BHUBANESWAR: XIM, Bhubaneswar hosted the annual business summit organised by X-Eminence here recently.
This Summit had students pursuing the Executive-MBA course from XIM, Bhubaneswar. A diverse array of speakers was lined up to discuss and deliberate on various topics in an interactive session with the students.
The event commenced with an inauguration ceremony with the traditional lighting of the lamp followed by a speech by chief guest Prafulla Samal, Minister, MSME, Women & Child Development, Govt. of Odisha. He highlighted how ‘Make in Odisha 2.0’ will create 6 lakh jobs and vowed for women empowerment and getting 1/3rd of start-ups by and for them. He also mentioned how the state should focus on the MSME sector in the near future.
The summit was divided into 3 events, each having a different topic of discussion, ‘Make in Odisha: The Future Ahead’ being the first which talked about growing opportunities of investment in the state. The keynote speaker, Rajib Sekhar Sahoo, Fellow Member FCA, Partner SRB Associates opened the discussion with his views on the state’s export potential due to its vast coastline and skilled manpower and mentioned “If Odisha does not become competitive, it won’t attract industries.”
The next speaker Chandan Sadangi, OFS, Additional Director Audit & Finance Dept, Govt. of Odisha, talked about how important proper infrastructure is for the state’s development which can offer millions of opportunities especially in the mushroom, straw and husk industries.
After a glowing first session, the panel discussion on “S.M.A.R.T. UP” moderated by S K Padhi, Assopciate Dean, Executive MBA, followed which had emerging entrepreneurs as the panellists. The first speaker Priyadarshi Sadangi, Founder, Knowlexeon spoke about how creating an automated system, machine learning and data analytics/mining could help increase productivity by finding the predictive behaviour among the customers.
Subhajit Majee, the founder of ‘The Adview’ which he started with only Rs. 800 and made it into a company which had a turnover of 8 crores, mentioned incorrect positioning as the issue, where everything revolves around advertisements when it should be around finding what the customer actually thinks.
Reemly Mohanty, Founder, Reemly’s Design Studio, started her company in 2011 with a small workshop and 3 workers. She shared her story of how she grew keeping in mind 3 crucial aspects-‘Digital marketing’, ‘Word-of-mouth Influence’ and ‘Customer Satisfaction’.
The last but most interesting session talked about “Industry 4.0: Impact, Implementation and Implications”. The first speaker was Rudra Narayan Pilai, Special Secretary, E & IT Dept, Govt. of Odisha who put up his thoughts mentioning Industry 4.0 is driven by stakeholders and Government is one of the stakeholders as it provides re-skilling opportunities playing the roles of an enabler, facilitator, and policy maker. Dhinakar Ramamurthy, Head, Digital Transformation Renault Nissan Mitsubishi Alliance, India grabbed the attention of the students by talking about Digital twins and how the change in data could be applied in production.
The enriching and thought-provoking speeches were followed by an interactive Q&A session with the guest speakers answering the thoughtful and intriguing questions posed by the students. The event concluded with a vote of thanks delivered by X-Eminence, XIMB.
