Tata Confluence-2004 kicks off

Big foreign B-Schools give it a miss this year

Alan Rosling, executive director of Tata Sons, inaugurated the Tata Confluence-2004 in the Ravi J Mathai Centre at the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIMA) on Thursday afternoon.

However, the sixth edition of the international B-school meet, was lost its sheen as some of the top-most topmost B-schools gave it a miss.

This year 14 B-Schools across the world are taking part against the 13 last year. But big names such as Harvard Business School, Stanford Business School, Massachusetts Institute Of Technology are missing.

Organisers said that Harvard canceled its participation at the last moment while students of the rest of the top B-Schools are not participating as the schedule of Tata Confluence-2004 coincides with their examinations.

Also this year's speakers' list has less number of corporate bigwigs compared with last year's meet. Most of the speakers who will deliver lectures during next three days are from the sponsoring companies of Tata Confluence-2004.

While last year, heavyweight Union ministers spoke on subjects including disinvestment, financial reforms, this year political personalities have kept away from the meet, thus further dampening the spirit.

The only big political figures this would be the technocrats in Union finance minister, P Chidambaram and chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Aluhwalia.

However, organisers, students of IIM-A, on Thursday did claim that Tata Confluence-2004 is going to be the biggest meet in the history of this unique fest.

As corporates such as Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC), ICICI, McKinsey, Tata Group and Gujarat Informatics Ltd (GIL) are the main sponsors of the show, most of the guest speakers for the meet, will be representing these few corporate only.

There is no participation from non-sponsored corporates.

"We don't find anything wrong in this as definitely the companies which will be spending money for sponsoring our events, would ask for platform to present themselves.

"But we are not against other corporates taking part in the various events, irrespective of the fact whether they are spending money as sponsors or not," said Ranjith Roy, co-ordinator of the event.

The Meet kicked off with the inaugural address by Indira Parikh, dean of IIMA. Alan delivered the keynote address in which he mainly addressed issues related to investment scenario for the developing countries and also on emerging market trends. Tata Sons is the principal partner of this year's meet.

Following the keynote address by Alan, a panel discussion on 'Future Direction on Indian IT Industry' took place which was made interesting with participation of who's who of Indian IT industry, Clayton Locke, managing director of Sapient India, Inderpreet Thukral, director (marketing and strategy) of IBM India, Sudhakar Ram, chief executive officer of Mastek India. Senior faculty member of the IIM and member of the Board of Governors of IIM-A, B H Jajoo, co-ordinated the session which continued for over an hour.

The panel discussion was held to search answers for various issues with main focus on, 'with the tax exemptions set to disappear in a few year's time and with China and other countries rapidly embracing English like never before this supremacy stands challenged. And yet experts believe that the best period of the Indian IT sector is yet to come.

Speakers also tried to give replied to questions like, "Will India forever remain a 'service provider,' or will the Indian IT industry ever be able to boost of Indian software products.'

Late in the evening, first competition among participants of the 27 B-Schools took place.