8 August 2023, Bengaluru: The Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) at IIM Bangalore hosted a guest talk titled ‘The Future of Value Creation: Leading the Life eXperience Revolution’ on August 7, 2023. The talk was delivered by Dr. Venkat Ramaswamy, Professor of Marketing, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The event was attended by students and faculty members, including Prof. Rishikesha Krishnan, the Director of IIMB.
The talk explored the concept of ‘Life X-verse’, which goes beyond the technology-intensive eras of the Industrial Revolution. Dr. Ramaswamy started his talk by referring to his award-winning book The Future of Competition, written alongside his mentor, C. K. Prahalad in 2004. He further highlighted how value creation would be more democratised with the evolution of the internet, thereby transforming how and where value was created, which were the key aspects of his book.
The speaker discussed the four phases of the Industrial Revolution and emphasized that the world is now at the cusp of the Life eXperience Revolution. He explained how AI-infused Extended Interactivity in current times has shifted the plane of value creation towards emergent Life eXperiences.
Dr. Ramaswamy spoke about the Life eXperience journey in the context of the agricultural sector in India. To demonstrate this journey, he shared a number of visual examples of farmers from remote Indian villages benefitting from AI-infused interactivity. One such example that the speaker highlighted was Jugalbandi, a next-generation AI-driven chatbot that helped Indian villagers get assistance from the government through their mobile phones.
In conclusion, Dr. Ramaswamy touched upon his ongoing research with itihaasa Research and Digital, a not-for-profit organization that studies the evolution of technology and business domains in India. He stated that a new lens is required to visualize experience-centric ecosystem innovation and multi-stakeholder value creation opportunities (along with challenges) in the Life X-verse.
The session ended with a Q&A round where several members in the audience shared their thoughts and queries which were eloquently addressed by the speaker.
YouTube Link to the Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwiF1xI9xVU