashok Solaiappan (Silver Eye Softw

Basant Panchami or Shree Panchami is a Hindu festival worshipping Goddess Saraswati, the Goddess of knowledge, music and art. It is celebrated every year on the fifth day (Panchami) of the Indian month Magh (January-February), the first day of spring. This festival was celebrated in ITM Business School on 20th January 2010, Wednesday, with great excitement & vigor.  The puja was conducted by Prof. Jayanti Banerjee. 

      The sthapna of the idol was done in the foyer. Many students & faculty members wore yellow traditional garments to worship the goddess Saraswati. The occasion was graced by the presence of faculty members, non teaching staff & students. All the decorations including a beautiful flower rangoli was made by the students. The Pushpanjali were offered by all the devotees present in the puja. The prashad was distributed to everyone at the end. Overall, it was a blissful and joyous experience for one and all.  

Press Report:
Supply Chain Management (SCM) has become a critical factor to achieve competitiveness in business and hence many companies are investing resources to align their supply chain to meet the ever increasing expectations of customers and community.

As part of our efforts to bring industry and academia together and to provide a platform for sharing knowledge, ITM, Kharghar has organized the 5th edition of SCM Colloquium on 09/01/2010 at ITM, Kharghar. The day-long seminar was well attended and appreciated by Industry participants.

In the words of the student of IES & other Management Institutes, ITM has taken a very good initiative in organizing the seminar. 

A galaxy of speakers from Industry and academia presented and discussed the various facets of SCM in 4 technical sessions and each session was followed by lively question answer session.

In his welcome address, Dr. V. V. Sople, Deputy Director, ITM Business School and Head of Research Center for Supply Chain and Logistics Management explained the objectives of the seminar and announced the launch of a Centre of  Excellence  for Supply Chain and Logistics along with quarterly publication of  Center – Supply Chain Pulse.

Mr. Anurag Deepak, Executive Director, BPCL outlined the importance of SCM in large organizations like BPCL  & in other petroleum sectors  and advised the young managers to develop right attitude to solve problems in Supply Chain and achieve excellence. Mr. Anurag Deepak launched the ITM SCM &Logistics centre of Excellence and the inaugural issue of Supply Chain Pulse news letter.

Dr. P. V. Ramana, Chairman, ITM Group of Institutions gave a thoughtful analysis of impact of lack of understanding of supply chain issues on competitiveness of Indian industry especially the problems faced by retail sector.  

Dr. A. K. Dasbiswas, Professor Emeritus, ITM emphasized the need to apply the knowledge of academicians to solve some of the key issues faced by industry to enhance supply chain efficiency.

Dr Seetamraju, Professor of Operations management in University of Sydney, Australia in his key note address highlighted the importance of people related issues along with process based solutions for supply chain excellence. Dr Raju also gave an outline of various models and tools for measuring supply chain efficiency.

Mr. K. R. Sekhar, VP, Procurement, Bayer Crop Science Ltd. explained the importance of right tools and techniques for forecasting for effective supply chain management.

Mr. M. N. Kumta an industry veteran with over 35 years of experience in Automobile industry explained the concept of Japanese management technique called Kan Ban for efficient scheduling of production. His simple mantra for success is “Plan as per forecast but schedule production as per actual demand”.

Dr Siddhartha Sengupta, Principal Scientist, TATA Consultancy services gave an update on the various models used for Business architecture and Enterprise Architecture with special focus on supply chain management in outsourcing. Dr Sengupta declared that outsourcing is here to stay and Indian IT companies have lot of challenges to maintain their superiority in IT&BPO services to Global markets.

Dr. R S Ghosh, Associate Professor, ITM presented a comprehensive study on Based Supply Chain Practices of Indian Pharmaceuticals industry since drug discovery to delivery process. Dr Ghosh is optimistic about the continued competitive edge of Indian pharmaceuticals sector, given its size and the talent pool supported by large vendor base relation.
Mr. Malwankar, Sr. GM, Logistics, Tech Nova Imaging Ltd gave an overview of the Govt. policy initiatives, Regulatory environment along with Global perspective and the desired industry response as key drivers for supply chain effectiveness. He maintained that Industry needs to be more proactive in terms of response to various Govt. initiatives to maintain the competitive edge lest they will be edged out of the market by MNCs.

Prof B V R Murty, Deputy Director, ITM Global Leadership Centre in his valedictory address gave a summary of the proceedings of the daylong seminar and outlined the task ahead for the young managers and industry.

The seminar concluded with a vote of thanks by Dr Saritprava das, Area Coordinator, HR, ITM.  

Thus, the 5th edition of Supply chain colloquium 2010 by ITM provided a valuable platform for knowledge sharing of best practices by industry along with current Areas of research and scope for further study.

"Dr. A. K. Dasbiswas, Professor Emeritus, ITM, and erstwhile Dean, ITM Kharghar, presented a paper at the 6th World Congress in Malaysia, organized by Academy for Global Business Advancement (Texas, USA), from 27th to 31st December 2009 which won him great accolades for his research work in marketing. He also chaired the session on "Changing Business Environment". His research article has been published in "Advances in Global Business Research Vol 6 No1". Besides appreciation of his article and outstanding contribution, he was awarded the "AGBA 2009 Distinguished Scholar" certificate. Academicians from 70 countries participated in the congress and Vice-Chancellor of Unversiti Utara Malaysia and Dr. James P Johnson, Professor International Business of Crumer Graduate Business School Of Business, Florida, USA, even invited him to teach at their business schools."
Click here to view AGBA 2009 Distinguished Scholar certificate

Institute of Technology and Management (ITM), Kharghar campus, organized the Annual CRM (Customer Relationship Management) convention on 28th November, 2009.It was a one day program divided into three sessions.The main objective of CRM convention was to bring together different industry’s leaders, academicians and students by providing them a common platform to exchange views on the evolution and implementation of CRM across different sectors.

 The convention was addressed by eminent stalwarts from different fields like pharmaceuticals, banking, travel and tourism, healthcare, advertising etc.

The event was inaugurated by the chief Guest Mr. Anurag Deepak (Executive Director, BPCL). The inaugural address was given by Dr. V.V. Sople, Dy.Director of ITM Business School, Kharghar.

The first keynote lecture was given by Mr. Anurag Deepak. He started by introducing the concept of CRM and gave an insight on how BPCL incorporated CRM. The convention was then addressed by Mr. Bhaskar Ranjan Das(Director U21 group). He focused more on various strategies of CRM and its implementation in retail banking sector and BPO’s.

Mr.Parthosarthi Mukherjee(President Corporate Banking, Axis Bank) shared his view on various levels of CRM. He was successful in incorporating jokes and humour into his speech which grabbed the audience attention and increased their enthusiasm.

Dr. Prasanth Nair(President-HR, Thomas Cook, India) marked the beginning of the 2nd session. He was of the opinion that understanding the customer and their needs is an important step to identify the target and charting out the progress. He added to the discussion by giving insights into how Thomas Cook successfully implemented CRM.

The most awaited speaker  Mr. Tirthankar Dash(VP, Quantum Market Research Pvt.Ltd) took the audience through a new route of CRM. He was critical on Customer Relationship Management and strongly disapproved the basic idea behind it. According to him, CRM is not about managing relationship with customer but it’s all about “Happiness”. He stressed on the fact that time has come for the heroic marketing which not only means customer satisfaction but “doing right for the customer”. He ended up the session by giving some strong examples of cult brand. He mesmerized the audience with his wit, sharpness of mind and innovative thought process.

The third session was led by Mr. Pranay Bhattacharya(Chief Manager Inter-Audit, ICICI Bank Ltd). He started off quoting Gandhiji’s statement “Customer is not an interruption of our work”. He laid the importance of trust in the customer relationship.

Dr. Rajeev Boudhankar(CEO, Fortis Health Care), elucidated the ethical and non ethical issues related with CRM in the health care industry by giving live examples.
Ms. Arun Nagpal(Vice President Customer Care Ltd. Blue Dart Ltd), introduced and explained how CRM helped in retaining and building new customers. The last speaker, Prof. J.A.Kagal(Charted Engineer, Professional Consultant), talked about CRM and it is implementation in normal life.

The session had engaging discussion ranged from different issues of current business world and brought out some unknown and realistic fact regarding the CRM. It gave students an all together detailed and different overview on why and how to concentrate on building sound relationship with customers. The discussion gave students plethora of knowledge which will be useful throughout their life. Students got to know the insight of various companies through the speakers present there and also got the opportunity to interact with them. The Convention was a win-win interaction between students and the industry. The session was valuable take away for students and will help them to implement in every course of their personal and professional life.

Initially, started in the name of HR Club, marshaled various activities like guest lectures, role-plays, street plays, debate competitions, business quizzes, etc. To provide a professional and wider platform for students to showcase and enhance their management and life skills, we changed the identity of HR Club to HR SYNERGY, a forum for young professionals especially in the field of HR. This vision would be realized through some activities that are more diversified and strategic in nature such as developing mini research projects, customized training modules and many more. Moreover, this forum would act as a bridge between academics and industry, thereby helping in developing and updating the curriculum based on industry requirements from time to time as well as increasing the employability of the future budding HR professionals at ITM Business School.

The forum inaugurated on 29th Nov 2009 with lighting of the lamp by our  chief guest Mr. Prem Akhauri along with the management personals of ITM Business School. Mr. Prem Akhauri .Addl. VP HR Reliance Power Ltd. while giving his views on the topic –“Changing needs & aspirations of Young Professionals” identified the face of young professionals as – informed, confident, extrovert, energetic, ambitious, fun loving   & happening. He quoted Swami Vivekananda and said that low aim is a crime because aspirations help in pulling you up,& motivation helps in driving you forward. He said that the young professionals should first strengthen their roots; they should be good at their fundamentals& should have holistic approach .He also emphasized on various other aspects like values ;the importance of enjoying the work ; passion ;the important role that mentor does; &last but not the least, the power of simplicity.

 Mr.Satyajit Dash -GM HR, Idea Cellular who was the second speaker at the inaugural function, threw light on “Corporate expectations from MBA Students”. He said that the industry’s expectation from MBAs is that they should be problem solver, should have global mindset, should be informed, trust worthy, competent & should have integrity& speed & excellence in execution of ideas. He also enunciated several key people strategy which included – talent acquisition, Matrix reporting, competency development, talent engagement, to name a few.

Mr.Alen Goodwin- Asst. VP HR Agility Logistics-inspired the young minds present there through his thought provoking speech. He highlighted the importance of attitude as the main criteria for recruiting so, while skill & knowledge have their own importance; it is often the attitude which is a distinguishing factor. He said that to be successful one must be transformational in his approach. He pointed out that the role of HR is to polish people through training & to make them shine .He also emphasized the omnipresence of HR by pointing out that to be an effective manager ,in any field, one should have  the qualities of an HR Manager i.e.  one must be very good at dealing with people.

 The forum has also launched its own website”itmhrsynergy.com” which will not only add up as technological advancement to the forum but also a source of easy access to HR related information for young professionals.

The event was well organized with the efforts and commitment of the students .The forum promises to continue the same effort and enthusiasm in future and make a milestone in the history of ITM.

Dr A.K.Dasbiswas was honored as Best Teacher in Marketing Management from 17th Business School Affaire & Dewang Mehta Business School Awards held at the Taj Lands End, Mumbai, on 5.11.09
 
He has been invited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Committee (NAAC), an autonomous body of the Ministry of HRD, Government of India, to be an honorable member of the jury of experts who would assess and recommend various Institutes of Higher Education for certification.
 
He has been formally invited to be an advisor and member of the governing council of the prestigious Father Agnel Group of Institutions in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai.