Strides 12

The two day entrepreneurship fest of IFMR, STRIDES’12 was a huge success among the corporate and the students. The theme of this year’s STRIDES is “Comenzio – Transforming Dreams into Reality!” The event partner was “TiE Chennai” and the print partner was “The Hindu”. The event was aired live in the strides website by Purple Streams.

February 3rd 2012, Day-1, at GRT Grand Convention Center, commenced with an inauguration ceremony. The Chief Guest for the morning session included Mr.K.R.Bhaskar, Consul of Education Affairs, Mr.Srinivasan Vishwanathan, Director - TiE Chennai and Dr.Bobby Srinvasan, President - Institute of Financial Management and Research (IFMR).

IFMR, for the very first time, introduced “Launch Pad” wherein 12 start-up companies from different sectors were invited to pitch in about their venture or product, in a time span of 5 minutes to a panel of venture capitalists, investors and incubators. The audience who witnessed consisted of corporate, entrepreneurs and students. The start-ups were interrogated by these panel members by interesting and thought provoking questions.

Post Lunch, there were two panel discussions. The first panel comprised of well settled and established entrepreneurs, who shared their experience of starting a firm, the risks they faced during their journey and how they were able to convert them to opportunities. The topic under discussion for the first panel was, “Transit Risks to Opportunities – Entrepreneurial Journey so Far!!! “.

The second panel had Venture Capitalists, Incubators and Investors, who dwelled upon the constraints involved in evaluating the start ups before they decided to fund them, their success stories and their expectations from the future entrepreneurs. The topic under discussion for the second panel was, “Funding – the other side of the table!!! “.

Day-1 ended with a closing ceremony. The Chief Guest for the closing ceremony included Dr.P.Senthilkumar, Special Secretary to Government – Finance Department, Mr.N.S.Shankar, Former District governor - Lions Club and Professor G.Balasubramanian, Dean - Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR).

Day-2 saw participants from other B-Schools in India who took part in two events. The first event was a case based business plan - Build Ur Impressa. The second event was a debate - Dwandwa. The total cash prizes for both the events were worth Rs.70000.

It was a great pleasure in having the above mentioned guests who served as an instrument for the success of the event.

For more info visit :
Strides Facebook page
Strides12 Website

Article written by Bala Srinivasan

THE ERA OF BUSSINESS PROCESS RE-ENGINEERING

27^th January, 2012:

            Mr. P S Easwaran, Director - Strategy & Operations, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India (P) Ltd delivered a lecture on “Business Process Re-Engineering” which was organized by the colloquium committee of IFMR. He has immense experience in the field of consulting. He started the lecture by giving a brief description about his experience with the IFMRians whom he had encountered in the industry. He shared his insight and knowledge in the BPR process which involves transformation of an organization in ways that directly affects performance.

Mr. Easwaran stressed that the key to BPR is the elimination of redundancies in processes involved in the organizations. He explained the BPR process in simple terms involving audit to cash, procure to pay and concept launch techniques. Several waste reduction items involving inventory, weighting, transporting, rework and motion were also elaborated by him. He delivered an impromptu lecture pointing out various ways in which BPR has been utilized in the sectors such as banking, manufacturing and information technology. He quoted several examples in which these industries greatly benefited from the BPR approach.

His lecture was based on practical approach which is practiced by the consultants on job. He advised to question everything and revisit every single line item in BPR, as trivial things might be the key changers for an organization and he laid down several examples indicating the same. The lecture was attended by both 1^st and 2^nd year students who participated in the lecture enthusiastically. Several queries related to BPR and Deloitte were also addressed by him. The audience was enlightened from his humorous yet informative speech about the BPR process. On behalf of IFMR a memento was presented to Mr.Easwaran.

Deloitte is the brand under which tens of thousands of dedicated professionals in independent firms throughout the world collaborate to provide audit, consulting, financial advisory, risk management, and tax services to selected clients. These firms are members of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL), a UK private company limited by guarantee. In India, Deloitte offers a range of Audit & Enterprise risk, Tax, Consulting and Financial advisory services across thirteen cities.