The topic of the session was Business process adaptation: Coping with challenges due to global pandemic. Ms. Anjali Saxena- Cost Estimator and Health & Safety Coordinator, Accuburners Corporation Mississauga Ontario, Canada explained how the organization has adapted to the challenges posed by the global pandemic Covid19. 

The session was graced by Director Management- Dr. Vidya Sekhri and Chairperson MBA- Dr. Anusha Agarwal and was attended by students from MBA I and MBA II. 

During the session, Ms. Saxena discussed in detail various measures the organization has taken across all its functions like manufacturing, HR, Finance and supply chain management among others to ensure that the company, its employees and the customers are not affected negatively in the current scenario.
The steps taken by the Canadian Government to protect the industries marked as essential during the pandemic were also discussed by the guest. The session also witnessed active participation form the students as they raised their queries related to the topic. The explanations and examples given by Ms. Saxena helped in creating a good understanding of the discussion among the students.

The webinar interaction was smoothly conducted online with the help of Google meet platform.   

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An addition was made to this with the Alumni talk of one of our alumni Mr. Arun Pathak (MBA 2005-07), Group Sales Head, MY FM on 23rd April, 2020. The focus of the webinar was to enlighten the students with the opportunities in media industry. 

In his talk he discussed the domestic as well overseas opportunities in media in the field of content writer, marketing, sales and HR.

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Dr. Vinod Dumblekar explained that now businesses that use cloud computing will not buckle under the pressure of the corona virus pandemic. For instance, the cloud gives businesses easy access to digital payment methods. It has enabled companies to continue working, by rapidly and securely providing access to business applications to their employees working at home.

Dr. Vinod further emphasized that automation and artificial intelligence will enhance the resilience of supply chains. To create long-term resilience we will likely see further robotic automation and artificial intelligence (AI) within their supply chains. These technologies will reduce manual intervention and hand-offs, cutting transmission risks, and reducing the reliance on humans to work face-to-face.

Dr. Dumblekar suggested that successful businesses will have a combination of resilience and agility. Organizations should harness leading practices and catalyze a joint response to mitigate the effect on business. Adaptive organizations will emerge from this period stronger, wiser and more connected as a global society. Resilience will be at the forefront of every strategy, yet it is agility that will ensure competitiveness, and an ability to respond to the unexpected. At the end of the corporate lecture a special vote of thanks was given to him.

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MBAPL is an ISO 9001:2015 Certified company, originally incorporated in 1997 as a private sector unit manufacturing Single super phosphate. It was converted to a public limited company and became part of Ostwal Group of Industries in 2004. It is a completely integrated, self-sustained unit having production of Beneficiated Rock Phosphate along with SSP and Sulphuric Acid plant in it. Company uses modern machines and equipment in the manufacturing process with upgraded technology to keep pace with the ever-changing business scenario. The students were given a brief about the process of raw material procurement and virtually taken to different sections including Admin, Electrical, Workshop, SSP plant, Sulphuric acid plant, Packing unit, Dispatch etc.

During interaction with students, Mr Shukla shared the Marketing and Distribution activities of the company. While answering to the questions of students he mentioned the CSR activities being undertaken by the company in the prevailing situation of Covid 19 including supply of Thermal screening, sanitizer, and food packets to the needy sections of the society. He shared that the company is taking all precautionary measures for their staff to ensure safety against Covid 19.

Virtual Industry visit was altogether a different kind of experience for the students which resulted into a great learning.

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He guided the students as to how they need to plan, acquire the skill sets and move towards the career as a business analyst. He also discussed how one needs to be versatile in working and acquiring knowledge across all departments in an organization as a business analyst profile is not just one department specific but one needs to know all departments very well. He also motivated them to work hard as no big dreams can be fulfilled until and unless an equal amount of hard work has been put into. He also discussed on post impact of COVID-19 on the capital market. 
The students also asked various queries which were duly addressed by the speaker. The session was highly interactive and insightful for the students. 

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Ghaziabad - PG Campus on  18th April, 2020 on "MINDSET IN CURRENT SCENARIO". In this highly interactive Session, Dr. Goenka addressed about the Challenges & Opportunities in current time and how to deal with this. In his address he emphasized on the importance of Goal as rest of the things follow it. It was a great Session attended by large number of audience from different places. The Session was full of interactions and throughout the Session questions of audiences were addressed and explained by Dr. Goenka.

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Mr. Amit Sinha has discussed that now organizations need to understand that work does not need to be done in a specific place to be executed successfully. He suggested that organizations should harness leading practices and catalyze a joint response to mitigate the COVID-19. As the entire market is closed, companies should educate consumers through videos, and chat facility to enable them with self help. Mr. Sinha conveyed students that with increasing stress and rising loneliness, organization’s role in sustaining the well being of employees has become important than ever. 

The speaker conveyed the nitty-gritty pertaining to new requirements caused due to pandemic as more companies need to focus on create transparency on multitier supply chain and assessment on optimizing the production and distribution capacity. Mr. Sinha has further suggested that even E commerce players now need to develop new ideas for contactless deliveries and cashless transactions to ensure safety. He suggested that new circumstances have made it necessary for organizations to mobilize rapidly and set up crisis management mechanisms, ideally in the form of a nerve center. At the end of the corporate lecture a special vote of thanks was given to him.

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Over 500 registration were received from across the world amongst which only 100 participants were given a chance to attend the session. Professor and Faculty from IIM-Indore, Welingkar Institute of Management-Mumbai, BIMTECH, Symbiosis-Pune, N.L Dalmia Institute-Mumbai, Narsee Monjee Mumbai, University school of Management-Nepal, BITS to name a few amongst the esteemed participants list.

Dr. Sheth laid emphasis on many aspect of retail during the pre and post COVID era, future of Agro-products in online retailing, Future of Bricks & Mortars in India, future of Retail without Human Touch,Reinventing of kirana stores in COVID era, change in consumers' behavior post COVID 19, companies aligning their strategy and resources to meet these changed behavior. He also laid emphasis on suggesting that Omni channel, Human less retail, retailing in the pharmaceutical industry in the US as compared to that in India.

 He concluded his session by commenting on roles of shopping malls (which are not fairing good at all across India) in India post COVID era and their possible role in the next gen retailing in India.

The session was highly interactive, Knowledge sharing and overwhelming

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towards our students to solve their queries at the right time when they require answers for it. Our students are ready to knock the door of industry and they require hand holding for effective results. For this Management Department of the Institute organised Alumni Talk in the Human Resource domain on 16th April, 2020.  Speaker for the session was Ms. Roochi (2011-13), Sr. HR Manager. International Walter Bushnell. She answered all the queries of students related to the HR domain and asked students to sharpen their communication skills and personality.

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" Intervention of Technology in Higher Education amid Corona Crisis- Are we Future Ready" by Dr. Pankaj Mittal-Secretary General, AIU, Dr. S S Mantha-Former Cairman AICTE, Dr. Madhu Chitkara-Pro VC Chitkara Univ., Dr. Rajita Kulkarni and Dr. Pratha P Chakrabarty-Professor, IIT Kharagpur and Raghav Gupta- MD India & APAC Coursera. All the panelists share their opinion about effective and efficient online education and changes required in pedagogy for technical and professional education institutions during COVID 19.

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attended the webcast conducted by FICCI and EY on the topic ‘Key Tax Measures and Developments amid COVID-19’ on April 13, 2020. Amidst the current situation in the country of unprecedented lockdown due to rising COVID- 19, the Government of India has made various changes from transaction perspectives related to direct and Indirect taxation, and customs to give effect to relief measures announced by Hon’ble Finance Minister on march 24, 2020. This webcast was organized with an objective to create more awareness about the changes and newly informed deadlines for compliance under the direct and indirect tax and implications on various tax regimes.

The webcast had eminent speakers including Mr. Pranav Satya, Chairman FICCI Taxation Committee and Tax Partner and National Leader, International Tax & Transction services, EY India; Mr. Ravikant P. Kamath, Associate Tax Partner, Knowledge & Solutions, EY India and Mr. Sachin Menon, Chairman FICCI Task Force on GST and Partner, National Head- Indirect Tax, KPMG India. They shared the recent developments regarding extension of Income tax deadlines, customs regulations, and foreign trade policy provisions and incentives schemes from taxation perspective right from promulgation of the Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation of Certain Provisions) Ordinance, 2020 (Ordinance) on 31 March 2020 by the President of India and recent issuance of various circulars and notifications by Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs. The webcast was indeed very informative.

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The speaker started by terming the current situation of the market as “BLACK-SWAN” because it was something unforeseen and beyond usual planning horizons. She focussed on the challenges arisen because of this pandemic. Having said that, first thing that was focussed was “Do we have crisis management team?”

Second most important thing was, “How are retailers going to manage their supply chains?” She said that it can be very upsetting for customers to see empty racks in nearest kiraana stores. She also took up the questions of viewers and cleared the doubts of the participants. She stated that stores should also ensure the hygiene and safety. Further she stated about the fear of touch, home–deliveries etc. The speaker focussed on managing situation which is not normal at all. She suggested to take extra care of old-aged people so that they need not to stand in queues. Further she added business is going to be slow but it will revive gradually and in a healthier manner.

The speaker advised to maintain necessary merchandise, and cut short waiting time. This webinar was conducted to specially focus on managing customers, operations and supply-chain. This webinar was attended by the students of I.T.S and as well as students and professors of the institutes all over India.

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UK - India Affiliate World's Leading Body for Enterprise Risk Management [Level 1 - Level 5] on the 13th of April’2020 with Mr. Alexander Larsan as the key speaker.

Mr. Larsan introduced with the UNESCO report according to which the pandemic is expected to adversely impact 290 million students across 20 countries. Risk management as stated by him seeks to prevent risks from occurring as well as reducing the impact if it does occur and that insurance is an example of reducing impact. In this regard business continuity is another example and a more effective one. Focusing on pandemic planning he elaborated the concept of business continuity. Business continuity management as emphasized by him is a holistic management process that identifies potential threats to an organization and the impacts to business operations that those threats, if realized might cause and which provides a framework for building organizational resilience with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value creating activities. Business continuity is neither emergency response planning nor is disaster recovery. Business continuity plans can help reduce the impact of multiple risks.

Elaborating on the tenfold pandemic plan for businesses he threw light of top concerns of universities and risks involved like fall in student numbers, fall in rankings and financial viability. The risks include change in government grants/ loans policy or funding plans, inability to host exams timely, cyber attacks etc. As for effect of uncertainty on objectives of organizations he mentioned that the purpose of risk management is to manage the barriers and maximizing the opportunities to achieving these objectives.    

He highlighted the importance of understanding risks which help us to understand constraints and boundaries. Towards this he stated “Embrace them. Let them guide you. Constraints drive innovation and force focus. Instead of trying to remove them, use them to your advantage”.

He further emphasized upon preparing for a post covid world which has opened current opportunities for universities like remote learning, integration of technology such as virtual learning and augmented reality, digital certificates applying technologies like block chain, split class rooms, supply chain within country to name a few. Alternative business models in case of class closures are highly relevant here like catering services, film production company, labs to include virus testing equipment, science schools to develop ability to create hand sanitizers, textile schools to include masks.

He stressed upon the failure situations pertaining to risk management. It fails when the process is overcomplicated, time consuming, too much dependent on paper work and extra concerned about details. It thus needs to be kept simple. He illuminated the steps involved in developing a risk management approach.

The risks involved in going digital according to him include unstable internet connections, lack of connectivity, lack of interactivity in courses, attention lack on the part of students, failure of platform, loss of data hijacks etc.  

A post covid world as per his opinion would entail less travel, continued social distancing, less youth employment, more home working, shift in economic structure, adoption of robotics/ AI, regulation of supply chain. Organizations would require to look at how to diversify, reinvent and transform, the crux being the need to manage and take risk in order to survive and thrive. This is vital since in the absence of risk information one lacks the full perspective to make an effective decision, understand the pitfalls and prepare for them, properly compare options and turn risks into opportunity.

Improved reporting and information for decision makers is required towards managing the current crisis that would cover key risk indicator data for early warning signs. Risk management provides up to date information regarding vulnerabilities across the organizationand key focus areas. Identifying emerging risks or horizon scanning is crucial here that includes identifying trends in relation to education sector, country, region and global level as well as technology trends.

The concept of risk needs to be differentiated from the concept of emerging risk and black swan. Risk which is usually a 12 month horizon is more related to day to day business plan. Emerging risk features a long term horizon. Often a new technology or global change that can be difficult to tell how it will impact the organization, but that will need to be dealt with ahead of time to prepare for the change to come often calling for a change in strategy is emerging risk. Black swan could occur any time with very low likelihood but huge impact which is often unforeseen.

He winded up the discussion citing some successful business continuity examples from Scotland and middle east. The talk was fully loaded with new information relevant to the present state of lull in event of the world wide covid-19 pandemic.  

Mr. Prayag Tripathi (MBA 15-17), Sr. Business Analyst, Ameriprise holds the hands of the students during current situations and guides them through webinar on 12th April, 2020. The focus of the talk was to guide the students in the field of Financial Analysis with practical exposure. He talked about the profiles available in the finance field and how to sharpen the skills for this area.  

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Shri Upkar Singh, Director (Information Technology), FIS Global was the key Resource Person for this Webinar. In this session Mr. Singh talked about basic principles, its significance, importance and various terms used in Blockchain Technology. While speaking on the Philosophy of Blockchain, Shri Singh emphasized on the importance of trust. During the session lots of queries of audience were also taken and resolved. The Webinar was attended by large number of participants of the Institute and other guests from different part of the country

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