The seventh edition of Solaris, the annual management fest of IIM Udaipur, was inaugurated on 30 October 2021. The event, similar to all the events on campus, is organized by the students of IIMU, and the theme for Solaris 2021 is ‘Synchronizing Horizons.’

On day one, the event began with an opening address by IIMU Director, Professor Janat Shah.

The event then proceeded to The Leadership Summit (LS) - the flagship event of Solaris where Kishore Jayaraman (President, Rolls-Royce, India & South Asia), Mathew Job (ED & CEO, Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals Ltd.), Saugata Gupta (MD & CEO, Marico), Bipul Chandra (MD, Ducati India Pvt. Ltd.) and Megha Tata (MD, South Asia - Discovery, Inc.) spoke to the community and provided everyone with insights and learnings from their varied experiences.

Arth-Samvaad - the Finance Symposium of Solaris 2021, hosted Ramesh Ganesan (MD & CEO, HDB Financial Services Ltd.), Vivek Mehrotra (Finance Director, India, Microsoft), Rohit Nayyar (CFO, CARE India), and Vineet Agrawal (CFO, Angel One Ltd.).

Samvadya - the Consulting Summit, hosted Gaurav Nayyar (Partner, Bain & Company), Neha Khandelwal (Director, Alvarez & Marsal), and Gaurav Dua (Partner and Global Head, Growth Analytics | KaaS, Frost & Sullivan), who shared their knowledge and experiences with students.

The second day of Solaris 2021 started with, Antardrishti, the Economics Summit, which hosted Vivek Kumar (Economist, QuantEco), Sujan Hajra (Executive Director, Chief Economist, Co-Head Research, Anand Rathi Securities), and Sameer Narang (Head – Economics Research, ICICI Bank), who spoke about the acceleration of the digital revolution due to the pandemic, the evolving Indian start-up ecosystem and the Digital India initiative.

This was followed by Unmesh, The Operations Summit, where Jabbar Ali Inamdar (CEO, Powerica - Cummins Division), Abhijit Chaudhury (Shipping Operations Lead, JSW Steel) and Neha Parekh (Head of Logistics and Customer Service, Godrej Consumer Products Ltd.) discussed the importance of AI and ML and India’s scope of becoming a supply chain hub.

The next summit was Anveshan, which hosted Srinidhi Shama Rao (Chief Strategy Officer, Aegon Life), Vinamra Vikram Vishen (Vice President - CX Analytics, Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd.), and Narayan Keshavan (Head, Digital Analytics (Customer Sentiment), Dell Digital, Dell Technologies). The speakers discussed the concept of integrated product design and how analytics is shaping the future of digital experiences.

The day ended with Samvaah, the Annual Marketing Conclave of Solaris 2021. Mukul Varshney (Director- Corporate Affairs, Media, PR and Comm., India, John Deere), Shardul Bist (CMO, Modi Naturals) and Sandeep Shukla (Head Marketing & Communication – Global Operations, Jaquar Group) spoke on the integration of sustainable technologies and shared their insights on strategic market segmentation.

Sponsored by Secure Meters, Solaris also included events and competitions for the students, namely, Vaad-Vivad, Mind-Wizz, Ops-Samasya, Auctionnaire, MarcWars Saudagar, Vitt-Sangram, Ingenium, and Arohan.

These interactive and highly engaging events helped the students pitch themselves against each other in simulations of real-life situations, making them think on their feet and also out of the box. Multiple prominent brands including Bunglow, Udaipur (food partner), Angel One (FinTech partner), Choudhary Offset (printing partner), GrabOn (savings partner), Union Bank of India (banking partner), Havenspire (trading partner), UdaipurBlog (digital media partner), Goyatrik (travel partner), Seasons Park (hospitality partner) are also assisting Solaris 2021.

IIM Udaipur initiated Solaris(https://solarisiimu.com/) to help the students interact with the industry leaders and gain keen insight from their knowledge and experience. Indian Institute of Management, Udaipur, has always been committed to its students’; holistic growth, and via Solaris, it aims to groom the students into future leaders.