The two-day long conference, has seen large scale participation from researchers and students from both within and outside India. The conference over the years has seen participants from France, Mexico, USA, Belgium, Malaysia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Iran, Bangladesh and Pakistan presenting their papers. This year, a total of 78 papers are being presented, of which 4 are from foreign authors and the rest from India. The foreign delegates who have contributed research papers and are participating in this year’s conference are from Taiwan, Indonesia and Ghana.

The conference began with the traditional lighting of the Kutthu Vilakku by Dr.Jawahar, Shri A. Nagarajan, the Director of the Institute and Shri K. Subburaj, Chairman, Cethar Limited,Tiruchirappalli, the chief guest for the inaugural function.

The Director provided the welcome address while Dr. Jawahar, during his speech, traced the roots of Athenaeum over the years right from its inception. Mr.Subburaj, during his inaugural speech, stated his desire to put Tiruchirappalli in the industrial map of the country. He stressed the need for using the abundant resources available in our country to be competitive in this world. He hoped for this conference to bring solutions to a lot of industrial questions that are plaguing our industrial sector today. He further went on to throw light on the trait that differentiates an Entrepreneur from the rest. An “Entrepreneur wants to take life as it comes” He said.
The inaugural function concluded with the Chief guest releasing the first copy of the cd containing the papers to be presented during this year’s conference. While the director of BIM Shri A Nagarajan received it.

The inauguration was followed by a special lecture from Dr.Prafulla Agnihotri, Director, Indian Institute of Management, Tiruchirappalli on the topic of Compete and Conquer where he spoke about the changing global business Landscape. He stressed the need for using Social media and Buzz Marketing as efficient replacements to traditional marketing tools. He also brought to the fore the changing demographics around us involving changing roles for Women of our society and a change in today’s family structure as a result. He advised the students of today to be aware of the need to change and be adaptive to these changes to sustain themselves in the competitive market.
The research papers to be presented over the two days of the conference were categorized into several streams viz. Marketing, Finance, Human resource and General Management. Apart from this, the participants were further divided into two categories viz. PhD scholars and General. The papers will be judged by eminent Chair Persons and two best papers in each category will be awarded a cash prize and a certificate of merit.

The event over the two days, intends to showcase scholarly work from academia and industry on the same platform, providing a professional forum of idea interchange. Apart from the CD, A few select papers will come out in the form of a special issue Journal –The Journal of Contemporary Management Research, say the organizers of Athenaeum 2012.
The lead sponsors for the event include CETHAR Limited, and Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited.
The conference ends today with the valedictory function scheduled today (12th February 2012) at 02:30pm.

Sportscom and BISMARC, the sports and marketing committees of the college had joined hands to make BPL more interesting by announcing a slew of contests to test how well the teams marketed themselves. A chance for the teams to put their learnings to good use. The teams were asked to prepare chants of their own and make their team Introductions culminating with the jersey unveiling in front of the audience. Typical of any tournament at an International level. The exercise carried awards for the best introduced team.
There were 10 teams lined up for the tournament split into two groups. The event had a healthy mix of teams representing both PGP1 and PGP2. The event kick started with the inaugural match played between the Teams, HUNTOS and SPARKLERS.
The tournament, A bounty of Sixers and fours, certainly lived up to its billing as an ultimate war between the bat and the ball. The bowlers had an enjoyable outing as well. Perhaps foreseeing this, A team had even announced a specific sum of money for every wicket they took towards SPIRITED, the institute’s social welfare initiative to provide Quality education for the less fortunate. The tournament also saw the introduction of the much famed Mangoose bat, A tool of Destruction which Kaushik prasanna of Team Galacticos ably used to score a rapid fire 92 off just 42 balls.

The league stages, though curtailed to 12 overs per side did not limit the batsmen to score heavily.. so much so that there was even a century by Achal Sreedharan of team THUNDER X. while the on field action heated up. The limelight off the field was hogged by Team Nakka Mukka Tigers(NMT) the perennial entertainers of the tournament. They left no stone unturned with their funny moments both on and off the field and reminded everyone of the energy and excitement one should have while approaching a game. NMT effectively marketed their team through their mascot Teebo, the tiger and through various sports events conducted during the innings breaks. It was no surprise then that this team of fifteen friendly tigers won the best marketed team award for this year.

The Tournament hit fever pitch during the last night of the league stages when the last year runners up, team Galacticos met the up and coming team from PGP1, The Huntos. The match, a true nail-biter to the finish had the Huntos sneak a victory of the penultimate ball and leave the entire campus stunned in disbelief. This cracker of a match eventually made a repeat in the finals of the tournament where Galacticos came out stronger than before to defeat Team Hunto convincingly and lift the 2012 edition of the BIM premier league cup.
The event concluded with every team going back a winner in some way. Be it the rich haul of awards or a Trove of knowledge. Everyone was a winner.

Fin Club, the finance committee of the Institute came up with a novel way to add more excitement to the tournament by announcing Super Selector, an online tournament where-in participants were asked to predict the best player and the team that would win on that day. Every BIMite, throughout the tenure of the tournament was completely hooked to such activities organized by the committees to commemorate BPL 2012.
With all this said and done. BPL 2012 surely left an indelible mark in the hearts of the 230 odd students of the campus. A Legacy hard to surpass in the near future.

With this brief, we welcome you all to Athenaeum 2012, the 6th edition of the International Management Research Conference at BIM. An endeavor where we plan a confluence of academicians, practitioners, researchers and students to discuss and deliberate topics on contemporary management issues. The theme for Athenaeum 2012 is “Innovative Management Strategies for Global Competitiveness and Sustainability”. Innovative management strategies are gaining tremendous importance in the era of managerial excellence. It has the potential for long-term maintenance of environmental, economic and social well being. Doing business the sustainable way in a competitive environment is the need of the hour and hence the necessity for academic and business researches to include appropriate parameters in their research models. We, as one of the stakeholders, want to showcase the best business practices and ideas that have a bearing on this broad theme. This year, Athenaeum 2012, aims at achieving this.

Athenaeum 2012 invites original papers from academia and practicing managers in various functional areas of management such as Marketing, Production and Operations, Finance, Human Resource, Systems and other relevant areas like Economics, Psychology, Political Science and others. We invite research papers that discuss best practices in the industry across the globe and (or) original ideas that can further contribute to the body of management research. Papers submitted will either fall under PhD Category or General Category as declared during online registration. Two best papers from each category chosen by a panel of experts will be awarded cash prizes at the Valedictory Function. Research papers from full time and part time research scholars pursuing doctorate degrees or which forms part of PhD thesis are eligible to be listed under PhD Category.

He discussed in detail on investment strategy for India, the issues in India and the cushioning that India enjoys in times of global financial meltdowns . He spoke on the chaos all round the world persisiting due to the violent stock market reactions, the weak consumer demands and the U.S. double dip recession. He spoke on the issues that India faces at present namely, inflation with WPI being at its all time high, increasing interest rates, slippages in fiscal deficit, policy paralysis of the government and the downgrading of the GDP rates.

Mr. Balasubramanian also highlighted the advantage that India enjoys over other economies with respect to the present recession at hand. The Indian corporate houses enjoy a healthy balance sheet blessed with funds. Moreover the margins that have been set will be attained once the inflation cools down keeping India safe from the full brunt of the recession looming large. He also opined that government vandalism is not unique to India and discussed the key government bills and acts that helps regulate an otherwise unstructured set up.

Mr. A Balasubramanian, took up the query session with the students and in answering them, discussed the topics of market devaluation of stocks and profit maximisation and risk aversion being a factor for the shift from a win-win strategy to a lose-lose one.

He concluded saying that the economy of India is similar to Marilyn Monroe in may ways, quoting one of her very famous lines
“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”

We couldn’t agree more!!!

The discussion was able to capture the HR perspectives from various industries as the panellists represented people ranging from the Brick and Mortar to the Click and Mortar industries.

Dr. Sai Prasanna initiated the proceedings highlighting the problems the HRs face today while toggling between Control measures and expectations of GEN Y employees. Mr. Kumar followed with his own insights on how engineering industries prevail in times of huge salary gaps as compared to the IT industry. Mr. Gerard, during his speech gave an IT perspective to current HR challenges. “It’s not the invisible hand of the market determining the success but the people who work and their behaviour that determines the fate of any economy” he said.

In response to one of the queries, Dr. Sai Prasanna said “An HR always faces the dilemma to choose between the best team and the most aligned team”. The discussion then reiterated that while inclusive growth continues to be looked at in the macro level; on a micro level, today’s HRs have their task cut out to identify the kind of culture they would like to build around their team. Everyone unanimously agreed that be it micro or macro level, ethics need to find a prominent place in any work culture.

On asked how a HR needs to tackle the emotional factors while taking decisions, the panel was of the opinion that its necessary to accept that humans are emotional beings and that its required to delink the emotional quotient in our decisions while acknowledging an employee’s feelings and taking him into confidence.

Talking about integrating culture of two companies during a merger, Mr. Gerard stated the three facts that needed to be looked into. He assured in times such as during a merger, the industry specific culture will be the same and that’s the starting point to work from. He goes on to add that it gives a chance to look at the best of both companies’ practices and make a list of complementary factors that can be used as the prime driver for the integration process.

Taking questions on Labour Unions, and their relevance today, Mr. Kumar told that with things getting more competitive day by day, nobody wants to lag behind. The role of labour unions as a go through between the employee and the employer is slowly diminishing. Private companies have started taking steps to hold on to the migrating workers by providing them accommodation more for a business motive and less as an employee engagement initiative. Dr.Sai Prasanna, brought forward the example of two of the states having labour union prominence as having a not so enviable development prospect. “There is no longer a need to protect unskilled labourers as they are practically non-existent today. Today’s workers are knowledge workers” he opined.

While talking on the topic of attrition; there was agreement to Dr. Sai Prasanna’s view that the average saleability of an employee is high when he is fresh out of training not after 4 or 5 years in the industry. This war for talent will always make attrition favourable for a few companies and unfavourable for the rest.

He brought to light the ‘Gemini Soul’ that India has – We revel in opposites, as evident from the fact that on one hand while we forge ahead with modern lifestyles, we are stuck in age old beliefs and conventions on the other. The consumers we deal with are both the atta consuming, health conscious ones but also the gooey chocolate consuming indulgents.
Consumer engagement based on the principle “Talk with consumers and not at them” and creating an environment with toned down seriousness enthuses the consumers themselves to market the brand through social media. CCD realised the importance of marketing in this avenue and once it reached 1 million fans through social media, augmented the Consumer engagement activities by conducting celebrations to commemorate the milestone.
He went on to explain how CCD challenged the conventions by selling coffee in a market where tea outperforms coffee in terms of consumer preference by a huge ratio of 17 : 1. This was made possible by making coffee no more a serious man’s drink, the very USP of CCD. He followed this with video illustrations of Pepsi and Durex on how they challenged conventional marketing norms by launching the Pepsi Refresh project and Durex baby initiatives.
In response to one of the queries on Consumer loyalty, Mr. Ramakrishnan stated Consumer loyalty depends on how we understand consumer insights and how we translate that to be a trend of consumer preferences.

“Start building your analytical skills” was Mr.Ramakrishnan’s advice to the students for their future. He said any effective communication needs to have a strong backing of data through analytical research.

He went on to highlight a few points on the revenue model of the newspapers and the prevalence of advertisements as its primary source. However, though the print media business is doing well there is a prominent shift towards e-newspaper/e-zines. He spoke unequivocally regarding the prospects of web media. He advocated web media saying that with the advancement of technology and the need to access news and information on the go, web media is fast replacing the print media from its throne as the most sought after channel for news and advertisements. High availability of handheld devices like laptops, mobile phones and its likes within the acceptable price band of the middle class augment this trend.
Mr. Srinivasan also captured the advantages and diadvantages of the web media. He says that on one hand though the web media provides a better service in the form of realtime information, customization of news and attachments of added information related to the concerned news, print media too enjoys its own share of advantages of being available at affordable price, and being comprehensive.

It was an entertaining and enriching session on the changing facades of media that culminated with an animated question answer round, wherein queries like what would be the unique selling proposition of one paper with respect to the others were raised and discussed upon.

The discussion was set rolling by Dr. Athreya; he threw light on the notions of efficient market hypothesis. He went on to provide an insight on the fact that the economic laws and principles have not been a truthful representation of the existing scenario. He also spoke on the topics of Double dip, Thai currency, contribution of Keynes in the resolution of economic crisis faced by developed countries after the World War – II and emerging economies. He moved on to speak on ways the global economy crisis can be resolved.

The discussion was taken forward by Dr. M. Ramachandran who went on to speak on the concept of a flat world, market stabilization scheme, money appreciation and development of stock market. He also spoke about the paradox existing between the financial stability and inflation. He concluded on the note that a flat world is too early to judge for the current situation.
The final speaker for this session Mr. Manas Ranjan Das elaborated on the Euro and U.S. crisis. He also went on to articulate about the increasing interest rates, a deliberate action done by RBI to put a check on the runaway growth and runaway inflation. He concluded by talking about the objectives of policies and the capitalization of opportunities.

The session drew to a close with a number of meaningful insights on rupee depreciation, consumption driven growth and increasing risk and return of external borrowings. Questions from students were noted down and answered in detail, making the entire session a breeding ground for comprehensive learning.

He also stressed the need for giving up on short term benefits having long time focus in mind by quoting the example of Canada on how it was the only country among the G7 group of nations to have never had a bail out in its economic history.
Closer home, Mr. Rama Rao reflected upon the experiences of two young entrepreneurs who though having a fantastic idea of an internet startup were caught up in the 2001 IT bubble burst due to their misguided approach over resource management and market sizing, but they took a lot of positives out of their failure. They took money from Spark Capital, built on their strengths of marketing analytics and floated the company ‘Marketics’ which soared through to be a multimillion dollar venture within a span of three years.
Mr. Rama Rao was also gracious enough to share with us the success story of Spark Capital, which differentiated itself from its contemporaries by placing relationship based investment banking as their unique selling proposition.

In response to one of the queries put forward by the students, Mr. Rama Rao stated that willingness and commitment to come out successful from loss makes any business idea a saleable one. On being asked the most important takeaway for a MBA graduate, His answer was not the business acumen, nor was it Decision making skills, but personal integrity.

The event ended with saying “if we could learn from our experiences and apply them in our pursuits there is no alternative to success in life”.

How very true!!!!

Mr.S. Krishnan also evinced the view that there is a rise in number of the educated unemployed in the country and why the national income accounting brings out a strong gender disparity. He spoke about the issues of migration, predominance of agriculture and unskilled labour. He also threw light on the plethora of labour laws and the conventions of the ILO and how to develop the required skills.

The session concluded with mutual interaction between Mr. Krishnan and the students. Some of the questions that came up are the counter measures that have been taken for the upliftment of the unskilled labour class and the laws to ensure the migrant worker’s rights. The questions were dealt with dexterity and adroitness coupled with the industry experience the speaker had.