Inaugural Session: Speaker at the podium Mr Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, Executive Director, Cognizant India, the Chief Guest during the inaugural session. (From left to right) Gp Capt R Vijayakumar (Retd) VSM, Executive Director, MMA, Mr L Ramkumar, Sr Vice President, MMA, Mr Anand Bhushan, Partner, Chennai Head, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co and Mr Terry Thomas, Innovation Center Leader & Partner – Operations Advisory Services, EY LLP

Panel Discussion on the theme “How disruption is changing the way Organizations operate” (L to R) Mr Vijay Karunakaran, Founder & CEO, InGage Technologies, Mr Sundar Sankaran, Sr HRBP, Amazaon Development Center India, Mr Upenddra Sai, Director, Analytics, EY LLP, Mr Arjun Shetty, COO, bankbazaar.com and Mr R Balaji, Head – Sharred Services Center, L & T Construction

Inaugural Session: (L to R) Mr Anand Bhushan, Partner, Chennai Head, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co, Gp Capt R Vijayakumar (Retd) VSM, Executive Director, MMA. Mr L Ramkumar, Sr Vice President, MMA, Mr Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, Executive Director, Cognizant India and Mr Terry Thomas, Innovation Center Leader & Partner – Operations Advisory Services, EY LLP

Panel discussion: How disruption is changing the way organizations operate. Mr Upendra Sai Director, Analytics, E&Y was the moderator of the session. The Panellists were: Mr. Vijay Karunakaran, CEO, InGage Technologies, Mr. Sundar Sankaran, Sr. HRBP, Amazon, Mr. Arjun Shetty, COO, bankbazaar.com, Mr. R Balaji, Head, Shared Services Centre, L&T Construction

The seminar was a grand success attended by over 300 delegates

Mr. Peter Rimmele, Resident Representative to India, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung delivering his Opening Remarks through the Skype from New Delhi.

Mr. L Ramkumar, Senior Vice President at Madras Management Association delivered the welcome address while Mr. Terry Thomas, Innovation Centre Leader and Partner at Ernst and Young, presented the overview of the seminar. According to him, it was extremely important for any organization to have a good and strong digital strategy. Therefore, it was crucial for any organization to be able to embrace the forces of economic disruption enabled by technology.

The seminar aimed at answering the following questions amongst others: Do executives have already understood the potential of “digital” or it is being used as a buzzword? Does digital implementation require new kind of human capital, or could existing workforce be upskilled? Generally, the conversations around digitalization are predominantly technology-centric, and rarely on the business processes and other components like marketing, public relations, sales, etc. However, digital revolution is happening across all businesses. While huge corporations are already on the path to go fully digital, the challenges may seem huge for smaller organizations. Mid-size organizations also face a plethora of risks that come with digital – information security, regulatory norms, rapidly changing technology landscape etc. Thus, anticipating risks should be on top of the list for organizations that are going to pursue their digital journey.

Mr. Peter Rimmele, Resident Representative to India at KAS, delivered his opening remarks through Skype from New Delhi. He said that the day’s topic was most concurrent as the digital revolution is sweeping away the entire globe. He said first music and films were digitalized making them easily accessible for everyone from everywhere. Telecommunication moved to the digital world and now we see the functions of a car being digitalized urging organizations to think of suitable strategies to face the challenges of digital disruption in all areas.

Mr. Anand Bhushan, Partner and Head at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co., delivered the special address on the intersection of law and technology while throwing light on the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” which is bringing the third phase of “Internet technology” to an end.

Further, Mr. Ramkumar Ramamurthy, Executive Director at Cognizant Technology Solutions, gave a broad idea as to how digitalization is impacting the entire operations of an organization. To him, CEOs must get their digital transformation right across the enterprise. They should ensure that the investments made on technologies over the years are made digital-ready.

Afterwards, three business sessions and one panel discussion on how disruption is changing the way organizations operate took place. The Seminar concluded with a Vote-of-Thanks by Gp. Capt. R. Vijayakumar, Executive Director of Madras Management Association. The seminar was a grand success being attended by over 300 delegates, which once again showed the relevance of the topic.