From EV barriers to enriching talent experience for business sustainability, industry leaders engage in thought-provoking conversations at the summit hosted by students of the Post Graduate Programme in Enterprise Management at IIM Bangalore.
06 November 2022: Discussions by academicians and industry leaders on India’s talent sustainability goals marked the second day of Drishti 2022, an annual leadership and business summit hosted by the students of IIM Bangalore’s two-year Post- Graduate Programme in Enterprise Management (PGPEM).
With the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war being not only setbacks for India's sustainability goals but reversing many achievements, the aspirations set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development are in jeopardy. Given this, day two of Drishti 2022 painted a picture of what a sustainable future could look like getting off to a start with a panel discussion on “India's sustainability goals: Are we on track?”
The discussion, moderated by Professor Sourav Mukherji, faculty in the Organisational Behavior and Human Resources area and Dean of Alumni Relations and Development at IIM Bangalore, touched upon sustainability, health and nutrition and economic empowerment. The panel comprised Wilma Rodrigues, Founder and CEO of Saahas Zero Waste; Kanika Pal, South Asia Head of Community Investments & Sustainability Programs at Unilever; Divya Ravichandran, Founder and CEO at Skrap; and Balasubramanian N, CEO, Sresta Natural Bio Products. They addressed the challenges and concerns of implementing sustainability across different levels.
“Ask the right questions”
Divya Ravichandran highlighted that “Ninety per cent of people want to do the right thing, but do not know where to begin”. Kanika Pal remarked, “What is sustainability if not the way we consume products to leave something for future generations.” The panellists discussed the importance of waste management, with Wilma Rodrigue emphasising the need to change waste disposal culture and urging consumers to ask the questions like, “Where is my waste going?” Commenting on the pace of meeting India’s sustainability goals, Balasubramanian N said, “We are not more than a decade away from the tipping point, where becoming sustainable will become a norm – we are on the right track.”
The next panel on “Enriching talent experience for business sustainability” was moderated by Prof. Gopal P Mahapatra, Professor of Practice, OB & HRM at IIM, Bangalore. The panel comprised Abhrajit Sen Gupta, HR Site Lead, AstraZeneca, India Operations; Hariram VM, HR Leader at ADECCO Group; Vivek Subramanian, Director, Talent Development at Fidelity; and Sanjiv Kumar Das mohapatra, Senior Manager, Hubilo. The panellists exchanged thoughts on where the talent experience should begin and how to become an employer of choice. They pointed out that building a positive organisational culture depends entirely on how companies treat their employees and said this could be the strongest factor in winning the war in retaining talent.
The third session of the day discussed ‘EV barriers in the fast lane’. Prof. Prateek Raj, from the Strategy area at IIM Bangalore, moderated the discussion, which featured Manuj Khurrana, Founder of Newmo; Dr. Venu Gopal Shankar, Vice President of Mahindra; Harendra Saksena, Chief Procurement Officer at Ather Energy; and Karthikeyan P, Co-founder of Zeon Charging. The panel highlighted how India is positively accepting EV technology in the two-wheeler space. They observed that the charging infrastructure of these vehicles has been growing and the network has doubled in size amongst operators in the last six months. Taking a broad view of current challenges, the panel said supply was more of a concern in the EV industry rather than demand. “There is a need to create a product that will set future trends while being incredibly intriguing and quirky-looking,” they added.
Click here for photos on Day Two of Drishti 2022.
Click here for report on Day One of Drishti 2022.
Click here for photos on Day One.