India’s growth prospects and the chances that it will pick up pace against China formed a point of discussion at a three-day conference on ‘Management Challenges in Uncertain Environment’ began at the Indian Institute of Management-Kozhikode (IIM-K) on Friday.
The conference is organised jointly by Association of Indian Management Scholars (AIMS) International and the IIMK. Around 150 delegates from India as well as from abroad are participating in the programme.
In his inaugural address, C. Balagopal, founder of Terumo Penpol, the largest blood bag manufacturing facility in the world, highlighted that ‘uncertainty’ was the keyword of the moment when industries and businesses across the world were facing challenges in appropriate decision makings.
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Business managers of the day needed to understand and learn, to cope with the world of uncertainty, he said.
He expressed hope that there would soon be clarity from where the demand for products and services was going to come from. Looking at the Indian conditions, there was already the growth of power generation, highways, ports, and the rest of the infrastructure that were needed to sustain high growth.
He stressed that China was the best example of this phenomenon, and India would soon be there too. As China slowed, Indian growth would pick up, and sustain the demand for commodities including steel, building materials, capital equipment, and consumer products.
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In his keynote address, Prof. Kulbhushan Balooni, Director, IIM-K underlined the dire need of scholarly research in the field of business and management by Indian institutions, and highlighted the research initiatives and programmes that were carried out by the IIM-K.
He then shared with the delegates an analysis of ‘Management knowledge development scenario in India’. He underscored the point that, knowledge creation was a point of recognition among the peers, and its benchmarking was done by the number of citations by peers of a research article.
In the competitive research environment, there was no choice but to accept the citations as an important indicator of quality research, and the impact factor of the journals. He encouraged the delegates to engage in high quality research and development in business and management, and expressed hope that the present status of Indian research in the area be elevated to higher ranks in the days to come.
Prof. S.K. Aggarwal of AIMS International, Babaria Institute of Technology welcomed the dignitaries and the delegates and Prof. Radhakrishna Pillai, Conference Co-Chair and Dean (Administration) IIM Kozhiode, proposed the vote of thanks.