Prameya issue 16

Issue 16

Foreword ‘Chrysalis – Unfold & Explore’ was the theme for 2017 Foundation Fortnight at WeSchool Bengaluru Campus. Chrysalis signifies a space to grow and develop, to unfold and explore, a foothold to grip and fly. Each year Foundation Fortnight is held to celebrate the commencement of the new academic year and to welcome the new batch into WeSchool family. The Neev 2017 was inaugurated by Mr. Rupak Kumar Dutta Director General and Inspector General of Police of Karnataka.

Each day during the Neev 2017 – Chrysalis was truly engaging as students listened and interacted with leading personalities from the industry.

The ‘Guru speak’ article by our faculty member speaks about the opportunities and challenges in the e-commerce industry.

Our alumni writes about his life-journey from WeSchool Bengaluru campus to the banking industry as a Deputy Manager in sales domain at ICICI Bank Ltd. We are glad to map entrepreneur Yogesh Mirajgave’s journey from a less challenging public limited company in Petroleum industry to an entrepreneur. His passion and his achievements would surely encourage the youngsters.

The Management Development Center at WeSchool Bengaluru organized Global Leadership Practices Program – a 5-day workshop to some Australian delegates.

The Centre of Excellence for Case Development at WeSchool organized a National Case Methodology and Case Writing Workshop where participants came from across Indian management schools such as Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies-Mumbai, MET-Nashik, Institute of Management Technology-Hyderabad, Xavier Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship etc.

There was a Design Thinking and Innovation Workshop where industry – participants from renowned corporate houses such as Ashok Leyland Ltd., Hinduja Global Solutions Ltd., Tata Global Beverages Ltd., Lifestyle International Private Limited – MAX Retail Division etc. , joined the Design Thinking and Innovation team of WeSchool Bengaluru.

The issue also gives you glimpse of students’ and faculty achievements, Celebration of Independence Day and Joga Bonito – the annual sports event.

Happy Reading!!

Signing off till we meet again with the next Issue

Faculty Editorial Team Chief Editor

Student Team

Prof. Arul Theresa Ramya

Copy Editor

Ms. Ishani Chakraborty

Student Contributors Team

Magazine Design

Mr. William Dayabaran

Mr. Sriram Srinivasan Ms. Sunidhi Jain Ms. Ahalia Leena Ms. Aditi Gandhi

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Contents 01

Foreword

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Group Director and Senior Dean & Director

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Neev 2017

Guru Speak: A Look at E-Commerce - By Prof. Alex Nero Assistant Professor, Research WeSchool, Bengaluru

Entreprenuer: The Power of Analytics - By Yogesh Mirajgave HP - Supply Head

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Alumni article

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Global Leadership Practices Program

- By Mr. Sudeep Palekar PGDM 2015-17 Batch, WeSchool, Bengaluru

- By Prof. A. K. N. Prasad Head, MDC – Executive Education, WeSchool, Bengaluru

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Ab Samjhauta Nahin – “Know your Rights” - By Mr. Sriram Srinivasan PGDM 2017-19, WeSchool, Bengaluru

Events 16

Natioanl Case Methodology and Case Writing Workshop

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Design Thinking & Innovation Workshop

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Celebrations

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Joga Bonito

- Independence Day

Articles 2

Sports

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Achievements — Faculty & Student Achievements

Prof. Dr. UDAY SALUNKHE GROUP DIRECTOR, WeSchool

"The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things."

- Ronald Reagan Leadership is the most discussed theme and as the quote says the core quality of a leader is to Inspire others. The culture prevailing in WeSchool enables the students to enhance leadership skills. WeSchool offers plethora of opportunities to develop leadership abilities and the apt platform to bring out the innate ability to inspire and lead a team. Our students are provided with a Habit of Mind which is a way to bring a structure to an unstructured problem. Not only academics but also sports and team activities pave the way for better creative abilities to approach the problems in an entirely new dimension. “ WeSchool emphasizes that students learn by doing i.e. through application of acquired knowledge and as next step to explore the knowledge acquired by understanding the individual role and responsibility towards business and society.The students are encouraged to participate in various International and National competitions/programs under the guidance of faculty mentors.

I believe the learning expedition at WeSchool will help students transform as ardent learners in life with an analytical mind and empathetic heart. With the kind of platform rendered to the students at WeSchool, I take immense pride and joy in welcoming students of the new batch 2017-19 and wish all of us success!

Prof. Dr. ANIL RAO PAILA

SENIOR DEAN & DIRECTOR, WeSchool, Bengaluru Campus

"Individual commitment to a group effort--that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work."

-Vince Lombardi Team work has always been a mantra for the bench mark set by WeSchool. As the Group Director always quote that ‘We is the new I’. Our goal is to make a difference to our students, our community, and the world by addressing the critical issues of our time: globalization and emerging markets; technological change; and ethical, social and environmental challenges. We believe that in helping to build innovative new organizations we can contribute to building a more sustainable world.

WeSchool Bangalore campus has grown significantly under the directional leadership of our Group Director Prof. Dr. Uday Salunkhe. Our strength lies in our ability to adopt a balanced approach towards education that encourage teamwork, help developing complex thinking skills and focus on future needs of the industry. We nurture students to become ‘complete’ individuals in the two years of their tenure with us.

Prameya-the campus magazine is a students’ initiative supported by faculty members that captures the details of our events, activities conducted, latest trend in the external environment as well applauds the achievement of both students and faculty members.

I welcome all to read our Prameya issue 16.

Best wishes

Best wishes

Prof. Dr. Uday Salunkhe Group Director, WeSchool

Prof. Dr. Anil Rao Paila Senior Dean & Director, WeSchool, Bengaluru Campus

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Event | Neev 2017

‘Chrysalis – Unfold & Explore’ was the theme for 2017 Foundation Fortnight at WeSchool Bengaluru Campus. As explained by Charles Darwin, CHRYSALIS is a “proper place on which to become attached and undergo the final metamorphosis.” Chrysalis signifies a space to grow and develop, to unfold and explore, a foothold to grip and fly. Each year Foundation Fortnight is held to celebrate the commencement of the new academic year and to welcome the new batch into WeSchool family. The Neev 2017 started with lighting of the lamp ceremony in the esteemed presence of K S Viswanathan, Vice President (Industry Initiatives), NASSCOM, Bangalore, India, our guest of honor and Mr. Rupak Kumar Dutta, Director General and Inspector General of Police (DG&IGP) of Karnataka, our Chief Guest, Advocate Shri S. K. Jain, Chairman, Managing Council, S. P. Mandali and Local Managing Committee, WeSchool along with Prof. Dr. Uday Salunkhe, Group Director, WeSchool.

Each day at Neev – 2017 was bright and beautiful and started with a zeal. On 13th July 2017, Mr.Deeraj R.P., CoFounder, Crowd Kraft, Bangalore was the Speaker of the Day. Deeraj, an engineering student in aeronautics, worked as a junior scientist at DRDO, Bangalore wherein he was involved in the development of software for indigenous ‘Drone’.

But the dream and destiny lead him to join hands with his business partner to establish Crowd Kraft – a Digital Marketing company. He started his conversation with the young enthusiastic audience on his entrepreneurial journeys which lead to success.

L-R Dr. Anil Rao Paila, Sr. Dean, WeSchool Bengaluru; Shri S. K. Jain, Chairman, Managing Council, S. P. Mandali and Local Managing Committee, WeSchool; Mr. Rupak Kumar Dutta, Director General and Inspector General of Police of Karnataka, Dr. Uday Salunkhe, Group Director, WeSchool, K S Viswanathan, Vice President (Industry Initiatives), NASSCOM, Dr. Madhavi Lokhande, Dean, WeSchool Bengaluru.

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Event | Neev 2017 Later in the day professors Poonam and Archana took a session on Basic concepts of accounting and principles of accounting.

On 14th July 2017, Mr. Manoj Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO of Social Alpha was the guest speaker. His first question to the audience was – How many in this class are Entrepreneurs and do explain in one line your views? Thus, started the interactive session on entrepreneurship to Social Entrepreneurship. According to Mr. Manoj Kumar, Entrepreneurship is about creating value, solving problems when you are facing constraints with financial resources. He then explained to audience the meaning of Social Entrepreneurs – who focus on adding value to shareholder/society in the areas of Climate, Environment, and numerous social elements that affect the lives of the people.

The day progressed with a session on Business Mathematics by Professors Chandrika and Hemanth. On 15th July, 2017, students had the opportunity to meet and interact with a distinguished personality – Mr. Shajee Varghese, Country Manager, of a leading MNC based in India. His opening remarks to the young audiences who have opted to become future business manager in their career – was – ‘How do you plan a career’?

(L-R) Mr. Rupak Kumar Dutta, Director General and Inspector General of Police of Karnataka, Shri S. K. Jain, Chairman, Managing Council, S. P. Mandali and Local Managing Committee, WeSchool, Dr. Uday Salunkhe, Group Director, WeSchool, K S Viswanathan, Vice President (Industry Initiatives), NASSCOM, Dr. Madhavi Lokhande, Dean, WeSchool Bengaluru.

He advised the students that ‘Marks’ does not reflect talent - a person with poor grades is not talentless Perhaps the individual assumed to be bad has not introspected/reflected and has not realized his /her hidden talent. While speaking on the subject of Mentoring - a popular concept in B-Schools – he cited the example of Lord Krishna – who guided Arjun during the war in Mahabharata. He also shared that a mentor should have skills/traits – positive attitude, good listener, passion and who is not jealous if his mentee succeeds and achieves more fame than the mentor. When a mentor and mentee are working in a team – it is imperative that mentor should not have biased attitude towards his mentee – else a conflict of interest situation arises which impacts the teamwork.

The day progressed with a session on costing by Professors Poonam and Archana. Then Professor Uma Madan conducted a workshop on self - awareness. Professors Mohan Chandra and Prakash Unakal conducted a creativity workshop through prototype building. Through these activities teamwork, coordination, perseverance and patience etc. which are important management traits were explained and taught.

The first day of the second week of Neev 2017 – Chrysalis – Unfold & Explore at WeSchool Bangalore witnessed an interaction with Mr. Manish Gupta, CEO & Co-Founder of Indegene. It was a privilege and honor for the class of 2017 -19 to be addressed by a leader who is known for his humility and sharpness amongst his peers. It is a rare occasion, where young budding future manager, have the opportunity to listen to a CEO sharing future of Global HealthCare industry. While sharing his outlook, he cited that in India, the Health Care industry is the largest in our country. It touches ‘Humanity’.

Next, there was a session on Management Accounting by Profs Poonam and Archana, followed by a workshop comprising an introduction to investments, objectives of investments, risk and return trade-off, basics of stock market, trading in stock markets, common sense approach etc.

On 18th July 2017, the class of 2017-19, had an opportunity to interact with young and dynamic investment banking professional - Mr. Madan Ganesh. In his opening remarks, he informed the enthusiastic audience that his talks would be on ‘The World of Financial Regulations’. He said that there are new emerging opportunities for the youngsters, who are keen to pursue a career in the financial services industry. He further cited that the complexity of financial products over the years has increased which has led to numerous frauds in the financial sector. In his presentation, the students were introduced to the history of fraud – Roman Empire, Charles Ponzi Scheme in 1920, Victor Lustig’s sale of Eiffel Tower & The Humble Match Box & Enron.

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Event | Neev 2017 Then professors Mohan Chandra and Prakash Unakal conducted a creativity workshop and Professor Uma Madan conducted a workshop on self - awareness. The entire workshop was driven by various group activities like skit, singing, acting etc. Through these activities, students were made to learn the art of self -reflection and self- awareness.

19th July 2017, the day started with the guest speaker Mr. P. Ramgopal who spoke about analytics. While speaking on the career opportunities in analytics – he said a study was conducted by McKinsey in the USA, which suggests that by the year 2018 – it will face 50 to 60% gap between supply and the requisite demand of deep analytic talent. He advised students that it is important to re-skill themselves and it was amazing to learn that an analytics professional have higher income opportunities and the war for hiring analytics talent will continue in future. Later, a session on statistics was handled by Professors Rishiraj and Ramanth Krishnamoorthy.

20th July 2017, - the day started with the acclaimed speaker Dr.Tapati Bandopadhyay. She is a mechanical engineer who believes that it has application to Artificial Intelligence. She advised students to have hands - on approach while dealing with problems.

Students- Praticipating Origami and performing ART

Next Speaker – Mr. Krishna Murthy Shankar, Group HR Head, Infosys, brought out the difference in today’s work culture as against when he started his career. In recent times, changes are happening at a rapid pace due to technology, automation, smartphones etc. He advised students to have the qualities of ‘Humility & Confidence’ and also to have the attitude of a ‘Learner’. Because, there is always a person, who is far better than you are –we must strive to improve.

21st July, 2017, the started with speaker Mr. Shankar Rao, Head - CIO & Head - Business Transformation Consulting.

Mr. Rao initially spoke about his company Bosch and told the students that Bosch manufactures an overwhelming majority of the parts that go into a car. He described VUCA – Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous- and asserted that the changes which are taking place are very rapid.

Later in the day, a session on Analytics was taken by Professors Chandrika and Swapnil. Then Professor Murthy conducted a session on Marketing Analytics and importance of information in making decisions.

22nd July 2017, the session started with the introduction on Analytics by Dr. Anish Roy Chowdary. He shared inputs on how to switch to the profession of a data scientist and explained the future of data sciences. He also spoke on credit risk Analytics and on how risk and fraud can be detected with respect to credit cards.

Then the new students had Alumni Interaction. Seven alumni members were present for the lively and interactive session. These include Alumni who are currently working in HP, Infosys, Deloitte, Treebo Hotels and Dell.

WEQUEST - a multi-team, multi-player game created in the form of a hybrid of Amazing race and Minute to Win it. The objective of WEQUEST was essentially to introduce various management strategies such as team dynamics, time management, conflict resolution, team strategy etc. in conjunction with fun and campus discovery.

24th July, 2017 - guest speaker Mr. Ankit Kedia shared his different phases of entrepreneurship journey as a fresher in his own business and the need for oneself to establish him/her before expecting others to approve their ideas. His graph from shop floor to acquiring a competitive company worth 220 crores was explained with all real-life examples and quotes.

As the day progressed, Professors Jyoti and Dr. D. N. Murthy conducted a workshop on Research tools and techniques.

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Event | Neev 2017 25th July, 2017, - a session on introduction to Global Citizen Leader (GCL) was conducted by Professors Aparna Krishnamoorthy and Sonia Mehrotra in two parallel classrooms for Section A and Section B. Then a session on Business Design was conducted by Professors Mohan Chandra and Prof Prakash Unakal.

26th July, 2017 – the day started with Dr. Nirmal Pandey, Vice president Intel. The topic chosen was 'Autonomous driving' which is still a milestone to be achieved. The speaker gave a crisp picture of the various levels of autonomous driving ,the advantages of it, the challenges in the real life scenario, technology behind automation and Human vs Automation.

Student Activities During Neev 2017

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Event | Neev 2017 The new phase in my life – The MBÄ at WeSchool, Bengaluru commenced on July 12th, 2017 and I was excited to meet new classmates and faculty members at the campus. The NEEV- Chrysalis - the theme for the Foundation Fortnight was on evolving and changing our mindset and perspective on ‘MBA’ and the Corporate world and the academic rigor we will have to undergo in the next two years during our association with WeSchool.

I loved the excitement and ambience that prevailed at the campus. We had the opportunity to interact with our senior batch students – who were co-coordinating the program under the guidance of our faculty. I liked the team spirit of my senior batch mates, who were always accommodating to queries and ensured we were welcomed into the WeSchool.

We were instructed to be dressed in business formals and to adhere to ‘’Grooming & Etiquettes’ – just like in corporate world.

In the morning, I and my classmates would assemble at the Uniworld Hostel, and we would start our journey to WeSchool, campus by school bus. Our first task each day – to ensure we abide by the rules laid down for Foundation Fortnight – ensure punctuality and attendance and collect and read the ‘Business Standard’.

I read the business newspaper daily. In the interactive session with our faculty- we would be questioned on ‘About the World’ happenings – a management student must be aware of new developments which are bound to affect the global economies. The session was engaging and faculty would explain to us new and emerging business terminology and the concepts which we would be soon learning in our classroom session. I slowly got acquainted to the habit of reading and continue to do so and have subscribed the ‘Business Standard’ which is now delivered at our campus. I discuss news & events at the breakfast or in library with my classmates.

Each day at the Neev 2017– gave us a new outlook to life and changed in shaping our thoughts.– Eminent speakers candidly shared their corporate journey – obstacles & achievements which have shaped them to become leaders and develop humanistic approach.

I recall the Neev inaugural address for our class - 2017-19 batch and we had the opportunity to listen to Mr. R.K.Dutta, (DG &IP), who eloquently shared his MBA journey with us and it was an illuminating session. During his address, he advised the young millennials that not to enter into unchartered territory for new thrills and experiences – because it can be dangerous to one’s life.

That summarizes NEEV, where I was given a chance to Unfold and Explore!

Journey of thousand miles starts with a single step! With the first NEEV step, I am sure this thousand mile journey is going to be exciting throughout. It’s exactly the kind of kick start one needs!

Sriram Srinivasan PGDM 2017-19 Batch

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Guruspeak

Prof. Alex Nero Research, WeSchool Bengaluru

A Look at E-Commerce

E-commerce is the process of buying and selling online.

The history of e commerce lies entangled with the development of the Internet. This goes back to the days of ARPANET in the United States. In the 1980s there was a new revolution in the world. Time magazine made it the person of the year in 1982 and Steve Jobs brought out the famous 1984 advertisement for it.

It was the commercialization of the personal computer.

The trend of having a mainframe for the organization changed and now each person would have a computer on his desk. There was also demand from households for the personal computer.

Suddenly there were more and more computers being sold. In the 1990s the internet and the World Wide Web made it possible for these computers to connect with each other and so the foundations of E- commerce was were laid.

As the technology of the Internet and the World Wide Web developed the concept of -commerce grew.

If we ask why E-commerce is important, why it is successful and why is it growing then one way of answering it is by stating that it is the very evolution of business. Progression of the business process started from the early barter system then to the brick and mortar stores and now we have e-commerce. It can also be stated as a gradual progression from computer to internet connectivity and then to e-commerce. The ďŹ rst two companies to venture into e-commerce and exploit the business opportunity were Amazon and E bay in the mid-90s.

The statistical data from various sources shows the enormous speed at which e-commerce is growing across the world. E- Commerce is categorized into various types of which the B to B and the B to C are important sectors. Most of the business in terms of values happens in the B to B segment. But when it comes to the volume of transactions and the number of purchases, B to C segment is the leader. We as customers are also more interested in the B to C retail segment. Electronic retailing is the sale of goods and services through the internet.

In 2016 the e retail e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to 1.86 trillion. This is projected to grow to reach 4.48 trillion by 2021. The retail e-commerce business in India was about 16 Billion us$ in 2016 and this is projected to reach about 45 billion us $ in the year 2021.The major players in e-commerce in the world are Amazon (USA), Alibaba(China), E-Bay(USA) and Rakuten (Japan).These companies also appear in the list of companies with largest revenues, thereby showcasing the clout of e- commerce business. The major Indian players are Flipkart and Snapdeal. FDI allowed in this sector, international companies like Amazon and e-bay also enjoy a giant share of Indian e-business and they compete ďŹ ercely with our National companies.

The data surely shows that the e-commerce sector will grow tremendously in the coming years. If we look at the factors that make it a success, the preference of the customer to use this mode of purchase become one vital aspect. Why do people prefer to buy online? There are various answers to this query. People usually say it is the ease of purchase, another reason is the variety of products available online, some say it is due to the discounts, some people say this process saves a lot of Time and some say that in the digital age this is the means of purchase. But if look at it from a wide perspective we see that only a small percentage of retail is happening online right now. It is because the business is moving to its growth phase in the life cycle curve.

If we ask why it is not adopted completely, then technological development could be the factor. All the countries in the world and all the inhabitants on them are not at the same stage of technological development. The so-called technological difference plays a part in the growth and spread of the e-commerce business.

When more people become connected through the digital systems, the e-commerce will thrive. If you ponder further, we can even think that the laziness of the citizens of the digital world also has a role in the success of e -commerce.

We can just hope that one day we won’t end up in a Wall-E movie kind of situation.

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Guruspeak As mentioned, the e-commerce retail is currently just a small part of the entire retail business. The data shows that across the world the e retail segment was just 8.7 % of total retail sales in the year 2016.This is again poised to grow to about 15% in 2021. In India, the percentage is much lesser than the world average. Even though about 450 million Indians are connected to the internet, the value of e-retail is just about 2% as of 2016. Our neighbour and partner in development China's e-retail share is almost 14% of total retail. This difference is mainly due to the lesser e-commerce penetration in India. The e -commerce penetration in India is only 28% whereas in the USA it is almost 70%. We can understand that the extent of adaption of the digital technology has a direct role in the e commerce business.

This data gives us an idea about what percentage of the retail market is left for e- commerce companies to cash in.

This is, of course true for any business in its growing stage.

More and more companies are bound to enter the market. But what makes e-commerce different from the other business is the ease with which you can start it. There are famous stats showing that how a company that does not have single taxi is the largest taxi company and how a company that does not have a single hotel of its own is the largest travel accommodation provider. The entry barriers are minimum in this sector.

With so much of companies entering the market even for niche areas, the blue ocean of e-commerce has become really deep red today. This means survival is extremely difficult. We can relate it to the dot com story when companies came up like mushrooms during the dot com boom and then simply vanished. In e-commerce the stronger companies will survive.

As mentioned, the e-commerce retail is currently just a small part of the entire retail business. The data shows that across the world the e retail segment was just 8.7 % of total retail sales in the year 2016.This is again poised to grow to about 15% in 2021. In India, the percentage is much lesser than the world average. Even though about 450 million Indians are connected to the internet, the value of e-retail is just about 2% as of 2016. Our neighbour and partner in development China's e-retail share is almost 14% of total retail. This difference is mainly due to the lesser e-commerce penetration in India. The e -commerce penetration in India is only 28% whereas in USA it is almost 70%.

We can understand that the extent of adaption of the digital technology has a direct role in the e commerce business.

The surge of the e commerce companies has led to the eroding of a number of traditional business systems. The disruption that started from the book retail went on to spread over a large variety of products. Now as the e-commerce websites sell everything possible, it’s disruptive effect has spread like a blanket removing traditional brick and mortar stores. In the United States thousands of such retail outlets are closing down every year. This has also led to loss of jobs for thousands of people who were employed in the brick and mortar stores. However, this cannot be stated as a long term problem as, when the industry changes and grows more people will get employed in the e -commerce sector itself. There will surely be demand for increasing labour force in e-commerce across the world.

The e-commerce can also be mentioned as a lifestyle changer. People no longer need to move out from their comfort zone to make purchases. The company will bring it to you. Another advantage is that at one pace you can buy from the global market. The website of the company makes this possible. This is also good for sellers who can find a global market to sell their materials. A good example is a relation between the e-commerce giant Alibaba and China. China now has excess production capacity and they need to find international markets to sell their excess inventory. Alibaba makes this a reality by helping these Chinese goods find markets worldwide.

The e-commerce companies are now slowing expanding across other sectors also. They are not only doing e-retail, but also venturing into providing services like payment systems, data storage, and cloud based software services etc. In a way, they are trying to control all the aspects of the business from Operations to Finance. As far as the customer is concerned he would be more than happy if he gets all the required service in one place. There is however one area of concern. This is related to data sharing and privacy.

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Guruspeak The amount of data that the e-commerce companies accumulate these days may put a spy organization in shame.

The spies had to work hard to get sensitive information about people, but the e-commerce companies get is easily.

When we make a purchase on a website the company not only gets to understand our purchase data but also our lifestyle, our financial data, and thinking process. In a way, they can read every single person. The raw data collected is used by companies to understand the customer and then market products to him. Amazon has smartly used Alexa in a very strategic way. Amazon has been able to enter households with Alexa to collect more data on the customers. By being a smart assist to the customer, it helps them mediate their product purchase which is very good, but also it’s like a third member living with you. There can be questions on privacy in this aspect. With this innovation, Amazon also has a program where the requirements of a household will be automatically refilled by the company itself. The customer may not ever be required to go about preparing the order. All these ideas and process have a lot of benefits and also drawbacks. But yes, if you have nothing to hide then there is nothing to fear.

The e-commerce companies have developed certain strengths and competitive strategies over the years. If we analyse them, we can see that most of them have adopted the low cost strategy. They sell the products at lesser price than the brick and retail stores. This is one of the ways by which they make more customers buy from them.

They have a very strong marketing system. All possible digital media is used for promotion. The digital technology is surely making the marketing process more efficient.

So is its effect on the financial and HR areas. Most of the payment is digital and more and more people are moving from the cash on delivery system to digital payments. In India data shows that more than 50% of people prefer COD but with the efforts of the government and the after effects of demonetization, people prefer the digital payment options. The Indian economy as a whole will also benefit from this, as the digital transactions are faster than the COD. In case of the Human Resources management the companies make extensive use of technology like teleconferencing, digital tools for contact, communication, and collaborating work etc. This is also used for employee training purposes. There are a number of software in the market which makes this possible.

The marketing, financial and the Human resources are to a wide extent made efficient by the Digital systems of the e-commerce companies. The entire foundation of e-commerce business is on the Digital platform. But what about the Operations function? Even if everything goes digital the operations will still be traditional. We still have to make the tangible product that customer requires and then physically transport it to the customer’s premises. Unless we develop Nikola Tesla’s teleportation technique the operations still remain as it was in the non-digital age. There are areas where digital systems like GPS, ERP, IOT etc. can help make the operations more efficient but a major chunk of it is still completely physical in nature. This could possibly be the bottleneck area for the e-commerce business process.

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Guruspeak The main sectors of Operations that affect the e-commerce companies are Inventory, Material Handling and the Logistics. These are the areas where the physical product comes in the picture in the completely digitized business process. You simply cannot make this part digital with the present technology. The companies say that the supply chain and logistics they have are more efficient than the ones the brick and mortar system had. The research on this subject also says so. Earlier the products had to be transported from the manufactures to the DC and then to the retail stores spread across the country but in e commerce you can stop at the DC. Thus you save on the transportation in terms of cost and energy. From there it is directly sent to the customer’s location.

Thus the store is eliminated. But if you consider the customer side, initially the customers drove their vehicles to the stores to buy the product but now the e- commerce company brings it to the customer’s premises in their vehicles.

So the process is almost the same. What we can infer is that the logistical benefits may not be huge. And if the e-commerce companies are going to cover to the whole country then the logistics could become a huge issue also.

When the number of customer increases the last mile delivery will pose a big challenge to the e-commerce companies. This is because the transportation infrastructure in some countries is not ready to face this digital onslaught.

This again is the issue of the physical system clashing with the digital world.

There are a further number of issues in relation to the operation which include product returns, damaged products, the lack of proper communication in logistics, the last mile delivery etc. This is because many factors like improper address, poor transportation, infrastructure, traffic issues make it difficult to optimize the logistics and the last mile delivery. The fact is that all these issues are going to be much worse when the e-commerce customer base will increase in the near future.

This issue of operations not only affects the e-commerce business but the environment also. The United Nation has come out with the Sustainable Development Goal which gives a lot of importance to sustainability and climate change. The increasing e-commerce business leads to increasing logistical issues will cause a negative impact on these goals. How will the e-commerce companies be able to optimize the operations of its business? As mentioned the mixing of technology with the operations will surely help. This is in relation to use of GPS, ERP, efficient, transportation systems, better scheduling, and use of IoT etc. But the question is will that be enough?

Of the many possible solutions that we can propose, one would definitely be one that of collaboration. There is also a field of study specific to this area called as ELM (e-commerce logistics management). The e -commerce companies that are competing each other for market dominance will have to collaborate on their operational and logistics sectors. The scope is to share their operations related resources. This can include sharing distribution centres, transportation routes, logistics facility etc. If, on a particular delivery route the company has only a few customers and the truck is half filled, then why not collaborate with another e-commerce company so you have more customers to deliver on the same route and the truck is fully filled. By doing this the companies can save on energy and cost. This is beneficial to the company, the customers and also the Environment.

This is not very easy as it would lead to more transparency and require sharing of data between companies. But the reality is that if they work together and share their inventory and logistics infrastructure it would lead to more efficiency in the system. The e-commerce companies like Amazon, Alibaba and Flipkart may grow by leaps and bounds but they have to keep in mind the important concept of sustainability. By working together, the companies will not only improve efficiency but also make sure that e-commerce business will be one of sustainable nature.

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Alumni Article

Sudeep Palekar PGDM 2015-17 Batch I am Sudeep Palekar from the PGDM 2015-17 Batch, WeSchool, Bengaluru.

Currently, I am employed as a Deputy Manager in Sales domain at ICICI Bank Ltd. I have always been keen to pursue a career in the field of marketing & Sales and We School – is known for ‘Marketing’. When I joined WeSchool, my interest in Finance specialization was ignited due to regular conversations which I had with finance faculty at the campus.

WeSchool, Bengaluru, is a truly beautiful campus spread over 1.5 acres and the infrastructure & facilities are of superior standards. As alumni of WeSchool, Bengaluru, I reminisce of the time I spent pursuing my Management Education and it was during this period I had the opportunity to explore new places, classmates and I forged new friendship at the campus.

At WeSchool, Bengaluru, we have a Center for Career Management – which plays an important role because as a student – apart from the academic session – we have to prepare ourselves for corporate career planning. The CMC team and WeSchool Faculty helps the student to prepare for the new journey in the corporate world.

During my MBA, I recall, we had the best companies visiting our campus for Summer Internship Placements and Executive Placements. I would advise you to prepare yourself with rigour for both summer internship and executive placement because these are two important elements that will add immense value to your resume.

I would advise you to participate in WeSchool events – it is a good platform to learn about event management and enhance your leadership skills and teamwork. I was actively involved in WeSchool events such as cricket and Joga Bonito (Football) and it is a beautiful experience to have WeSchool Faculty, staff, students and alumni on the football field and showcasing their team spirit and determination to win the game.

Lastly, the City of Bengaluru is changing at a fast pace and there are new avenues to explore including the bustling nightlife – for entertainment, recreation at MG Road, Koramangala and even at Electronic City. The City of Garden is truly unique and has ample public spaces – which are truly enchanting – Lalbagh, Cubbon Park if you visit it once – you are bound of fall in love with nature!

The WeSchool Bengaluru Campus has verdant greenery; beautiful tall trees and we have the opportunity to study in campus – wherein we breathe fresh and pure oxygen, which refreshes our mind and soul and improves our health and of concentration in academic studies.

I would advise you to explore Coorg, Jog Falls – if you love trekking and Hampi – UNESCO designated World Heritage Site and learn the art and culture and do not forget to relish the South Indian delicacies. Further, if you are interested in exploring Temples – do visit Chennai and explore the art and culture of South India.

As your Alumni, I only have an important suggestion to you all – enjoy these two years and make wonderful memories to carry for the rest of your lives. When you are travelling in Bengaluru on Bike – DO Wear YOUR HELMET! We need to take care of our health too…since we are away from our family for 2 years. Hope to meet you guys soon…

Happy WeSchooling!

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Management Development Centre

“Global Leadership Practices Programme” 13th -17th November 2017

Australian delegates attending “Global Leadership Practices Programme” at WeSchool Bengaluru

MDC, We school Bangalore conducted a 5-day workshop to few Australian delegates at We school campus under the overall concept “Global Leadership Practices” in association with the Yellow edge, Australia. This is the third program in the series the second one had taken in November 2016, first one having taken place in November 2015.

List of participants is given at the end of the report.

The 5-day workshop was designed to provide an overview of India as a developing economy and showcase business opportunities and the unique leadership model being practiced.

Workshop Sessions: 1. India business landscape - covering History, culture, economy and industrial sectors – Prof AKN Prasad 2. Indian Frugal Innovation - Prof. Mohan Chandra 3. Overview of Hinduism - Mr. R K Srinivas Murthy 4. Interaction with Senior Civil Servant - Mr. Ranganath S V (IAS), former Chief Secretary, Govt. of Karnataka, currently Vice Chairman Higher Education Council, Govt. of Karnataka 5. Feedback and take away session with the delegates.

In addition to the above, visits were organized to Infosys BPO (IT sector), Biocon Ltd, Titan Management team and the visit to the factory, Akshay Patra - Non Profit Organization and a Government school (social sector), Chitrakala Parishat (Art School), Vidhana Soudha (State Parliament).

The program concluded with participants engaged in cooking through Hobby kitchen initiative along with our students and in the evening witnessed a great cultural program showcasing dances of India and music, presented by we school students. This was coordinated by Prof. Kalpana Garde.

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Management Development Centre

Prof. Kalpana Garde, Ms. Archana Vishwanath in association with Ms. Bhagyalakshmi H V took care of the entire organizational issues concerning the above workshop and received spontaneous appreciation from the delegates for the efficiency and hospitality displayed.

All the participants were extremely delighted with the workshop in terms of design, program delivery and execution, hospitality and overall organization and rated each and every session as” excellent.”

It was decided to conduct GLP – IV in November 2018 (19th to 23rd) Prof. A. K. N. Prasad Head, MDC – Executive Education WeSchool Bengaluru List of participants Sl. No Name

Executive Director Title

Fair Work Ombudsman Department

1

Helen McCormack

Chief Internal Auditor and BM

Department of Employment

2

Alison Durbin

Branch Manager

Department of Employment

3

Ben Preston

Assistant Manager

Department of Industry, Innovation, and Science

4

Sandy Mamo

Service Leader Zone WA

Department of Human Services

5

Steve Ronson

Executive Director

Fair Work Ombudsman

6

Tania Wilson

Assistant Secretary

Department of Immigration and Border Protection

7

Tristan Kemp

Section Leader/Director

Geoscience Australia

8

Yvette Whittaker

Chief Financial Officer

Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission

9

Nicole Mayo

National Manager

Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission

10

Andrew Simon

CEO

Yellow edge Australia

11

Victoria Appleby

Client manager

Yellow edge Australia

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ACCH Workshop National Case Methodology and Case Writing Workshop 20 – 21 July, 2017

WeSchool Centre of Excellence for Case Development (CECD) organized a two-day “National Case Methodology and Case Writing Workshop” at Bengaluru campus on 20 and 21 July 2017. The workshop was attended by 33 faculty members from across the Indian B-Schools such as Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management StudiesMumbai, MET-Nashik, Institute of Management Technology-Hyderabad, Xavier Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship, BMS-Mysore, GNIMS Business School-Mumbai, CMR University etc.

The workshop sessions were designed to elaborate on the effective use of management case studies as a teaching pedagogy, curriculum design with case studies and case writing sessions. An interesting session was participants’ discussion with Mr. Surendra Kedia - the case protagonist of Manjushree Technopack Limited, a case study discussed during the session.

Professors Sonia Mehrotra, Madhavi Lokhande and Vijay Rego were the resource persons for this workshop.

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Design Thinking and Innovation Workshop, 7-8 October, 2017 Design Thinking and Innovation Workshop was held at WeSchool Bengaluru Campus on 7-8 October, 2017. The workshop aimed to make the participants experience and explore innovative processes, tools and techniques.

Design thinking can be applied in various workplace functions such as product or service design, process design, customer experience and organizational change. The focus was on how to establish a framework for building an environment that fosters creativity.

The workshop was attended by 9 participants from across industry such as Ashok Leyland Ltd., Hinduja Global Solutions Ltd., Tata Global Beverages Ltd., Lifestyle International Private Limited – MAX Retail Division etc.

Professors Mohan Chandra and Prakash Unakal were the resource persons for this workshop.

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Entrepreneur Speak

Yogesh Mirajgave

Hewlett-Packard Supply Head

It has always been my dream to establish a business around an idea that I believe in. It’s been around three years that I cautiously thought of plunging into the idea of Entrepreneurship and decided to dedicate my time and efforts towards building my own organization.

A brief introduction about myself - when I made a decision for a venture, I had total 6+ years of experience in Refinery Operations & Projects Implementation in Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Management Consulting exposure in Wipro Consulting Services, Analytics & Supply Chain experience in Hewlett-Packard and established start-up involvement in TaxiForSure.com (acquired & merged with Ola) as a Corporate Supply Head.

In my opinion, it is that part of a life when the decision to enter an entrepreneurship isn’t merely a passion but also a calculated risk-return phase to pursue the dream. Having no one in the family with business experience,—in my case, my parents are professors and my wife is a dentist— it wasn’t an easy decision for me to change the career path.

With varied professional experiences, I had my own notions about Entrepreneurship. With some savings to survive and having almost no capital for a start-up (in fact, I rather had a financial obligation of education loan), I decided to start having discussions with entrepreneurs, start-ups and investors. Who you know often matters more than what you know! The idea was to connect with like-minded people, learn from their experiences before taking the first step.

My IIM-Alumni network, professional relationships and my background helped me to connect to almost 30 different people.

Almost everyone reiterated that - Successful entrepreneurship is more about successful execution. This helped me to have an open-minded discussion with all of them. Though I was particular about entering only into 2-3 industries, I was open to join business incubators, early stage start-ups or connecting with like-minded people to work on my ideas. That’s when I connected with my partner. He had hands-on start-up experience, along with vast & varied professional experience. After rounds of discussions, we decided to work together and the journey started!

Almost all Entrepreneurs would agree to the fact — however exciting and lucrative it sounds from outside, it is completely a different story when you enter the journey. The initial struggle of building an idea and every step after that, e.g. selection of domain name for your business, is as important as having your vision in place. Every single step has its own importance and comes with its own challenges. After few days of discussions, we were convinced to enter into Healthcare space with few plans and direction that we want to move towards.

It is very important to break your vision into small pieces and accomplish those pieces step-wise. I spent one complete year in Start-up. The individual steps & blocks kept changing their priority of execution, depending upon initial testing of an idea, our experiences, market responses and the business needs e.g. low customer acquisition cost, in the initial phase, made us prioritize pharmacy side of the business over doctor-diagnostics labs. We were open to change the approach and we tried few footsteps before taking the final path. We tried both aggregation model and owning a partner pharmacy. We tried different consumer offerings. We also tried various approaches for logistics & distribution, along with maintaining own fleet for some locations. We also tried various approaches to focus on the locations. All the decisions were backed by initial testing of responses from marketing, actual orders, ease of improving customer satisfaction and most importantly, the expectations that we had from this starting piece of the business.

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Entrepreneur Speak After a year of investing time and efforts to bring out start-up to a stage where we had a team of around 30 and 1L Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) per day (with 34% repeat customers and 8% gross margin), we decided to shift the focus to next piece of the business. I decided to part my ways by taking mutually-discussed equity stakes, while my partner continued to work on next piece of business. The business is grown to a level that we are looking for Series A funds now. Currently, I am a Data Scientist in HP Inc and am working on a couple of ideas in Machine Learning & Artificial Neural Network space. Having gone through this exciting phase of my career and gaining rich experiences, I wish to share few thoughts with budding Entrepreneurs.

Balance of Thoughts Almost every Entrepreneur goes through an initial phase of struggle with the balance of thoughts, at least for the first time. There is a conflict of thoughts before you jump into the Entrepreneurship and there is of conflict of thoughts after you enter. In my experience, the first phase is driven by passion and anxiety to enter Entrepreneurship while the later one is more by excitement of building every stage and post-decision dissonance due to initial struggle like Buyer’s Remorse. With every experience at every stage in Entrepreneurship, you learn more about yourself, along with the business learnings. This brings the clarity of thoughts and hence the focus! You learn to stretch your limits, at the same time, you understand your own limitations.

Do it now Normally budding entrepreneurs have a lot of ideas and 99% ideas get killed on dinner tables or coffee shops. With your passion to turn an idea into reality and a proper business plan after understanding risks associated with it, one should decide to enter into the venture soon. In my opinion, over-analyzing the idea, focusing on noting and minimizing all the risks associated with it, concentrating on detailing every-step of implementation before we enter, having money as the only outcome, are the few things that kill the idea at ideation phase only.

Idea matters, Not Always Normally young budding entrepreneurs tend to keep the idea to themselves before making it happen. In my opinion, there are many factors other than the idea that makes an actual difference in succeeding. Execution is the key. Keep discussing your idea and keep listening to people during the initial phase. How many of you have seen Second Mover success rates are more than the First Mover! Without belittling the idea of getting the first mover advantage, I wish to reiterate the fact that factors like good team, differentiation in execution, vision and approach etc., make the actual difference.

Networking, Networking and Networking As an Entrepreneur, one essential quality that I learnt is Networking. Networking not only helps to bring new opportunities & growth options for your start-up, but also helps in validating your thought process and plan of actions.

Almost all the Entrepreneurs know this but they find it difficult to make the connections or maintain the already made connections.

Self- Learning Self-Learning as a habit takes oneself to good heights. Learning doesn’t come only by updating oneself with industry knowledge or reading relevant books, but being mentally present in every situation, by understanding own mistakes, by keeping note of reasoning of every past decision etc. We used to meet partners and customers almost every day. Having a plan in action for the feedbacks and suggestions, helped us to be better responsive and agile.

Family Support Entrepreneurship, at least in the Indian context, isn’t a journey of your own. Your family gets equally good-bad experiences and their support at every stage of the journey becomes very important. It so happened in my case that I had to shift my location base from Bangalore to Mumbai and my wife had to take a break in her career. Despite the odds, she always helped and supported me. In fact, she was more careful & thoughtful in maintaining my health than I ever was. Keeping your near and dear ones informed with important decisions, your thought process, and your plan helps yourself a lot. It is not necessary that they will always agree to your decisions though.

For an Entrepreneur, along with preparing himself or herself before starting the venture, it is equally important to understand dependencies once you start working on the idea. Entrepreneurship journey is dependent on many parameters, along with the one’s own business acumen & capability. I have tried to note down few that one should be cautious about.

Partner Selection With limited funds and resources, the journey gets tiring with time. It becomes more important to get completely trustworthy partners and core team. The partners should focus on completely different responsibilities to speed up the decision making, at the same time, the partners should complement each other in terms of their responsibilities.

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Entrepreneur Speak Moreover, there are many instances when you need to step into your partners’ shoes to complete the work. The last thing you want is the conflict within your core team.

Hiring a Dynamic Team Start-up team is as important as the idea itself. Execution always decides the make or break of an early-stage startup. A very strong and dynamic team makes a huge difference. The work never ends in Start-up. There are many changes in business models and many validations required at every step by testing various assumptions. At the same time, every start-up faces a lot of last-minute problems and fire-fighting. And partners can’t be present everywhere all the time. With the limited budget, a dynamic team always has an edge. Considering our business model and implementation strategy, I always preferred a multi-tasking team with whom you can connect as a Co-founder.

Managing Finances As a start-up grows, the cost increases exponentially in the initial phase. Considering that the new processes are yet to be streamlined, start-up faces initial inefficiency in the system for costs to go up. Under budget constraint, almost all the start-ups will have to manage the balance between maintaining the cost and showing the growth. As an Entrepreneur, with a lower salary (or no salary) drawn from the company, you may have to manage your own finances as well. The stress of lack of personal finances or business finances makes Founders take ineffective decision for the organization. Proper financial planning for business continuity is very essential.

Learn to take harsh decision During the Start-up journey, you may come across situations where you may have to take some harsh decisions. I must accept that I was very weak in this. And I learned it during the process. The situations may arise where you may have to change the entire business model or change the entire flow of operations or close certain part of the business or even shut down the entire start-up. You need to be practical enough to take such decision. Saying that one should thoughtfully understand the difference between taking harsh decisions and running away from the challenges. Have a dip-test to validate your assumptions before taking such decisions.

Open Company Culture The culture decides the way employees behave at their workplace. With so much of ambiguity, change of work responsibilities, and long working hours, the only factor that keeps employees motivated is the culture of the company. The growth of every employee along with the growth of an organization is the only way to flourish your start-up. As an Entrepreneur, you are solely responsible for the culture of your organization. Unlike big organizations, start-ups don’t have predefined roles and responsibilities for employees or even predefined policies and guidelines for them. An open work culture unites employees and the core team. Discussions involving all the departments, collaboration between technical and non-technical teams, clarity of developments & future plans, are the few steps to maintain an Open Culture.

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Women Empowerment

Ab Samjhauta Nahin – “Know your Rights”

Sriram Srinivasan PGDM 2017-19 Batch

The ITV Vivel - Ab Samjhauta Nahin – ‘Know your Rights' on Women Empowerment was conducted at WeSchool, Bengaluru campus on October 25, 2017.

The awareness campaign has been christened "Ab Samjhauta Nahin", targeting women in general and rural households in particular. It was a call to free themselves from their oppression and encourage them to be more independent in all walks of their life.

The panelists for the discussion included eminent lawyer Ms.Talish Ray, Ms.Aindritha Ray, an actor and believer in women’s rights, Ms.Srishti Bakshi, Founder and Managing Director of Cross Bow Miles and Mr.Subash Balar, Vice President, Marketing Personal Care, ITC Ltd Ms.Srishti Bakshi is undertaking a 2500km ‘run’ from Kanyakumari to Kashmir to create awareness about women’s rights. The aim of her journey was to interact with women from various strata and enrich their lives in every little way possible through education and awareness of rights. On reaching Bengaluru, as a part of this campaign run, she decided to share her experiences with WeSchool, Bengaluru students. She spoke on a variety of issues faced by young girls and homemakers in rural India. Ms. Srishti Bakshi also presented a slideshow of paintings, which were drawn by the women as a token of gratitude towards her campaign.

The discussion focused on how students as pillars of modern India have the responsibility and power to create a change in the society.

In his address Mr. Subash Balar, Vice President, Marketing Personal Care ITC Ltd. emphasized the importance of having ‘balance’ over ‘concentration’. He opined ‘A concentrated approach in life would be self-centered while a balanced outlook would encompass everyone around you including yourself.’

Actor and activist Ms. Aindritha Ray informed our students of the gender inequality she personally experienced in the film industry. She inspired our students to be courageous and stand for individual rights and equality.

Ms.Talish Ray, as a lawyer, highlighted the legal recourse entitled to women to counter the domestic violence and abuse they undergo. ‘The pressure to perform is equally on men nowadays' she added. All the panelists touched upon the different aspects of freedom, equality, and upliftment of women based on their life experiences and background.

The Panelists and WeSchool students had an interesting and stimulating discussion during the FAQ session.

As a response to one question, Ms. Srishti Bakshi explainaed that having excellent translators in her team made the job of communicating her message to the large audience easy. She also shared with the young and energetic students on challenges of handling the effects of the emotional toll of the campaign and it was truly an educative and enriching experience.

In her final remarks, she expressed her acknowledgment and support she has received immensely from her two important individuals in her life – her mentor – Mr.Subash Balar and her husband – Mr.Bakshi.

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Faculty Achievements

Dr. Anil Rao Paila was selected as the President of All India Management Education in August 2017. He was also nominated as Association of Manageent Development Institution at South Asia as Executive Board Member.

Dr. Anil Rao Paila nominated as President of AIMS Executive Board Member.

Dr. Anil Rao Paila nominated as AMDISA Executive Board Member.

Dr. Madhavi Lokhande Dean, WeSchool Bengaluru and Dr. Sonia Mehrotra Head - WeSchool, Center of Excellence for Case Development visited the Auckland Business School from 18 Nov 2017 to 22 Nov 2017 to attend The Aspiring Deans Program of The Association of Asia PaciďŹ c Business School (AAPBS) and the AAPBS annual meeting. They were joined by Dr. Swapna Pradhan from the Mumbai Campus for the 3 day program. The Aspiring Deans Program was attended by Deans of Schools in the Asia PaciďŹ c region and the sessions focussed on various aspects of administration and challenges that schools face.

This was followed by the One day Annual Meet of AAPBS.

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Faculty Achievements

Dr. D. N. Murthy, Dean - Marketing & Research, WeSchool Bengaluru at All India Radio (AIR) Dr. D. N. Murthy, Dean - Marketing & Research, WeSchool Bengaluru was invited by the All India Radio (AIR) to give interview on importance of research in academics. He delivered his talks very successfully with the following highlights: • Quality of research in a country decides its economic status.

• Research must be inducted at primary school level with appropriate pedagogy • He emphasized that India must focus on applied research as its capability in carrying out research is not very strong • Ability of a faculty to make classroom productive increases when he or she infuses research with textbook.

Prof. Prakash Unakal Sr. Associate Dean, Business Design & Innovation, WeSchool Bengaluru at World Design Organization, Italy

Prof. Prakash Unakal Sr. Associate Dean, Business Design & Innovation, WeSchool Bengaluru went to Torino, Italy to attend the General Assembly of World Design Organization (WDO) held on 14 and 15 October 2017.

WDO (formerly known as International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1957 to promote the profession of industrial design. Since 1957, WDO members have gathered every two years to address key issues and guide the future direction of WDO organization.

This year, we were invited as members at the UN Conference Centre in Torino, Italy to inspire, mobilize and activate WDO community to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals by design.

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Student Achievements

Neeraj Rathi (PGDM 2016-18) won the Silver Medal for his Research Paper on “Does Capital Budgeting Take Social Cause into Account? – The Study of Capital Budgeting Decision Made in a Automobile Component Manufacturing Industry” at AIMS Annual Convention August 2017.

Mr. Neeraj Rathi PGDM, Batch 2016-18 Yash Parikh (PGDM-Ebiz 2016-18), has developed an AI chatbot assistant “Elysium” to connect the students and faculty members of the WeSchool, Bengaluru Campus. From getting contact details of a professor for doubt solving purpose to knowing the lunch menu – Elysium makes campus life easier. For example, if a student wants to get contact details of a professor for doubt solving purpose, he/she can directly chat with Elysium by asking “ I want the contact details of Prof ()” and Elysium pulls the information of that professor along with other relevant details that a student may need in future from its database.

Mr. Yash Parikh PGDM-Ebiz Batch 2016-18

On the contrary , if a professor wants to get details of a student in his class, he may ask Elysium, “Show me details of (student name)” and Elysium pulls that student’s information like Roll number, course enrolled, current CGPA score, Work experience status and his/ her LinkedIn profile for more info from the student database.

Additionally someone from outside can also talk to Elysium to know about various details and queries related to admissions, hostel facility, distance from hostel to college, courses offered etc.

Elysium is just built for one college currently , but in future, it could be personalized for every college/ institutions in the world. The creator of Elysium, Yash Parikh is also working on another product/ version of Elysium currently, details of which are unknown for now. The AI chatbot now works on Facebook’s Messenger platform.

So what are you waiting for, If you are a part of WeSchool, Bangalore, then try interacting with Elysium AI now on https://www.messenger.com/t/elysiumbot Students of Prin. L. N. Welingkar Institute of Management Research and Development, Bengaluru, Mr. Venkatesh Hariharan, Mr. Yash Savla and Mr. Arjun Gujar - PGDM final year students with education background of IT and Engineering, and from Marketing and Operations Specializations - were a part of one of the well-known and a much awaited event “Funnovation” which takes place every year organized by CSI-BC (Computer Society of India- Bengaluru Chapter) encouraged by DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organization).

Mr. Arjun Gujar

Mr. Venkatesh H

Mr. Yash Savla

This year, the event focused on the topic “IT in Defence” and there were, 850 teams from around the country and out of which only five teams were to be shortlisted. The topic of this competition was to create an idea / solution that would solve one out of four problem statements that the defence sector of India is facing in real time.

Our students focused on one of the problem statements – “Developing a DRONE that can take off and land on water bodies”. Creating an idea of a Modular Drone surfing on the surface of water and being a Drone that can survey on its own was the objective of this team. They along with 7 other teams where 6 teams from Engineering Colleges from Bengaluru and 1 team from Hyderabad presented their ideas. Out of these 8, only 5 were to be shortlisted.

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Independence day

WeSchool celebrates The Independence Day with full enthusiasm every year. On 15th August, 2017 the day begun by hoisting the Indian flag, the honour was done by Mrs. Rama from Elcia. Then the cultural event started which was hosted by Ms. Melita Lobo, Mr. Bhavin Desai, Ms. Rishika Barfa and was managed by the cultural secretaries Dilraj Pathak, Akshata Shetye, Aditi Damani and Shaivya Sharma.

The event was kick started by a beautiful act played by juniors on struggles during Independence and the role of Mahatma Gandhi. It was then followed by a series of Dance performances like Garba, Lavani, Bhangra, and Goan showing cultural diversity of our country. Then there was singing performance by the seniors and followed by a dance performance by Snigdha. To musically conclude the celebration a band lead by Debayudh Debnath performed a live music concert for 15 minutes. The events not only induced patriotic feeling among the audience, also it reminded the beauty of accepting all the cultures with its own differences. “Nationalism is inspired by the highest ideals of the human race, satyam (the truth),shivam(the God),sundaram (the beautiful)�- Subash Chandra Bose

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Event | Joga Bonito Football is a team sports, there is no one individual who is bigger than the next person.

- Emmitt Smith

Hackathon 2016

At B-schools, the students learn the art of leadership & team management in classrooms and even by participating in outdoor activities. Joga Bonito – the annual football tournament is one of the most sought after event at the WeSchool, Bengaluru , was held on November, 17, 2017 at Sports Grounds, Electronic City Phase 1.

Practice session was held for a week; wherein both the student and faculty were engaged in fitness regime and gave them the ample time to rejuvenate their mind and soul to strategise their game plan.

The Joga Bonito 2017 had participation from WeSchool faculty, Staff alumni, students, and 13 teams were formed for this tournament. The teams consisted of 6 players each and the substitutes The football players had congregated at the Sports Ground wearing Purple Jersey which displayed their favourite number or nickname. The purple colour signifying the ‘Power’ which they were determined to showcase at the football game with ferocity.

The winter chill enveloping the city of garden did not deter their spirit and enthusiasm of players and they were seen deliberating and motivating their team members. Each team was determined to play with his best foot forward and win for his team.

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Event | Joga Bonito

The emotions of spectators and players was visible – as they cheered and complimented each other and the team captains had a task at hand - to sooth down the flaring tempers among the team mates; when a team player expressed his frustration or missed a goal. The day-long tournament created new bonds among team players – who were playing for the first time together and were learning to appreciate the sportsmanship spirit of their team.

Ishani Chakrboratory, sharing her experience says , “The moment I reached the venue I could feel the vibrance. Energy was oozing out from all the jersey-clad players and spectators. I was nervous. It was the first time I was going to play a football game. We arranged ourselves in different positions to best suit the team and yes ! ! the “Lady Jaguars” won it 2-1 !! it is rightly said that “The Winners never Quit and the Quitters never Win”.

Prof. Vijay Rego, WeSchool, Marketing Faculty and a Football enthusiast said “"Joga Bonito was a tremendous bonding exercise for us faculty and staff members. A wonderful platform to express our passion for sports and enhance our team work. Our Men's and Women ‘steams exhibited tremendous grit and performances were splendid.

All in all a great event!!"

Debadyudh Dayabaran PGDM- Business Design & Innovation 2017-19

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1

S. P. MANDALI’S

Prin. L. N. Welingkar Institute Of Management Development & Research, Bengaluru Plot No 102 & 103, Electronics City Phase 1, Hosur Road, Bengaluru, Karnataka - 560 100 Phone : +91-80-42678300, 28521066 / 67, 28520480 / 817

www.welingkar.org