GURUGRAM: Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon, one of the premier business schools in the country, recently hosted Sapience 2022, the annual management conclave on the theme of Sustainability: Balancing the 3 E’s: Economy, Environment & Ethics.
Emphasizing that the environment should be our first priority, the recipient of Padma Bhushan dr. Mrityunjay Athreya said: “The sustainability mantra should influence our awareness, planning, action planning and control every step of the way. India is a fast-growing economy. We need to focus on our potential as a growing economy for the next 10-20 years, but with a healthy environment. Whatever economic growth we can achieve, however high we are, it must be under one unchanging condition: green economy. We cannot afford to have economic growth with high carbon pollution. At the same time, we must work towards energy front, to economic growth and with respect for ethics.”
During the conclave, top leaders talked about balancing three core aspects of sustainability – economics, environment and ethics, which act as a framework that companies can use to develop, test and evaluate their business strategies.
As perceptions change globally, sustainability becomes a must for businesses. Sustainability supported by the economic, environmental and social pillars will ensure both the protection of the environment and the stability of the economy. The deliberations at Sapience elaborated on these aspects. Panel discussions on various tracks also shed light on important concepts.
In a panel discussion on human resources and organizational behavior, panelists discussed why it has become important to create a workplace that promotes discussion of sustainable development. From Vineeta Kukretic, Senior Director-HR, Fiserv, “Healthcare is a currency these days. The pandemic has massively reset organizational culture. Also the way in which organizations show their care whether their employer value proposition has changed about care.” Neeti Kumar, VP & Head-HR, Adda 247, adds: “Sustainability is focusing on your purpose and growing you, and everything that comes later. That means for an employee that you have to be good on the inside.” In the same panel, Alvin David, Head-Campus Hiring and Employer Branding, Newgen Software, commented, “We need a sustainable employee because of the kinds of challenges this hybrid work poses in terms of preserving our goodness. ”
For the marketing track discussion, leaders gathered to discuss the challenges an industry faces in adopting sustainability as a strategy. While Abhinav Chamoli, Strategy & Trust Transformation at Grand Thornton Bharat LLP, emphasized “finding alternative ways of doing things to the need to foster a culture of sustainability”; Kunal Kapoor, VP – Client Engagement & Delivery, Merkle Sokrati said: “Take, make and waste is a linear progression of marketing. We need to take waste out of the equation through reuse and recycling, so that the linear model of business development becomes cyclical.” Rajeev Sinha, CEO & Co-Founder, OnlyGood, said: “We need to make sustainability a competitive advantage. Sustainability gives you an edge, an advantage over other companies.” Sumit Kumar Singh, Product Growth & Gamification, Microsoft, concluded the panel: “Minimalism, a more sensitive lifestyle would be very easy for Indians to adopt as it is in our DNA. We have a tradition of inheritance of items from one generation to the next. So for us it has always existed. We just have to realize it.”
Speaking to the audience on finance and sustainability, Sanjay Sharda, Executive VP & National Partner (Snergy), IndusInd Bank, said: “Sustainability starts with ethics and compliance. If you are ethical, no one will cut you, but if you try to cut corners, cut yourself and very quickly.” Strategic Leader Kaushik Acharya, conceded, “There is much more to the changing business landscape we are in and it has been overrun. The basic concept of expanding like this was a mistake of my generation.” to add, Vaibhav MangalAssociate Director-Tax, Perfetti from Melleemphasized ethics to set the right tone and CA Shailesh Churiwala, founder of R2i2 Labs emphasized applying sustainability in environmental, social and governance perspectives.
Speaking about analytics and sustainability during the conclave, Vibhu Goenka, VP, EXL: “The kind of data flood that we’ve mostly seen in recent years, both offline and online, has enabled AI to provide much more sophisticated and accurate solutions.” Ajay Davessar, MD, Lavessta Enterprise, said a contrary thought: “Research shows that about 75% of targets would benefit from AI and 35% of targets would be inhibited by promoting AI in the world.” Speaking to the panel, Saksham Malik, program manager at The Dialogue, said: “If you allow industries like data mining solutions there to grow consent managers, we have a good chance of attracting new investment.” Abhineet Bothra, Strategy Lead, Comviva, concludes: “Data analytics must be successful and must be scalable. It must be interoperable. It must be open and we must not just focus on the descriptive, where we only analyze the data to get results to create.”
Saurabh Singh, co-founder and CEO of Desmania Innovations Labs, took a closer look at entrepreneurship, saying, “What makes a product different from others is how it empowers the customers. When that core value is used as a guideline in product development, we can enable sustainability. to achieve.” Monika Gupta, founder and director of InteractivBees, shared her thoughts: “These are VUCA times: ephemeral, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. To survive in these times, we must: be grounded in our own values, have a deep understanding of the ecosystem, develop clarity about complex matters and be prepared to deal with ambiguity.” Chand Seth, Chairman, Pearl Polymer, concluded the session: “Reinventing is very important to avoid failure. People must be motivated because they are fundamental to the functioning of the organism.”
In the latest panel discussion on bringing sustainability to businesses through operations, Avijit Das, MD & CEO, Everready and Founder and Chairman, Premas Biotech, called for action on “building a mindset and awareness about sustainability”, while Rakesh Sharma, SVP- Tata Teleservices, said anything and everything must go through the principles of DIKW (Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom) as a paradigm to transform the world. In the same panel, Shubhra Puri, founder of Gurgaon First, said: “Sustainability is a way of life, a way of expression. It is preserving the resources for our future generations, but really it is a life based on ethics and protecting the environment.” Shruti Arora, director of PWc, adds, “The industry will have to focus on the upskilling, the training, and it’s not just their own employees, to support this growth in upskilling.”
Emphasizing that the environment should be our first priority, the recipient of Padma Bhushan dr. Mrityunjay Athreya said: “The sustainability mantra should influence our awareness, planning, action planning and control every step of the way. India is a fast-growing economy. We need to focus on our potential as a growing economy for the next 10-20 years, but with a healthy environment. Whatever economic growth we can achieve, however high we are, it must be under one unchanging condition: green economy. We cannot afford to have economic growth with high carbon pollution. At the same time, we must work towards energy front, to economic growth and with respect for ethics.”
During the conclave, top leaders talked about balancing three core aspects of sustainability – economics, environment and ethics, which act as a framework that companies can use to develop, test and evaluate their business strategies.
As perceptions change globally, sustainability becomes a must for businesses. Sustainability supported by the economic, environmental and social pillars will ensure both the protection of the environment and the stability of the economy. The deliberations at Sapience elaborated on these aspects. Panel discussions on various tracks also shed light on important concepts.
In a panel discussion on human resources and organizational behavior, panelists discussed why it has become important to create a workplace that promotes discussion of sustainable development. From Vineeta Kukretic, Senior Director-HR, Fiserv, “Healthcare is a currency these days. The pandemic has massively reset organizational culture. Also the way in which organizations show their care whether their employer value proposition has changed about care.” Neeti Kumar, VP & Head-HR, Adda 247, adds: “Sustainability is focusing on your purpose and growing you, and everything that comes later. That means for an employee that you have to be good on the inside.” In the same panel, Alvin David, Head-Campus Hiring and Employer Branding, Newgen Software, commented, “We need a sustainable employee because of the kinds of challenges this hybrid work poses in terms of preserving our goodness. ”
For the marketing track discussion, leaders gathered to discuss the challenges an industry faces in adopting sustainability as a strategy. While Abhinav Chamoli, Strategy & Trust Transformation at Grand Thornton Bharat LLP, emphasized “finding alternative ways of doing things to the need to foster a culture of sustainability”; Kunal Kapoor, VP – Client Engagement & Delivery, Merkle Sokrati said: “Take, make and waste is a linear progression of marketing. We need to take waste out of the equation through reuse and recycling, so that the linear model of business development becomes cyclical.” Rajeev Sinha, CEO & Co-Founder, OnlyGood, said: “We need to make sustainability a competitive advantage. Sustainability gives you an edge, an advantage over other companies.” Sumit Kumar Singh, Product Growth & Gamification, Microsoft, concluded the panel: “Minimalism, a more sensitive lifestyle would be very easy for Indians to adopt as it is in our DNA. We have a tradition of inheritance of items from one generation to the next. So for us it has always existed. We just have to realize it.”
Speaking to the audience on finance and sustainability, Sanjay Sharda, Executive VP & National Partner (Snergy), IndusInd Bank, said: “Sustainability starts with ethics and compliance. If you are ethical, no one will cut you, but if you try to cut corners, cut yourself and very quickly.” Strategic Leader Kaushik Acharya, conceded, “There is much more to the changing business landscape we are in and it has been overrun. The basic concept of expanding like this was a mistake of my generation.” to add, Vaibhav MangalAssociate Director-Tax, Perfetti from Melleemphasized ethics to set the right tone and CA Shailesh Churiwala, founder of R2i2 Labs emphasized applying sustainability in environmental, social and governance perspectives.
Speaking about analytics and sustainability during the conclave, Vibhu Goenka, VP, EXL: “The kind of data flood that we’ve mostly seen in recent years, both offline and online, has enabled AI to provide much more sophisticated and accurate solutions.” Ajay Davessar, MD, Lavessta Enterprise, said a contrary thought: “Research shows that about 75% of targets would benefit from AI and 35% of targets would be inhibited by promoting AI in the world.” Speaking to the panel, Saksham Malik, program manager at The Dialogue, said: “If you allow industries like data mining solutions there to grow consent managers, we have a good chance of attracting new investment.” Abhineet Bothra, Strategy Lead, Comviva, concludes: “Data analytics must be successful and must be scalable. It must be interoperable. It must be open and we must not just focus on the descriptive, where we only analyze the data to get results to create.”
Saurabh Singh, co-founder and CEO of Desmania Innovations Labs, took a closer look at entrepreneurship, saying, “What makes a product different from others is how it empowers the customers. When that core value is used as a guideline in product development, we can enable sustainability. to achieve.” Monika Gupta, founder and director of InteractivBees, shared her thoughts: “These are VUCA times: ephemeral, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. To survive in these times, we must: be grounded in our own values, have a deep understanding of the ecosystem, develop clarity about complex matters and be prepared to deal with ambiguity.” Chand Seth, Chairman, Pearl Polymer, concluded the session: “Reinventing is very important to avoid failure. People must be motivated because they are fundamental to the functioning of the organism.”
In the latest panel discussion on bringing sustainability to businesses through operations, Avijit Das, MD & CEO, Everready and Founder and Chairman, Premas Biotech, called for action on “building a mindset and awareness about sustainability”, while Rakesh Sharma, SVP- Tata Teleservices, said anything and everything must go through the principles of DIKW (Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom) as a paradigm to transform the world. In the same panel, Shubhra Puri, founder of Gurgaon First, said: “Sustainability is a way of life, a way of expression. It is preserving the resources for our future generations, but really it is a life based on ethics and protecting the environment.” Shruti Arora, director of PWc, adds, “The industry will have to focus on the upskilling, the training, and it’s not just their own employees, to support this growth in upskilling.”