Prameya - Issue 11

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Foreword

In every issue of Prameya, it is our endeavour to encapsulate the new learning and events and present them in our magazine.

The editorial team of Prameya, has chosen the 'APPs' as the theme for this issue. APPs have revolutionized our daily working in terms of information assimilation, usage and communication. For an indvidual APPs are becoming necessity based habits and organizations as well use them as a big part of their online digital marketing strategies.

People Analytics has started playing an important role in human resource strategies. This was debated and understood at the HR Analytics Confluence conducted at the campus. Center of Excellence for Case Development conducted an innovative workshop blending the two interventions of case study and design thinking for the industry participants.

Our Management Development Center, hosted a global leadership practice program for an Australian Delegation providing them glimpses of India. Our ongoing efforts on industry alliances led WeSchool, Bangalore to collaborate with Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce to host a conference. Once again we bring the InnoWe Manthan series talk profiling emerging enterprises, that have adopted innovative design strategies for their growth and sustainability.

Our MPower club, hosted a panel discussion on E-commerce to M-Commerce to understand the essence of future of trade commerce. In the GURU Speak column our faculty has shared his thoughts on the need to augment the supply chain in E-commerce. Further we have a young entrepreneur sharing his entrepreneurial journey as well our alumni sharing his view on “Future of Apps".

At our campus, we encourage our students to become socially responsible and an article on our Rotaract Club student’s visit to Karunashraya details their experiences and after effect left on them.

The issue covers the the alumni meet hosted at WeSchool, Mumbai, wherein the alumni of WeSchool, Bangalore conducted an offline branding event to create brand awareness. Finally we do believe that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and hence our WeCricket tournament 2016 sponsored by our alumni provided a sports opportunity to the students, faculty and alumni.

WeSchool, Bangalore is hosting the Idea Contest - 'Think India Transform India' a South India Level Contest across 5 states Karnataka, Seemandra, Telegana, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The Grand Finale is to be hosted on 5th & 6th March, 2016 at WeSchool, Bangalore campus.Will share this story in the next edition of Prameya.

Happy reading!

Faculty Editorial Team

Editor

Prof. Dr. Sonia Mehrotra

Assistant Editors Ms. Shilpa Pathak Ms. Asha Mathew

Student Editorial Team Student Editors

Ms. Flinky Sharma Mr. Harshal Nandurkar Ms. Samriddhi Jaiswal Mr. Sino Mohanlal

Concept and Design Mr. Roman Rathod

PRAMEYA

Contents 1

Foreword

4

Group Director and Dean & Director’s Address

1990

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1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

The Smart App Revolution

By Ms. Shilpa Pathak, Assistant Editor, Prameya

Events

Round Tables

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People Analytics HR Confluence — Ethnos (HR Club) - WeSchool, NHRD

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A Case Methodology Workshop

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Global Leadership Practices Program

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Industry-Academia Partnership : Challenges and Opportunities

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Digital Renaissance in the Indian Retail Industry Panel discussion — MPower (Marketing Club) - WeSchool

Winning Strategies Using Design Thinking Tools — CECD - WeSchool, CII-IWN

Indian Perspective — MDC - WeSchool, Yellow Edge - Australia

Conference — BCIC in association with WeSchool, MaGE

InnoWe Manthan Talk Series — Business Design & Innovation, WeSchool

Sports 34

Joga Bonito

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WeCket

Football | WeSchool

Cricket | WeSchool

Issue 11

100%

Issue 10 Issue 9

1984

1994

1998

2002

2004

2006

2009

Evolution of MacIntosh

Articles 24

Entrepreneurship - Why?

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Augmenting the Supply Chain in E-commerce – Determining Winners and Losers

By Mr. Arvind Sivdas Co-founder - Messy Fractals

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Alumni Meet 2015

By Prof. Deepak Shyam Assistant Professor - Marketing

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Future of Apps

By Mr. Ashutosh Mishra — Alumni PGDM EBIZ (2010-12) Founder and CEO - Olga Consulting Pvt. Ltd.

MediSafe: Never Forget Your Pills Again - The Medication App

By Ms. Juhi Sharma — PGDM EBIZ (2015-17)

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Community Service Drive at Hospice Karunashraya Rotaract Club, WeSchool

Achievements 33

Faculty Achievements

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Idea Contest 2015-16

Student Achievements

South India Level Contest

PRAMEYA

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Group Director and Dean & Director’s Address

DR. UDAY SALUNKHE

GROUP DIRECTOR, WESCHOOL

DR. ANIL RAO PAILA

DEAN & DIRECTOR, WESCHOOL - BENGALURU

“Each Individual fact, taken by itself can indeed arouse our curiosity or our astonishment, or be useful to us in its practical applications.”

- Hermann von Helmholtz

“The greatest mathematicians, as Archimedes, Newton and Gauss always united theory and applications in equal measure.”

- Felix Klein

At WeSchool, we practise the art to focus on both: each individual and each process to bring about the necessary quality in all deliverables across the two years of the curriculum. The education is imparted by a hybrid model using the concept based pedagogy, experiential pedagogy and application oriented experiences. The result is a holistic individual ready to take on the challenges of the real world both professionally and socially.

It is my pleasure to share that WeSchool Bengaluru with its presence in Silicon Valley of India is today an established B-school in Southern India. Recipient of Best B-school award 2015 from Bangalore Management Association, it has grown under the vision and guidance of our Group Director Prof. Dr. Uday Slaunkhe. Our strengths lies in our ability to adopt a balanced approach towards education that has the optimal mix of theory and practical applications that helps nurture holistic individuals in the two years of their tenure with us. At Bengaluru campus we run AICTE approved PGDM, PGDME-business and PGDM –Business Design & Innovation programs.

Our campuses provide a balanced approach to education through the state of art facilities such as Innovation labs, learning resource centres, a transformative and intensive curriculum, dedicated faculty and an opportunity of collaborative learning among students that come from diverse cultural, and professional backgrounds.

As we prepare for our new academic batch 2016-18, I welcome you to be part of WeSchool Learning journey.

Best wishes Prof. Dr. Uday Salunkhe Group Director, WeSchool

Our focus on a learner centric environment is supported by our innovative programs, well equipped innovation labs, learning resource centre, robust industry interface, opportunity of global internships, exposure to Global Citizen Leaders program and a dedicated set of faculty members as mentors.

Prameya – the campus magazine is a student’s initiative supported by faculty members that maps the events at campus as well talks about one latest trend in the external environment, by way of interaction with external resource persons.

I welcome all to read our Prameya Issue 11.

Best wishes Prof. Dr. Anil Rao Paila Dean & Director, WeSchool, Bengaluru campus

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The Smart App Revolution

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By Ms. Shilpa Pathak Assistant Editor, Prameya

n a MBA class session the marketing faculty is engaged in explaining the concept of Social Media as a strategy and she observes a student engrossed in his Smartphone. She walks up to him and inquires ‘Whats Up’ ?

In another incident a 14 year old girl is astonished to see her mother glued to her smart phone.

Intrigued by her behavior, the girl questions her mother: what’s making her stay awake? The mother replies: “I am reading the latest message on ‘WhatsApp!’ Welcome to the world of Smart Phones and Apps which have made inroads into our personal spaces.

If you use a Smartphone, you know what is an App or Application - a light weight software program designed to run on the operating system platforms of the Smartphone, which can be easily downloaded and installed.

A journey that started with mobile communication; today the handset devices have undergone transformation - beyond imagination. The initial stage saw mobile devices which performed basic tasks such as voice calls and sending text messages (SMS). Even these ‘low intelligence devices’ had applications such as calendars and ringtones.

All of us have played games like ‘Snake’ or Pong or Tic –Tac. These were the first generation mobile applications which were designed by the handset manufactures. In those days these were nothing less than ‘trade secrets’, and were guarded by the handset manufacturers. These ‘first generation’ mobile applications were developed in-house.

Initially, smart phones were first seen in the new Millennium: R 380 was released by Ericsson in 2000, was followed by many other players like Palm and BlackBerry. During this period, the smart phones were targeted at corporate users who could pay for the premium product which had features such as email, internet, web-browsing etc.

It was in 2007, when Apple Inc. created ripples in the market when it launched the iPhone, the first of its kind smart phone for the mass market category and introduced users to the ‘touch and feel’ experience.

However, a new business line was unfolding which the current players had not foreseen, which would change the business model and human dynamics. Apple kick started the “App Revolution’ with the App Store, which was launched in 2008 and gave birth to a new software industry – the App Economy.

PRAMEYA

The Smart App Revolution

The App store led to establishment of first commercial digital distribution platform which challenged the mobile operators who earlier controlled the content.

Apple hired mobile app developers who developed exclusive new mobile applications for its IOS platform. Steve Jobs decision to implement the ‘paid in purchase app’ strategy catapulted the Apple store to new heights and triggered the app development war. Millions of apps from games, music, health, food and business are available on Apple store priced in the range of INR 50 to INR 50,000/- . Customers with deep pockets were willing to splurge on premium apps to avail the experience.

Subsequently Google Inc. launched its Google Play store on Android platform, an open source platform that enabled mobile software developers to develop new applications. The strategy adopted by Google, ensured that Android platform became the most popular platform available for smart device manufactured by Sony, Motorola, Samsung and Nexus among others, to download free apps.

The year 2015 has seen creation of about 75,000 jobs in mobile development in India because of app wave and the numbers are expected to double according to research conducted by Internet and Mobile Association of India.

Mr. N K Rajan, Co-founder*, Chief Technology Officer, and Co-founder of Stockal Software Pvt. Ltd. says “App development shall always keep evolving as a new means of developing business. Creative studios are using cognitive science models to design apps that are more interactive to the users .”

So, ‘Is a career in Mobile Application development a wise strategy’?

He further adds that independent app developers cannot rely on apps for livelihood, unless it is built around a supporting huge business. The biggest challenge for the independent app developers shall be to maintain the visibility of the app for a longer period of time in the app store. Those developers who are proficient in all aspects of product engineering will always be in high demand as compared to people concentrating only on App development for mobiles.

Today, APPs are becoming integral part of people’s lives, which was unfathomable a decade ago. A smart phone is never away from its users and accompanies its user to bathroom! Apps have made an impact: the habit of reading a newspaper or browsing the internet is slowly moving away in favour of Smart Apps.

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A study conducted by Nielsen on Smartphone user behavior revealed that an Indian user spends two hours a month on e-commerce apps – women 119 minutes and men 103 minutes. Number of times they check his/her smart phone: 50 times a day! Further there has been a change in India’s E-commerce industry which drives our retail boom. Today, e-commerce players like Amazon, Flipkart, OLX, Snapdeal have increased their advertising budgets and are spending millions on television advertisements to encourage users to download their APPs. An app installation by a customer signifies his commitment and loyalty to the brand.

In 2015, MYNTRA – a fashion apparel company and subsidiary of Flipkart, shocked the e-commerce players across the globe, when it shut down its desktop site and migrated to mobile application platform. The new business strategy evolved because the bulk of the traffic to its site and increased volume of transaction came from mobile devices. So, the move to mobile strategy was wise to garner the market share and build customer engagement and loyalty?

According to Dr. Githa Heggde*, Senior Associate Dean - Marketing, WeSchool, “The App Culture is growing in India.

App Usage has grown to 131% in the year 2015 and mobile application strategies will definitely boost sales.

However, companies need to take care whether they are on the right website with needed content and relevant communication to the target audience.” As a customer, she prefers to shop through brick and mortar retail outlets.

Between the laptop and mobile application she is comfortable on both - although she prefers to transact more on a laptop due to payment ease and application.

Further she adds that, there is a movement from E-commerce to M-commerce and companies will have to restructure their strategies to reap the benefits. This is evident when Myntra re-launched its desktop strategy in December, 2015, where shoppers can only browse and select products on the site and are then directed to make the purchase through the Myntra App. It is not just e-commerce companies in India that are striving to reach and engage their customers. The competition amongst private sector banks and adoption of mobile platforms has bought a new wave in the banking sector. The move has been possible because consumers are allocating their time to digital experiences and expect to be served anytime anywhere. HDFC Bank Ltd, launched PAY ZAPP, a mobile app that enables a customer to make online payments and Chillr, a wallet app that allows users to send money to anyone in their phone book and popularity of these apps is obvious because 1 millions user downloaded the apps. It was ICICI Bank, which envisioned a smart phone becoming a bank with launch of POCKETS, a digital banking service in 2015 and 2.8 million downloads were reported. The days of long queue at the bank branch have vanished, with usage of mobile banking service.

Today, all kind of business are harnessing the power of mobile apps to drive the sales strategy. The boundaries have collapsed between a provider of service and user and this is applicable to Government and regional authorities in our country, which has launched the Digital India campaign to connect with people.

PRAMEYA

The Smart App Revolution

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At state level, The Greater Corporation of Chennai has adopted a digital strategy to monitor its staff working at Urban Primary Health Centers. The move to WhatsApp strategy was formulated because patients complained that doctors, nurses and pharmacists and even the lab technicians would report late to work. The medical officer visits the site at 8.00 am daily and clicks a group photograph of staff present at the centers and uploads the photograph on the WhatsApp group. The objective is to curb absenteeism and to prevent tampering of attendance register. It is unbelievable that India‘s bureaucracy is leveraging app technology to bring discipline at the grass root level for better functioning.

The popularity of WhatsApp the messenger app is profound and it has 900 million users in India and is rising with higher sales of smart phones. However, it has become a medium for enterprising entrepreneurs running small business to build their brand.

Ms. Laxmijyothi*, a Bangalore based entrepreneur who started ‘FairPrice Kirana’ a grocery business leveraged WhatsApp strategy for a period of one year to build the brand awareness.

According to her “Credibility and Captive audience are two main components of any business. By starting a WhatsApp group I could capture both instantly. Since most of my customers are not very tech savvy, I found WhatsApp extremely easy for my customers to place the order. She further added “After a while the group acted like a virtual shop, where each customer's order complemented others. The forum also was an easy platform to discuss about products, answer queries and to share the feedback. Hence it was a direct connects with the customers. This created a viral effect to increase the customer base into many folds. Initially the Online presence was used to give up to date information about offers and products. When the number of customers increased, it was necessary to move to an online platform for an easy and fast order realization. Presently I am not using any app. But there are plans to move to mobile app, as mobile usability make customers more comfortable”.

According to Dr. Githa Heggde, the WhatsApp strategy is not feasible in the long-run because the forum is used for personal networking and taking a business on WhatsApp might create a feeling of customer privacy intrusion by users. Privacy has become crucial for users of smart phones who are wary of information and their habits being captured by developers of APP. The explosion of app development has percolated down to education sector. But will education apps reduced the illiteracy rate or enhance the standard of education and teaching? According to Dr. Jai Raj Nair*, Head of IT Vertical WeSchool, Bangalore, “Although there is a huge explosion of education apps in India, I don’t think that they are as effective as the old school model of learning through textbooks and a teacher who is tangible. Children need to be molded properly and it needs the extreme patience and knowledge of the teachers to make them understand the concepts, sometimes over repeated sessions. To believe that self-study through apps can replace the old school is wishful thinking”. He further states:” As gadgets become more and more affordable, user-friendly and widespread, apps will take over a big chunk of the teaching-learning process. This could be a few years down the line”.

When asked whether he would encourage his young son aged 7 to use education apps and play games at regular basis and does the child becoming a smartphone addict worries him? He said, “Not yet! I still follow the textbook and chalk-and-talk method for my son. But, keeping an eye on the future trends I would allow him to download apps that help him to solve small math’s problems, grammar exercises etc”. So we are seeing a change in way parents are open to new technology that benefits their children.

Apps are not only restricted to build business and sales; different people use apps for different purposes such as for productivity, social networking, entertainment, gaming etc.

So, is App explosion continues to rise or is it just another technology disruption? According to Mr. N K Rajan*, “The future of app development shall evolve around making the toys interactive for the kids, controlling IOT (Internet of things) device kits, assembling and controlling robots are the new arenas where we could see lot of app development”.

Hence, smartphone and App culture has penetrated and crossed the demographic barrier. People are defining their app choices by searching the application store or follow the recommendation of family and friends. We would advise our readers to use apps that enrich their daily life. *Author interviewed the person.

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Student Corner

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Medisafe: Never Forget Your Pills Again - The Medication App

By Ms. Juhi Sharma Student, PGDM (E-Business) - 2015-17

M

r. Verma has 3 dosages prescribed per day for his heart. However, he misses at least 1 every day. Thanks to the killing pace at which he is living his life, he finds very little time to keep up with schedules outside his workplace. If he sticks to this pattern, he may have to adopt stricter prescriptions.

Seeing his recklessness towards his health, his colleague tells him about Medisafe application to keep track of his dosages. Having faith in his co-worker, he downloads the app on his phone and is surprised to see the well-structured features Medisafe has to offer.

The very first thing he notices upon opening the application is a floating plus sign button that asks him to add his medication. The arraying of this section gives Mr. Verma to add the name of his medication, and a reminder which is further split into frequency of intake in a day, intervals at which the medication needs to be taken (the application itself suggests names when he starts typing), the timing and also the quantity (number of doses along with the dosage) to be taken at the scheduled time. He also discovers options to specify the shape and colour of the medicine he needs to take, he can also add instructions associated with the medication along with the details of the doctor who gave them. A special feature under this section is the RX Refill Reminder using which he can ask the application to remind him that he needs to refill the prescription either as number of pills or days to refill. Another brilliant feature is the feasibility to categorize these medications into time of the day.

The application automatically categorizes the medications added, into a 4 quadrant Pillbox. Each quadrant represents a different time of the day like morning, evening, etc., and within each quadrant the medicines are added according to the time specified. For each medication, Mr. Verma can also add a Medfriend. A Medfriend is someone with whom Mr. Verma can share all his medications. As per the timings specified by him, this friend will receive a notification and then he can accordingly inform Mr. Verma to make sure that he is actually taking the prescribed dosage. After entering complete details of his medication, he finds the measurement section. With 17 sub categories, this section lets him enter details of his blood glucose, calories consumed, blood pressure, temperature, pulse, etc. Moreover, he can send a status report of all these parameters to his family, friends, and colleagues by entering their mail id. He then happens to notice another intriguing feature called Diary.

PRAMEYA

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Student Corner

only gets to make a general entry, but he also gets to specify whether it is with regards to an allergy he has, or some kind of side effects that he is facing. Now that his medications, and measurements are part of the application’s database, he can move onto even adding details of his appointments. He sees options to add the title of his appointment, and from the list of doctors he had added against his medications, he can choose the doctor associated with this particular appointment followed by options to add the date, time and a reminder. In case, he forgets the details of the hospital/clinic in future, he can add its location. Finally, the application generates a report for him that gives him a daily, weekly, monthly, and an annual report of his medications in terms of intake completed.

He can share a pdf version of the report with anyone he wants by entering email address of the recipient.

Just like Mr. Verma, many others have been able to cling tightly to their med schedules using MediSafe. This application has over 1 million downloads on Play store. Around 63000 of these users have given it a five-star rating.

Its average rating stands at 4.5 out of 5. Maximum reviews talk about its ease of use, and how it has helped them follow their prescriptions. It may come across as maddening with the number of reminders it has, but that is exactly what someone who can’t keep up with his or her prescriptions needs. The founders Omri Shor and Rotem Shor were motivated to build this application after they faced a situation wherein their father accidentally took an extra dose of insulin putting him in a dire situation. Non-adherence to medications was the root cause behind the introduction of this application on Android, and IOS platforms. After 4 months of its launch, the users had reported an adherence rate of 79 percent. With the increasing complexity of our lives, we tend to miss out on details that could affect serious matters related to our health and life. Innovations like MediSafe ensure that we are able to effectively deal with these facets of our existence without hampering daily regimes.

Don’t forget to take your apples

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Events/ HR Confluence

4 PeoplE ANALYTICS

Human Resource Confluence on People Analytics Ethnos - WeSchool | NHRD October 9, 2015

Bengaluru: The human resource confluence on ‘People Analytics’ was organized by ‘Ethnos’ the HR Club at WeSchool, Bengaluru in collaboration with National Human Resource Development (NHRD), Bengaluru Chapter. The aim of the confluence was to help and engage the audience to understand the concept of Human Resource Analytics in India, opportunities in the future for a HR professional and deliberate on trends and its significance for HR industry.

Dr. Anil Rao Paila - Dean and Director, at WeSchool, Bangalore Campus, Prof. Dr. Savitha GR, Vertical Head – HR and Prof. Jyoti Pant, Assistant Professor - HR were instrumental in organising this confluence. They extended a warm welcome to the august gathering.

Mr. Anil Jalali, Executive Director – HR, India Domestic and Area South, IBM was the Chief Guest for the event. Before commencing with his address, Mr. Jalali, expressed

The confluence witnessed presence and participation of eminent industry professionals from organization like IBM, WIPRO, 3M, Hewlett Packard, Accenture, Happiest Minds, Infosys, Agora Analytics, Employee Experts, Motorola Mobility, Genpact, Tower Watson and Jigsaw Academy.

delight at the huge representation of student community and expressed the importance of industry and academia platforms for the benefit of the community.

In his address titled ‘People analytics as a Strategic Partner in the Organization’ Mr. Anil Jalali, expressed that analytics is imperative for HR professionals. He cited example where IBM had used analytics to solve the problem at client’s end and enable them to assess the workforce planning, reduce attrition and hire the right people. He briefly touched upon on three types of people analytics used in the industry – operational, predictive and cognitive. He mentioned how analytics helps companies to predict people’s propensity to leave a company and which business segments are impacted. It thus, enables the HR function to take a definitive action. People Analytics helps to infer skills of employee and also build on their skills and vice-versa. He also spoke about sentimental analytics on IBM

INAUGRATION

CHIEF GUEST

Mr. Anil Jalali, Executive Director - HR, India Domestic and Area South, IBM.

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Events/ HR Confluence social network and how listening and observation help derive insights which are important and these findings are shared with the leadership team at IBM. The key note address was followed by an interactive presentation by Mr. Shrihari Udupa, Director – Agora Analytics on ‘Fundamentals of People Analytics’. He spoke on curtailing attrition a challenge for HR professionals and how regular monitoring helps a company to identity the disinterested employee and evolve a plan to solve the problem. According, to Mr. Udupa, it is imperative for leadership at company to use analytics and plan their strategy. The session followed by a Q&A with audience.

SECOND SESSION

THE JOURNEY OF PEOPLE ANALYTICS – ACHIEVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES (Left to right) In discussion Mr. Santosh Panpaliya - Infosys Technologies, Mr. Amit Kumar - 3M, Mr. Karthik G, Accenture and Mr. Charan R N - Hewlett Packard.

Moderated by Mr. Praveen Kamath - Global Head of Talent Transformation, Wipro Ltd. (extreme left)

The second session was a panel discussion on the journey of people analytics to highlight the achievement for their organization as well as the challenges. The panel spoke on predictive analytics, logical thinking and design thinking.

There was consensus in the panel on how it helps talent, culture, product development and its impact on business outcomes. The panel emphasized on the importance of quality of data to enable sophisticated people analytics.

THIRD SESSION

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT IN PEOPLE ANALYTICS – THE GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE AND THE INDIAN MODEL (Left to right) In discussion Mr. Rahul Gurjar - Tower Watson, Mr. Raju Chellaton - Happiest Minds, Ms. Prakrithi Shetty - Genpact and Mr. Manish Sinha Motorola Mobility. Moderated by Mr. Srinivasulu M. - Founder of Employee Experts (extreme left)

The third session was a panel discussion titled ‘Business Development in People Analytics – the Global Perspective and the Indian Model’. The panel shared their experiences how data was used by a HR professional a decade ago to recruit people into organization. Today, HR is delving deep into data to derive insights and companies are using SAP, Oracle and Cloud based tools for analytics. Also, panel agreed that ‘Raw Data’ generated needs to be accurate because business intelligence is derived on its accuracy and helps in talent management and strategic decision. The panel also discussed about the opportunities of career in analytics and professionals with acumen in Maths & Statistics degree will have great opportunities as data scientists.

The fourth session was an interactive session by Ms. Subhashini Tripathi, of Jigsaw Academy on demystifying myth on people analytics. She held an interactive session and spoke of the on-going dynamics of people analytics in the industry.

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HR Confluence valedictory session in progress.

The HR Confluence concluded with the valedictory address by Mr. Siddharth S.N. Hon. Secretary NHRDN, Bengaluru Chapter and Head of Business HR for Hypermarkets. He spoke on the ‘Use of Analytics in Therapeutic HR’.

The HR confluence received an overwhelming response both from faculty and student community of MBA institutes in Bengaluru and in South India. The HR confluence had representation of HR students from Bengaluru MBA College such as Indian Institute of Science, Alliance University, Christ University, Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, IFIM B-School, CMR Institute of Management Studies, ISBR Business School, St. Joseph, PES University and few more institute from Bengaluru. There were representations from Institute of KLES IMSR, Hubli, PSG Institute of Management, Coimbatore and SDM Institute for Management Development, Mysore.

PRAMEYA

Events/ CII - Indian Women Network

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Workshop

A Case Methodology Workshop

Winning Strategies Using Design Thinking CECD - WeSchool | CII - IWN October 20, 2015

Bengaluru: Center of Excellence for Case Development (CECD), WeSchool in collaboration with Confederation of Indian Industries - Indian Women Network (CII-IWN), Karnataka conducted a one-day workshop titled ‘A Case Methodology Workshop on Winning Strategies Using Design Thinking Tools’ on October 20, 2015 at campus.

(left to right) Dr. Githa Heggde - Sr. Associate Dean Marketing, WeSchool, Mr.Lakshman PS - Head of Innovation, SAP Global Delivery and Chief Consultant with SAP Services Innovation and Dr. Anil Rao Paila Dean and Director, WeSchool.

The event started with the welcome address by Prof. Dr. Anil Rao Paila - Dean and Director, WeSchool, Bengaluru campus followed by Prof. Dr. Githa, Heggde - Sr. Associate Dean Marketing, WeSchool, Bengaluru and Co-Convener of Indian Women Network (IWN), Karnataka, welcomed the audience on behalf of CII-IWN. The keynote address was delivered by the Chief Guest Mr. Lakshman PS - Head of Innovation, SAP Global Delivery and Chief Consultant with SAP Services Innovation. In his address he stated his passion for the discipline of design thinking that adopts human centric approach to provide solutions to the everyday problems. Further, he elaborated the importance this discipline was gaining both in the corporate and academic worlds. He emphasized the importance of taking design to common people and cited example of IDEO work in this context. He also stated that though ‘start-ups’ may not use design thinking tools, but most entrepreneurs have a design thinking mindset that leads them to build successful business models such as Pinterest, UBER etc. He was appreciative of this new innovative format of workshop conceptualized by WeSchool.

The workshop adopted a new format of using the dual interventions of Case Methodology and Design Thinking to facilitate the objective of ‘Better Decision Making’ in work environments. The case methodology enabled the participants to enhance their critical and analytical thinking competencies to provide an integrative thinking perspective to the case problem, which was then further analyzed using the ten pillars of design thinking.

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CASE METHODOLOGY

DESIGN THINKING

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DECISION MAKING

CASE METHODOLOGY : SESSION ON ROBERT BOSCH ENGINEERING, INDIA (RBEI): PLOTTING A GROWTH STORY Mr. Guruprasad S. highlighted the parameters that he took into consideration at that time to solve the RBEI/ETT’s problem as stated in the case study.

SESSION BY Prof. DR. SONIA MEHROHTRA Associate Professor and Head CECD, WeSchool

RBEI CASE STUDY BY PROTAGONIST MR. GURUPRASAD S.

General Manager, Engineering Tools, Health Care Practice, Robert Bosch Engineering & Business Solutions Pvt. Ltd. The penultimate session of the workshop was a design thinking exercise that required the participants to identify the ten pillars of design thinking in the case study. This connected thread-line of the workshop using the two interventions of case methodology and design thinking helped participants appreciate the importance of these interventions in effective decision making.

SESSION ON BASICS OF DESIGN THINKING

SESSION BY Prof. PRAKASH V. UNAKAL

Sr. Associate Dean, Business Design & Innovation, WeSchool

SESSION BY Prof. DR. GITHA HEGGDE, ON BUSINESS ELEMENTS OF GOOD DECISION The workshop ended with participants sharing their appreciative views on this new workshop format that adopted both intellectual as well as hand-on activity to keep them engaged through the day.

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Global Leadership Practices Program

Global Leadership Practices Program for Australian Delegation MDC - WeSchool | Yellow Edge, Australia November 16 - 20, 2015

Bengaluru: The Management Development Center (MDC) at WeSchool, Bengaluru designed and conducted a five day workshop on the concept ‘Global Leadership Practices’ from November 16th to 20th 2015 in association with Yellow Edge, Australia.

The Australian delegation comprised of professionals with diverse background and representation from public and private sectors. Mr. Andrew Simon - CEO, Yellow Edge, Ms. Victoria Appleby - Client Manager, Yellow Edge Australia, Mr. Daniel Jones - Branch Manager of Governance, Risks and Assurance branch in the Department of Employment, Ms. Marie Lousie Smith - Regional Director SA NT, Department of Immigration and Border Protection, Ms. Nicole Pietrucha - National Manager for New Parents, Child Care and Program, Department of Human Resource, Ms. Heather Paterson - Principal, Campbell High School, Canberra and Mr. Swapan Nandy - Consultant and Ms. Rity Nandy Consultant.

The Global Leadership Practice program was implemented in two phases: Workshop sessions and a Study tour.

Sessions were held on India’s business landscape, Legal aspects of conducting business, Entrepreneurship models. Hands on activity on prototype was held at Prototype lab of WeSchool, Bengaluru and followed by discussion on Design Thinking and Innovation which was coordinated by Prof. Mohan Chandra - Dean - Business Design & Innovation and Prof. Prakash Unakal, Sr. Associate Dean, Business Design & Innovation, WeSchool.

The last session, a panel discussion on leadership was held with Retd. Air Marshall Chengappa - AOM Maintenance, IAF, Lopamudra Bhattacharya - Vice President, Deustche Bank, Prof. Dr. Madhavi Lokhande - Sr. Associate Dean-ADC/Finance & Organisation Ecosystem and Prof AKN Prasad - Head of Executive Education, MDC, at WeSchool, Bengaluru.

A study tour was conducted for the delegation with an objective to enhance their learning’s

The objective of the program was to provide an overview of India as a developing economy and showcase business opportunities and the unique leadership model being practiced.

17 WeSchool faculty Team interacting with Yellow Edge Team, Australia

through on ground interactions. Delegates had the opportunity interact with different set of professionals from varied backgrounds.

The delegates first visited the Infosys BPO Bangalore Campus, and later on they had a study tour at Radel Electronics Ltd. and Titan Industries Ltd. The delegates also visited a Government School outside the city and had a lively interaction with school children.

The program concluded in the afternoon with students of WeSchool, Bangalore showcasing their culinary skills at Hobby Kitchen. The delegates also participated and learned the art of preparing Indian cuisine with spices and relished the delicious Indian cuisine prepared for them by students.

In the evening, WeSchool, Bengaluru students had organized a cultural program to showcase India’s culture and the rich heritage. The cultural program commenced with a riveting and graceful performance by a Professional troupe, who performed – Bharatanatyam, the oldest classical form of dance in India. It was followed by performance of WeSchool, Bengaluru students who showcased their talent for dance and music and hence a lively atmosphere was seen in the campus. The students were attired in bright and colorful costumes and performed the popular Bhangara and Lavani and received applause from the audience. There was also a performance by WeSchool, band ‘Dhwani’. The cultural program was conceptualized and coordinated by Prof. Roopa Adyasha and the program was anchored by student team Ms. Ashwini Gangala and Mr. Apoorv Mathur.

An evening on Indian Heritage, Cuisine and Culture.

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Events/ Industry-Academia Partnership

Conference

Industry-Academia Partnership: Challenges and Opportunities BCIC | WeSchool | MaGE November 26, 2015

Bengaluru: On November, 26, 2015, Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce hosted a conference on the theme – ‘Industry-Academia Partnerships: Challenges & Opportunities’ at Hotel Chancery Pavilion , Bangalore.

CHIEF GUEST MR. BHARAT LAL MEENA, IAS (extreme left) Principal Secretary to Government Education Department (Higher Education) Government of Karnataka ACADEMIC SPEAKER Dr. ANAND K. JOSHI (2nd from left) Vice-Chancellor, CMR University, Bengaluru.

INDUSTRY SPEAKER MR. VAITHEESWARAN S. (extreme right) Chariman Task Force on Industry- Institute Interface (3i), BCIC and MD & CEO, Manipal Global Education Services Ltd.

Mr. Bharat Lal Meena, in his address spoke briefly about the Government initiatives of converting every classroom into smart classroom, and private universities being encouraged to adopt schools from rural villages in order to foster interaction between both the parties.

Mr. Vaitheeswaran, in his inaugural address, stated that such forums help in promoting dialogue between industry and academia. He suggested that the conference must result in action plan as to how students could be made employable right after they complete their education.

Dr. Anand Joshi, brought in an academic perspective to the line of thought initiated

by Mr. Vaitheeswaran and stressed on how it is essential to find ways and means to inculcate knowledge within the curriculum itself. He highlighted that governance plays a very important role in growth of such institutions in our country.

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PANEL DISCUSSION ON INNOVATION - SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR INDUSTRY ACADEMIA MODERATED BY MR. BALACHANDAR NATARAJAN The panel comprised of eminent professional from industry and academia. (Left to right) Mr. Deepak Hota, Director HR, BEML, Mr. Anand Bhaskar, Founder and CEO, Planet Ganges, Mr. Sebi Chacko, Chief Human Resources Officer Strides Shasun Ltd., Dr. Murli Nagasundaram, Former Prof. Boise State University, University Of Texas, University Of Georgia, Mr. Balachandar Natarajan, Group Director - HR, Coffee Day Global Ltd., Mr. Akshaya Gaur, CIO, Mashreqbank and CEO Mindscape IT, Dr. Anil Rao Paila, Dean & Director, WeSchool, Bangalore, and Dr. Raja Shanmugam, Chief People Officer, Happiest Mind Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Mr. Deepak Hota, spoke of skills being more important than degree a person holds. He said that industry doesn’t require management graduates, IITs and Engineers are more required.

Mr. Anand Bhaskar, talked of learnings happening under pressure. He believed that everything is a hurdle and we must stop being cynical. We need to create pull rather than push.

Mr. Sebi Chacko, from Pharma Industry focused on earn while you learn model.

He talked of education/learning plus CSR plus Job as an effective system.

Dr. Murli Nagasundaram, talked of focusing more on education and not on training. He suggested change in the culture and attitude of people when it comes to education. He said it's not only about content or technology, it's about knowing what, how and why. People can't afford to move out of their comfort zone as it is not sustainable. We should be open to failure and focus on developing personalities.

Mr. Akshaya Gaur, said that we learn theories which are of no use. He said it's not about skill and these can be learned, industry interaction is important as situational requirements are different and thus one must learn through experiences.

He said that we should be "Fast to Fail", only then innovation can happen, we must know if this doesn't work, then try the next.

If we focus too much on social factors, we get 95% result.

Dr. Anil Rao Paila, focused on education beyond text books by integrating case studies of Indian Industries to classroom studies. He also spoke of Innovations at WeSchool, Prototype labs, Management Development Programs and Design thinking programs which brings practitioners to teach students. Thus, providing more industry collaborated education.

Dr. Raja Shanmugam, spoke of work environment collaboration, why or why not should there be a need for innovation, where should academic infrastructure concentrate on. He said that work environment should be hierarchical but still should have a peer managed environment. He focused more on small scale learning.

Certain Questions were asked to the panellists regarding the challenges faced by the VUCA world and what can be done to develop future teachers, for which every panellist shared their views.

Audience at BCIC Event

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Events/ Industry-Academia Partnership

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PANEL DISCUSSION ON CONSUMER RESPONSIBILITY - ACADEMIA INDUSTRY COLLABORATION MODERATED BY MR. SUDHEESH VENKATESH. (Left to right) Mr. Srikant Iyer - Co-founder & CEO, HomeLane, (Not in the photo) Ms. Revathi Kasturi - Founder & CEO for LAQSH, Dr. Akhilesh K B - Sr. Professor IISc, & Venture Partner, Unitus Seed Fund and HomeLane, Mr. Raj Raghavan - Director HR, India with Amazon, Mr. Sudheesh Venkatesh, Mr. Gerald Menezes – Regional Senior Director-HR with Juniper Ltd., Mr. George Selvam - Owner, 5E Serpraise, and Mr. Girinarayanan G, Country Leader-HR with Terex India Pvt. Ltd. The panel emphasized the significance of understanding between producer (student) and the consumer (industry) and in the western countries it has been observed that government support in terms of creating an ecosystem in the society. Ms. Revathi, spoke on a unique methodology which enables you to create a set of skills framework which can be imparted to students in schools and colleges and it will lead to employability.

WeSchool student volunteers.

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Events/ InnoWe Manthan

MR. NEVILLE SAVIO KUJUR HR HEAD

Talk Series

Innovation and its Peerless Contribution in the business world PGDM (BD) - WeSchool December 15, 2015

Bengaluru: PGDM-Business Design & Innovation, in their series of InnoWe Manthan hosted a talk on “Innovation and its Peerless Contribution in the business world” on December 15, 2015, at campus. InnoWe Manthan series provides successful entrepreneurs a platform to share their varied experiences and entrepreneurial journey with the WeSchool students.

Mr. Neville Savio Kujur, HR Head, Wildcraft Industries Pvt Ltd, was the invited speaker for this session. Mr. Neville commenced his address by giving a brief overview of the company. He mentioned that company with its headquarters in Bangalore has a diversified product repertoire catering to clothing, equipment and footwear needs for unexplored outdoors.

He spoke about the company promoters Mr. Gaurav Dublish, Mr. Dinesh KS and Mr. Siddharth Sood, and their ideation and final inception in the years 1992 and 1998 respectively. Their business strategy evolved over a period of time with their business expansions. In the initial years the company followed a niche on-demand production policy and later on it switched to cater to customised commercial demand.

According to Mr. Neville Savio, an individual makes a successful entrepreneur if he/she is passionate of his/her venture, risk taker and flexible to the requirements of the dynamic and competitive market environment.

He emphasised the importance of design thinking and innovation combined with simplicity as a product strategy. Further he shared product design examples while designing products for ‘Outdoor’. The company incorporated the Stanford D-model of “Empathise-Define-Ideate-Prototype-Test”. Implementation of design thinking strategies has enabled their product designer to design innovative products such as: odourless t-shirts, quick dry t-Shirts, light weight and strong bags etc. which bring that extra smile for their customers on their outdoor expedition.

The key takeaway for the students centred on the fact to attain a sustainable and continuous success, the companies should adopt a start-up approach, be receptive to new ideas and have the courage to experiment with new ideas. The pedigree of the company with a focus on product design and innovation helped the company sail through the difficult times it encountered in the period 2007-2010.

Prof. Mohan Chandra, Dean of Business Design & Innovation, expressed his gratitude to Mr. Neville Savio Kujur, who took the effort of spending his valuable time enriching the students.

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Round Table/ MPower

Digital Renaissance in the Indian Retail Industry Marketing Club

Transition from E-Commerce to M-Commerce MPower - WeSchool

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December 18, 2015

he MPower Club hosted the 2nd round table on the theme ‘Transformation from E-Commerce to M-Commerce on 18th December, 2015.

The invited panel members included: Mr. Shesh Kulkarni, President & CEO, UFMI, Mr. Partho Dasgupta, Founder & ECO, Digicert, Mr. Kushal Agarwal, Co-founder, Giftxoxo, Mr. Ganesh Balakrishan, Co-founder, MOMOE, Mr. Aurn Acharaya, Digital Service Line Head, Capgemini, Mr. Pratap TP, Co-founder & CMO, Qwiksilver, Mr. Ankit Rawal, General Manager (India), Inmobi, Ms. Nidhi Bhasin, Associate Director – Mobile Marketing & Growth Hacking at Flipkart Ltd, Ms. Kanchan Lad, Head of Project Delivery at Happy Marketer Ltd.

Dr. Githa Heggde, Sr Associate Dean - Marketing, WeSchool, welcomed the guests and opened the forum for panel discussion by sharing current trends in industry. According to E - Marketer, a research firm, India will become the leading market for smart phones by 2016 and will supersede the growth in USA. It is estimated that India will have 200 million smart phone users and this is on account of growing penetration of affordable smart phones. Research conducted by Forrester estimates that Mobile market to reach USD 3.2 trillion by 2017 and Asia will capture half of the market in mobile space.

23 Sharing his view Mr. Partho Das Gupta, spoke about the business model of Flipkart and how the company migrated the entire operation of its subsidiary Myntra to M- Platform created ripples in the E-commerce industry. Today retailers are increasingly connected to their customers via smart phones and customer loyalty is built through this connect. Mr. Pratap, was of the view, that brands are becoming accessible to customers through mobile devices. However, the customers are driving their purchase decision using both desktop application and mobile applications. The Indian eco-system is slowly changing and both the platforms are witnessing growth.

According to Mr. Arun Acharaya, in India, the young population is digital savvy but none customers are embedded to a single platform. It is important for a retailer to provide rich experience on both platforms.

The consumer behavior is fuelling personal decisions and India being a heterogeneous country it is difďŹ cult to cajole or change the digital habits. Even today, many customers are paranoid of conducting transaction on mobile but M-Commerce will grow exponentially in time to come.

Ms. Nidhi Bhasin, from Flipkart added, that we internally debate on the customer issues; currently we are trying to address the issue of accessibility. A customer in a village may not have access to desktop at his home but he has a smart phone which provides him not just shopping experience but gateway and exposure to global economy.

In the current market scenario all players are engaged to capture a space on mobile device was the general view of the panelists and the winner will be the player who provides better, rich and fast experience to the customer. The panel also debated whether B2B market will be impacted by M-Commerce and it was agreed that slowly a change is visible in this segment and organization are changing their structures to sell to the empowered customers.

MPower Team with Dr. Githa Heggde, Sr. Associate Dean - Marketing, WeSchool.

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Entrepreneur Article

ENTREPRENEURSHIP: WHY?

BY MR ARVIND SIVDAS CO-FOUNDER MESSY FRACTALS

My Journey; My Rationales

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alking to you! Hopefully my thinking sparks some questions. Some of you might decide to initiate a startup and then be placed in situations I faced, choices I had to make. My decision making process can hopefully encourage you to make the leap of faith. Leap of faith it is, not because your career is at stake but because you HAVE TO learn a new level of humility to enjoy your entrepreneurial journey. So here goes.

My Journey so far Growing up I was part of the early economic opening up of India. Opportunities were stifling for my parents but with every passing day things were changing, from booking an STD call and waiting for it, to receiving incoming calls at Re.1 per minute when mobile the changes across industries was shocking. Almost like the world completely changed.

Undergraduate hostel life always helped course correct. I was always an inquisitive chap, but also one who wanted to be top of class. The dichotomy was always a tough one to straddle and it some point the balance just disappeared.

This is probably when I started needing to make choices, probably the time when for the first time we started thinking about career prospects. Luckily a few months before I had discovered work that I found exciting. With a few friends we started spending time daily doing something we like. Suddenly we noticed that others took our help and we were infact doing something contrarian to market beliefs. So we naturally continued doing what we did, but called it a start-up. Let’s Label this as Attempt 1.

Somehow as it was an extension of what we liked doing, it wasn’t labelled a ‘career opportunity’ and us ‘cofounders’ slowly drifted away into our ‘destined’ career paths – a PhD and an MBA. Soon I landed a day 0 opportunity and was well on the path of career stability. Throughout this extremely exciting stinit of my life, too many things seemed just off. I loved the people I worked with, I loved the work I did, but I just couldn’t reconcile the output input ratio. Seemed like diminishing returns. As this progressed the opportunity to setup and then run a new company (start-up) for an investor came along. I made a few choices that should be considered carefully • Passionate about business model – not sure.

• Have a business plan for what I want to do – not really • Find a Co-founder/ team I’m happy to trust my life to - not checked

25 All of these happened over time in the startup and for that I’m grateful but often I think back that had these been bases I touched in the run up to the startup the narrative could have been very different. Label this as Attempt 2 Constantly there have been a few areas of extreme interest to me. These themes have been travel, problem solving, analytics, sports, games. As attempt 2 was reaching a solid bottleneck point some ideas constantly kept coming up – some along the lines of attempt 2. Big Ideas that had potential to build billion dollar companies in 3 years, some where I had no clue where it could go, except we were building something that helped a few consumers to have a wonderful experience. As I floated ideas past potential cofounders, investors and well-wishers a couple of themes constantly found interest and takers. This drove self-selection of Cofounders. We weren’t best of friends, so we debated what we wanted to achieve, why, what roles for whom and how we will handle conflict. Thus, was born the most recent two startups. Label this as Attempt 3.

//Childhood excitement //IIT attempt //Constantly challenging processes and systems at work (great place to work)

How I made the choice This is a big one, according to me. Often even those with the most reasonable instincts and objectives end up making choices for the wrong reasons. Your biggest role as an entrepreneur is the willingness to make choices. A very trainable skill; requires you to file and catalog every decision made and consciously track impact of the choice. THIS makes entrepreneurship humbling. I hope each of you distill out your decision making process based on my thought process.

Attempt 1: (The world of Venture Capital still hadn’t really ventured into India) • Found an Idea I liked working on • Knew how to do a large part of the work required to succeed • Found a co-founder I loved working with • Wanted to achieve on my childhood aspirations and dreams

ABOUT AUTHOR

Attempt 2: (India was the next big thing; exuberance just getting ready to peak) • Management training helped me to do a cost benefit analysis • Found an investment team that wanted to fund a globally successful idea • Investors helped identify my first and then succeeding two co-founders • Wanted to step out of the corporate comforts, there wasn’t a better time • Funding commitment before foot on ground let alone foot to accelerator Attempt 3: (Exuberance at peak, Easy availability of risk capital) • Put together a concept that bought together areas of personal passion • Found a founding team who saw different parts of this model • Met folks with complementary skill sets • Debated idea with them, built a prototype • Pitched idea to enough people got mixed opinions • Aligned that chance of failure is 100x the chance of success

Arvind graduated as an Electrical Engineer from IIT Madras and the secured a diploma from IIM Calcutta; but he truly graduated as he embraced the fact that starting up is what gives him the kick.

Ups and Downs of the Journey so far Attempt 1: Picked an inherently non scalable business model. But, built a good enough business for someone else who want

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Entrepreneur Article

to take forward our good will and assets. It was a bitter-sweet moment (or rather series of moments) that kind of slowly got us drifting apart to build ‘career opportunities’ an MBA and a PhD. The easier path was so much easier. The motivation to stick was not necessarily strong enough. The need to conform was still there!

Attempt 2: Was helped to pick a supremely scalable model. Scaled across the country to having presence across 7 metros.

Worked with a challenging, high quality investor. Philosophy clashes were common. After scaling revenues 3x helped create an entity merging two of investors companies and handed over to new leadership. Moving on from a venture where I was the first person on the ground, needed to pivot business model 3 times before something scalable emerged was tough. However choosing an investor to work long term with is a critical pre-requisite to build scale. Opportunity to spend significant money was a super challenger but often led to not solving the basics before scale.

Attempt 3: Loving what we are building. Getting some very encouraging early traction. No clue where this will go. Have a scalable business model in mind, know the assumptions we are currently testing. Using a ladder approach to product evolution.

One Big take away for me is to use what I call the ‘Baby Learner Approach’. Go after lots of sequential small wins.

Accumulate enough to believe there is momentum and excitement. Use this mood to go after slightly tougher tasks.

Momentum of these success should be able to drive confidence in the team and yourself to take big leap of faith steps.

This approach also helps one to constantly be ready to ‘Pivot’ business model.

Why I will do it all over again The excitement to build something that some people like to use as it is making a tangible change to their life.

The last few years have changed me as a person, I often listen genuinely to anyone willing to spend a few minutes to give me any advice. I never know it all! The willingness to take decisions and take responsibilities for outcomes is the ultimate satisfaction to me. The research and thinking needed is just incidental work.

An opportunity to constantly push boundaries and need to do this fast enough. Not too fast to have missed the plot, not too slow to not be able to generate enough momentum to bump up to the next ‘baby step’ Leadership is all about choices. What battles do you want to fight on, which battlefield, which opponent. No point fighting a pig in a muddy puddle – you might ‘win’ the battle but the pig loved the journey completely.

What ever you do, don’t believe…

• Life’s chill at a startup: Far from this every minute (Waking and sleeping) will have a question bugging you. Every decision needs hours of thinking, without delaying all the other decisions • Most raise money, real quick: The only stories ever coming out are of those who raised money. The remaining 90% are out there going through the rigmarole 6 – 12 month process of fund raising • As a startup guy, I’m my own boss / I do my own thing: Hardly its probably the job with the most ‘people’ to align with.

Employees need to be kept motivated, shareholders need constant attention, board members want to challenge decisions, every customer has an opinion, and every complainant wants the CEO (& you should listen). The more people you can listen to and distill insights from, the more evolved your own decision making process becomes.

• Ideas make the startup: The last thing you need to worry about is protecting the originality of your idea. Every success story startup is a function of exceptionally better execution vs. incumbent, constant iterative innovation.

• Best friends = Best cofounders: What ever you do don’t just jump into business with your best friends, set boundaries, working rules and discuss how conflict should be handled – all when the times are hunky dory Never make the decision to startup with returns (monetary, fame) as the key motive. Will often drive inaccurate decision making at every stage. Solve a problem, any problem that helps a few people do something and be happier.

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Guruspeak

Augmenting the Supply Chain in E-commerce – Determining Winners and Losers

By Prof. Deepak Shyam Assistant Professor - Marketing, WeSchool Bengaluru

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In the ongoing war for customers, transactions and revenues, profitability seems a distant goal for almost all the E-Commerce players. Not that they are unduly worried about profits as of now – simply because no one is really pushing them to demonstrate a positive bottom line.

It’s all about scaling up by signing on customers, brand building and revenue generation. But down the line, not so far off in the future - there is bound to be immense pressure on these hotshot companies to show investors the money. But then, how will it actually happen – is the billion dollar question – pun intended!

In business, as in life, it always boils down to the fundamentals. So what are the fundamentals in E-commerce that will determine the ultimate winners from the also rans? It would be excellent revenue generation models on one hand and ensuring effective and efficient operations on the other. The former is being focused upon very well currently by the ecommerce companies. It’s the lack of – and in some cases - absence of any focus on the latter.

This brings us to the fundamental for success in any product-driven industry – a well-integrated, streamlined and superlative supply chain. As we have seen since time immemorial, the supply chain determined the sustenance of an enterprise and in many cases the entire industry ecosystem. Numerous successful examples abound - Toyota, GE, Zara and McDonald’s to name a few. There are examples of failure as well – such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner wherein the multi-tiered supply chain was mismanaged. So what is that E-commerce companies can learn and implement to ensure differentiation, long term accomplishment and avoid the dreadful bubble burst that is being predicted?

Through Supply Chain Augmentation, an organization’s supply chain becomes highly visible, efficient and effective by employing faster and/or simpler processes and techniques. This is achievable if the organization develops a competence to prolifically supply, manufacture and distribute an extensive variety of low-priced, first-rate products and services with short lead times and variable quantities.

In a study of the advancement of Supply Chain Management models and performance at Hewlett-Packard (HP), it was noted that HP faced inventories mounting into the billions of dollars and startling customer discontent with its order fulfillment process. HP produces computation and measurement products whose supply chains include manufacturing integrated circuits, board assembly, final assembly, and delivery to customers. To trim down inventory and recover order fulfillment, HP called on an internal team of industrial engineers and management scientists augmented by academic collaboration. The team used an iterative process, enriched by the interface of model development and application.

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28 HP reaped paybacks by streamlining of its manufacturing operations, extending to varied functions right through the organization. Likewise, the academic partners have infused their research with real-life experience. The supply-chain methodology is now well established, and HP is transferring the expertise into its various divisions.

As in the case of Toyota, adding to this was the significant component of flexibility which is the ability to respond quickly and efficiently to changing customer and consumer demands. Similarly, Zara became immensely successful because of their constant focus on responsiveness. By being able to respond in-time and effectively to fluctuating demand helped them to prevent lost sales and therefore contributed to high market share gains. On the other hand, a lack of speed or dexterity would have led to excess stock as trends and fashion change, ultimately resulting in obsolescence.

E-commerce businesses are increasingly relying on information technology (IT) to develop the supply chain process. Thus far, precedent evidence suggests that the investment in IT by itself does not promise superior organizational performance. By means of the resource-based view, IT-enabled supply chain capabilities are company specific and hard-to-copy across organizations. These capabilities can provide as a medium in transforming IT-related resources into superior value for a firm.

Currently, as the E-commerce market continues to grow at break neck pace, only an augmented, flexible and responsive supply chain can pave the way to a reliable competitive advantage for the companies involved. This includes not just the forward logistics from the e-tailer to the customer but the reverse logistics/returns as well. The organizations that understand this quickly - and have the capabilities to continue to improve their supply chain on an ongoing basis - are clearly on their way to ensure and sustain success. There are challenges that E-commerce companies will face in these aspects.

One is the near term responsiveness which determines how rapidly a supply chain can effectively respond in near real-time when something is unexpected or an opportunity arises (the shipment is late, an unanticipated order arrives, the assembly line breaks down etc.).

The other one is medium to long-term responsiveness which relates to how swift and efficient a company’s supply chain can act in response to expansive changes in strategy – both in the external and internal environments (catering to new geographies and demographics, finding new suppliers, changing customer needs etc.).

So, E-commerce companies must delve into these attributes in detail.

They already have made initial investments in IT infrastructure.

Augmenting and well utilizing them to build highly visible, effective and efficient supply chains will ensure sustainable success – and determine the ultimate winners in this high stakes war. And do well to avoid a repeat of dotcom bubble burst 2.0!

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Alumni Article

FUTURE OF APPS

By Mr. Ashutosh Mishra CEO - Olga Consulting Pvt. Ltd.

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ot a very long ago, industry was creating desktop-first startups. Now, having a mobile application is a must, and having a website is secondary. I personally believes that first app you open is the replacement to the homepage on a web browser.

But the biggest question is that, what is the future of the mobile apps, will they be there forever? The current square-ish form apps are very bulky. The mobile homepage “real estate” for the web's 500 million+ active websites to each have its own app and for everyone to download them is just not possible.

The reason why mobile apps are very popular in its current form now is because of two reasons, one that the mobile search is next to terrible and second that the content layout of the mobile app is small-screen-friendly. If mobile apps have to stick around, one transformation they need to undergo is that they need to transform more like bookmarks, so that people can have a favorite home screen where people only have a few favorites’ apps on their home screens, and all other mobile content can be accessed some other way. There is no doubt that one thing in mobile apps is undergoing a dramatic change, what we have today – the screens of apps. The idea of having a screen full of icons, representing independent apps, that need to be opened to experience them, is making less and less sense."

What I think is that apps might still exist in the future, but their presence would be that they'll serve as notification systems that push content as necessary, not big bulky apps that take up prime homepage real estate on our phones.

Notifications are getting more interactive, too, letting you text message someone back or take an action without fully firing up the app.

How could simple notifications fulfill all the needs of current apps? I personally think they'll morph into content cards, which will allow users to see more information and take more actions straight from a pop-up. I believe you'll be able to shop online, write an email, or ping someone on messaging services all without unlocking your phone. The cards could eventually become personalized and ordered by favorite sources, most important contacts, etc. This will become more important with the decreasing screen sizes, the size of a watch face or glasses etc.

In a world where notifications are full experiences in and of themselves, the screen of app icons makes less and less sense. Apps as destinations make less and less sense. Why open the WhatsApp app when you can get the content as a notification and take action - like something, comment on something - right there at the notification or Operating System level.

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Apple’s App store – 50 million users, 400,000 apps, 10 billion downloads – being threatened with extinction, but it’s not as if they didn’t had a clue that its demise was imminent until the process was well underway, either. We know that empires crumble: what’s interesting is how.

Right now everyone is focused on the Android and the threat it poses to iOS. Apple is still shipping plenty of iPhones, but even Steve Jobs must recognize that if his were a Roman empire, the numberless device manufacturers selling Android devices are the metaphorical barbarians at the gates. Android’s not the issue, however – in fact, Android is just another lumbering dinosaur.

The real threats are web apps. The kind that will download to your device the moment you open then, allowing you offline access, whether they’re news, games, email or some other utility. If you don’t believe they’ll work – and eliminate dependencies on plugins outside of open web standards, like flash – go download a free copy of Angry Birds for Google Chrome and try disconnecting from your local network. Magic!

Steve Jobs thought web apps were the future too, in 2008 when he announced that the iPhone would have plenty of apps – all of them available through the browser. As is often the case with Jobs, he was just a little too far ahead of the curve (think of the Newton, his first attempt to create an iPhone-like device) which led him to later reverse himself and create a native app store anyway. Distribution is key; there are 2 billion web users versus 50 million iOS users.That nowhere means that the offline access to web apps has been perfected. But try opening www.nytimes.com/chrome in Firefox, any web-kit based browser or, of course, Google Chrome, and you’ll see what the future holds. Disconnect from your network and voila: offline access to, of all things, news. The real weakness of current web apps is access to device-specific features. It is much more a assortment, and will probably always be trickiest to get to parity — hardware manufacturers move faster than standards bodies. I suppose aesthetic considerations will stick around awhile, too — a developer may want to claim the real estate that’d otherwise be taken up by browser chrome (the address bar, search box, etcetera).

But stripping browser chrome off of web apps seems like far less of a test than developing for an ever expanding range of devices. With web apps, developers could code once and be realistically confident their app will work on any object – phone, tablet, laptop, etc. – with a standards-compliant browser. The implications for developer time and resources are deep.

Of course, none of these near perfect ideals about a future in which all apps are liberated from device-specific stores and particular platforms mean anything unless someone can make money selling web apps. It can’t be a twist of fate that Google is only charging a 5 percent commission on web apps sold through its Web App store – it seems like an arrow aimed right at the center of Apple’s app store, which charges six times as much in fee. It’s a future in which the only apps that will need to be native will be those that work with device APIs that aren’t part of existing web standards – in other words, the edge cases.

So in a few years, I think (hope), native apps will be mostly dead but not all dead.

About Olga Consulting Private Limited: Olga is a management consulting enterprise with expertise in Business Management, Management Consulting, and Product Management with an added zest to spur Innovation in organizations.

About Author An innovator, a passionate entrepreneur, Ashutosh is the founder and CEO of the Olga Consulting Private Limited, a management consulting enterprise. Ashutosh is an Electronics Engineer form Agra University and holds the PGDM E-Business from Welingkar Institute of Management, Bengaluru.

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Alumni Meet

Alumni Meet 2015 WeSchool, Mumbai December 12, 2015

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eSchool alumni of Bangalore and Mumbai campus travelled from different parts of the country to their old turf WeSchool, Mumbai campus on December 12th, 2015.

The alumni meet - an occasion to rewind the old memories of WeSchool’ days, which sometimes get neglected due to hectic phase of work life and other commitments on leaving the campus.

The Alumni event held at our roof top- the terrace garden at WeSchool, Mumbai campus had the distinguished Professor Abhijit Banerjee, International Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as the Chief Guest for the occasion.

The event commenced with address of Prof. Dr. Uday Salunkhe, Group Director, WeSchool, Mumbai. He extended a warm welcome to alumni and congratulated the alumni for achieving the senior leadership positions in their leading companies in this short span of time. It was an indeed a proud moment for the WeSchool fraternity.

In his address Professor Abhijit Banerjee, spoke on his perspective on ‘Power of Small Things’. He shared rich experiences he had accumulated through his work stints at World Bank of India and The Government of India. He told the students that success is not just about performance but the consistent efforts to get the work completed.

Earlier in the day a cricket tournament was held at playgrounds of Shivaji Park, Dadar. It provided the alumni an opportunity to showcase their skills in cricket and display team work and to revive old memories of friendship and build new acquaintances.

The evening rolled on with rock band and dance performance by junior batch student of 2015-17. It was followed by a stunning performance by Rapper Hard Kaur who entertained the audience with her hit singles “Talli’, & ‘Move Your Body’ and she mesmerized the audience with her signature moves on the stage.

On this occasion Mr. Deepak Maheshwari and Mr. Siddhant Savant, PGDM EBIZ batch 2012-14, WeSchool, Bangalore and both currently the Co-founder and Partner at Semicollon.com, a Denim brand were given an opportunity to create brand awareness and offline marketing campaign for their brand at the Alummi meet. Sharing his thoughts Mr. Deepak Maheshwari said “It was a joyous moment for us and we had the pleasure to interact with alumni who were curious to know about our new venture and applauded us for becoming Entrepreneur”.

Mr. Karan Bhatija, Placement Secretary, PGDM Batch 2012-14 said “Alumni meet opens a great platform to connect and

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Alumni Meet

network. Such a platform is a rich source of experience.

It was an evening filled with fun, conversations and a lot of catching up about the year that just passed”. He further added “The hard work, enthusiasm and energy on display by students and faculty truly deserve a lot of praise and in the process we realize the importance our Institute accords to Alumni meet and I look forward to the next alumni meet”.

Mr. Apoorv Mathur, Alumni Secretary, PGDM E-BIZ Batch 2015-17, who attended his first alumni meet said “I was convinced about my decision to pursue an MBA after having an interaction with senior alumni. He also expressed that Faculty from Weschool, Bangalore should attend the alumni meet and this will enable students and faculty to have a better interactive session with alumni”.

As the evening passed by the alumni mingled around with each other and were seen exchanging old memories and sharing insights from corporate world with promises to be back in WeSchool for the next alumni meet.

WeSchool Bengaluru Alumni Committee at Alumni Meet.

WeSchool Alumni Meet at Mumbai Campus.

AS TRUTH BE TOLD, HOMECOMING NEVER GETS OLD.

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Achievements Faculty Achievements Prof. Dr. Githa Heggde

Sr Associate Dean, Marketing, WeSchool An invited speaker at the following events held by Confederation of Indian Industry- Indian Women Network (CII-IWN) in the year 2015: • September 22, 2015, Theme : "Personal Branding" • July 2, 2015, Workshop on ‘Protecting your Personnel – Companies and their preparedness under the Prevention of Sexual Harassment Act’.

• August 5, 2015, Chaired CII-IWN Special Session on Women Safety.

Resource Person at IIM-Kozhikode Management Development Program ‘Visa to Wisdom’ for Max Bupa Health Insurance Company Ltd. conducted on October 14 & 15 and 30 & 31 2015.

Prof. Dr. Madhavi Lokhande

Sr Associate Dean - Academics, Finance and Organization Ecosystem An invited speaker at the “Corporate Cost Management Week” held on October 17, 2015

by Bangalore Chapter of Cost Accountants. In her session on "Business Excellence through Cost Management" she spoke on the ‘Importance of Cost Management in Micro Small and Medium Enterprises’ (MSMEs).

Prof. Dr. Jai Raj Nair

Professor - IT

An invited speaker at a panel discussion on the theme "Emerging Trends & Opportunities for MBA Graduates in India" at "Siksha Samagam 2014/15 Series” event held on January 9, 2015 at Park Hotel, Kolkata.

Students Achievements Sayjan Methani PGDM (2015-17)

Sankpal & Omkar PGDM (2015-17)

Winner of event 'Juxtapose' Solaris 2015, a national level event at IIM Udaipur. The event involved understanding the market segmentation, targeting & positioning for brand Lakme in India and suggesting brand extension for Microsoft.

Brijesh Briwala PGDM (2015-17)

Maroti & Yashvardhan PGDM - E-Biz (2015-17)

2nd Runner Up at Stock Torero event on December 18, 2015 at BSE Institute Ltd, Mumbai. The competition was to trade stocks on a virtual portal designed by BSE Institute.

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Sports/ Football

Football Tournament

Joga Bonito 2015 WeSchool October 10, 2015

Joga Bonito in Portuguese means ‘Play Beautifully’, Football, the game adored by millions of fans across the world is also revered by students of WeSchool, Bengaluru.

Each year the foot ball game is celebrated at WeSchool, in boisterous manner. A festivity of air is on the campus before players set their foot on the playground and showcase their strength and spirit for the game.

This year the ‘Joga Bonito’ was held at Play Arena, Kasavanahalli, Sarajapur Road, Bangalore on October 10th 2015. It is an annual sport event of campus wherein alumni, students and faculty participate with enuthisaim to showcase their love and talent for the game and exhibit team work on playground.

Dr. Anil Rao Paila - Dean and Director, at WeSchool, Bangalore, flagged off the event. The football game witnessed good sportsmanship and even the girl students participated in the game with enthusiasm with spectators keen to see them perform on the sports ground.

This year 19 teams including the alumni team participated in the tournament.

Each year a match is held between faculty and alumni team. The cheering crowd witnessed a tough fight between the team players who were jostling for the winning goal and ultimately it was the faculty team which won the match against the alumni 1 team.

The winner for the men’s finals was accorded to Alumni 2 team. In the match played between girls team, the Junior Business Design & Innovation team was declared as the winner.

The event was co-ordinated by Prof. Anita Pillai, Assistant Professor IT vertical, with the support from Sports Council co-ordinators: Harsh Joshi, Amit Sharan, Divesh Bali and Aakash Kannada.

The tournament ended with Hi-tea and provided a platform for junior students to network and connect with alumni of WeSchool, Bengaluru.

Participating Teams of Joga Bonito

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Sports/ Cricket

Cricket Tournament

WeCket Season 5 WeSchool January 2, 2016

WeSchool welcomed the New Year 2016 by hosting a Wecket Season 5 – WeSchool Annual College cricket tournament held on January 2nd, 2016 at St Johns’ Medical College Cricket Ground. The winter chill did not deter or dampen the spirits of the players and of the audience who had assembled at the venue to witness the game of cricket as well to cheer the players.

The tournament was sponsored by SEMICOLLON, a start-up founded by alumni of WeSchool Bangalore.

The excitement and determination to play and win the match was evident on the faces of the players, who were seen to be engaged amongst themselves devising their game plan and strategy for the day.

19 matches were played by 10 teams and there was participation from faculty, alumni, and senior and the junior batch students.

The Winning Team

The matches were conducted at four levels of Qualifiers, Quarter finals, Semi Finals and Finals.

The final match was played between Alumni 1 Vs Alumni 2 and the Wecket trophy was won by Alumni 1 team.

The Man of the series was awarded to Mr.Rana. The winners received the award from Dr. Anil Rao Palia, Dean & Director, WeSchool, Bangalore.

Prof Anita Pillai, Assistant Professor, IT vertical expressed appreciation to students and faculty for their participation and for making the tournament a grand success.

We Cricket in Action.

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Rotaract

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Community Service Drive at Hospice Karunashraya Rotaract Club - WeSchool November 22, 2015

Bengaluru: On November 22, 2015, the WeSchool Rotaract Club visited the hospice Karunashraya at Indiranagar. The objective of this visit was to sensitize the students to the sentiment of volunteering for a social cause; at the same time make them aware that small contributions by service or in kind can make huge a difference to lives of people suffering from terminal diseases.

The Bangalore Hospice Trust – Karunashraya, is a charitable trust established by Indian Cancer Society (Karnataka Chapter) and Rotary Bangalore Indiranagar came together to provide free professional palliative care for people suffering from advanced stages of cancer. Karunasharya is the first hospice of its kind in India to offer the patients the flexibility of alternating between the hospice and their home.

During this one day visit, the WeSchool students participated and volunteered their services which were administered and supervised by the staff at Karunashraya.

Rotaract members at service.

The students commenced the day by mowing the lawns, and watering the plants in the garden. They helped the Medical Facility division, to arrange the medical kits: 1000 bandage pads and 1500 cotton balls. Further they assisted the store department at Hospice to arrange the inventory stock as well helped the staff in cleaning the roof top of the hospice building. A dance program was organized by the students to entertain the patients. The student volunteers expressed joy contributing to this volunteering work and realized the ‘importance of one’s life’ on meeting these cancer patients. The volunteers have expressed desire to visit the Karunashraya Hospice again to offer their services.

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WeSchool, Bengaluru 4.7 (13)

102 & 103, Electronics City Phase I, Next To-BSNL Telephone Exchange, Hosur Road, Electronics City Phase 1, Electronic City, Bengaluru, Karnataka - 560100

WeSchool

(+91) 80 4267 8300 www.welingkar.org

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