Indian Institute of Management, Udaipur (IIMU) kicked off its flagship event, “The Leadership Summit 2012” with great fanfare today.

The event was inaugurated by Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar, son of Arvind Singh Mewar in the exquisite Durbar Hall of City Palace, Udaipur.

Professor Janat Shah, Director IIMU, initiated the proceedings with a few welcoming words. He said that development of an organization is a long journey and the key element to its success is creating knowledge and an environment for sharing it.

Lakshyaraj Singh Mewar addressed the gathering and stressed the importance of being a good human being, which lays the foundation for success in everything one does in life.

Pradeep Kashyap, CEO, MART & President, Rural Marketing Association of India set the tone for the event with a keynote speech on innovation and execution and the need for “Business minds with a social cause”.

He talked about the concept of “75% performance at 50% price” in the Indian context, stressing on the fact that it requires a bottoms-up approach towards a community co-creation process.

Debashis Poddar

The theme of the first panel discussion was ‘Making India an Innovation Hub’. The illustrious panel comprising Debashis Poddar, CEO, Bombay Dyeing; Ganesan Ramachandran, Partner, Accenture Management Consulting; Kaushik Roy, President, Brand Strategy and Marketing, Reliance India Ltd. and Sudarshan Jain, MD, Healthcare Solutions, Abbott Healthcare Pvt. Ltd, and Dr. Sudhakar Potukuchi, Head, India Innovation Center, Eaton India deliberated the topic on the floor.

Debasis Poddar spoke on innovation as a means of survival and defined it as “the successful exploitation of a new idea”. He illustrated the concept of innovation through various examples in the Indian context. To this input, Ganesan stressed on reverse innovation and the five requirements of innovation. He also mentioned that though Indians are good at service innovation, they lack product innovation and should pursue that through frugal innovation.

Kaushik Roy

Bringing in a different point of view, Kaushik Roy said that innovation is not for the faint hearted, and that the fear of taking risk is the biggest impediment to innovation. Thereafter, Sudarshan Jain said that unless we respect innovation, we cannot encourage innovation and stressed upon Intellectual Property Rights and that the Pharmacy industry is very innovative in India.

Dr. Sudhakar Potukuchi gave an interesting outlook to innovation, stating that “Fresh thinking creates value” and stressed on the importance of the ecosystem, which is crucial to foster innovation. If the innovation does not make money, then it is not useful.

The audience comprising students and faculty of IIMU along with various dignitaries and entrepreneurs from Udaipur added colour to the discussion with their probing questions.

Sudarshan Jain

Questions ranging from innovation in the developmental activities, to innovation in the pharmaceutical industry and the spectrum of volatility and repeatability in the context of innovation, were put forward by the students, which was addressed by the panel and the keynote speaker.

This concluded the first half of the event paving way for the second theme, ‘Execution Excellence’.

Ganesan Ramachandran

The panelists who will be sharing their perspectives are Deepak Dheer, Ex-MD, and Advisor to Mahindra Forgings; Dhamodaran Ramakrishnan, Director, Smarter Planet Solutions at IBM India; Dileep Misra, President, Corporate HR, J.K. Group; Maj. Gen. P.R. Shankar, Additional Director General, Directorate Artillery, Indian Army; and Thomas Kuruvilla, MD, Middle East, Arthur D. Little.

The unique insights obtained today will help all the attendees, especially students, feel the pulse of India today and understand the direction in which our country is headed. The event was being telecast live online on the website of the leadership Summit http://ls.iimu.ac.in.