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Press Note dated 22nd November, 2008 (1700 hours)
Speaker Series
Yesterday evening concluded with an address by Dr. Sam Pitroda, Chairman of the National
Knowledge Commission and CEO of World Tel. Dr Pitroda, whose pioneering vision played a
crucial role in India’s telecom revolution, stressed the importance and pervasiveness of
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in all walks of life. According to him,
“...Telecom is not about telephones, it is about restructuring the society” He described some
of the challenges faced by him and his team as they laid the foundation for India’s progress
in the telecom sector in the 1980s. “The telecom revolution has created wealth, jobs,
improved productivity and empowered people”, he opined.
Keeping in mind the theme for today, the Speaker Series resumed with Prof. Satish Deodhar
of IIM Ahmedabad chairing the session. Lord Meghnad Desai, Professor Emeritus, London
School of Economics and Mr. N. Ramchandran, India Country Head, Morgan Stanley were
the speakers. The distinguished speakers spoke about the causes, effects and the possible
aftermaths of the present global crisis.
Lord Desai opined, “…there are two crises that are prevalent now. One is the crisis in the
financial markets and the other is the downturn in the real output cycle.” He stated that the
boom that had preceded the present bust was unique in many ways. The developing
economies were for the first time active beneficiaries of the boom, the aid being supplanted
by FII and FDI flows into these emerging economies. Lord Desai commented that it was the
longest boom period in the living history. Moving on to the present financial crisis he said,
“Financial innovations which were responsible for the boom are the causes of the downturn
that followed.” He also commented that the credit crunch in the global economy was
affecting the real output cycle in a bad way. Lord Desai also argued, “Though it may be
difficult, the regulators and policy makers must understand that the cycles in the real
economies are inevitable.” He stated that the turmoil in the financial markets was because
of the exceedingly complex instruments whose risk implications were not understood by the
top management of the various banks. Looking forward, he stressed upon the need to
change the governance of international financial bodies such as the IMF and the World
Bank. Explaining the rationale behind this need he said, “Eastern countries are now the
primary lenders for the global economy, so it is imperative that they have a greater say in
how these institutions are run.” Commenting upon the monetary and the fiscal policy that is
being used to tackle the crisis he pointed out to the fact that there was no alternative plan
to control the crisis. He concluded by saying, “In the worst case scenario, the governments
will have to act as a direct lender to businesses and individuals.”
Mr. Ramchandran started his lecture by saying that current crisis was primarily caused by a
credit crunch which was felt all across the world. Mr. Ramchandran opined, “There are four
major reasons for the credit crunch. They are lax regulatory oversight, leverage, lack of
transparency and marked to market method of accounting.” He commented that the
contagion which had its roots in the sub‐prime sector had spread to the entire credit market
across the world. Speaking about the steps being taken to fight the crisis he stated, “… the
move from monetary measures to fiscal measures to fight the crisis is unprecedented.” He
also felt that the current financial and regulatory frame work must be overhauled taking
into consideration the needs and views of the people, government and the business.
Commenting on the rapid appreciation of the dollar versus other currencies he said, “We
are witnessing a flight to safety.” Talking about the Indian economy he commented, “India
does not have a major trade exposure to the western countries vis‐a‐vis China and Korea
which are heavily dependent on exports. India is better placed to weather the storm.” He
concluded the session by saying that we must take adequate precautions so that the
expected $1‐$2 trillion fiscal stimulus does not create a bubble.
In the post lunch speaker series chaired by Prof. Siddharth Sinha, we had two well‐known
representatives from the Indian financial sector expressing their view on the current global
crisis that the world is witnessing. First Mr. Aluri Rao, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley
Private Equity India compared the current crisis with the other crises that the world has
witnessed in the part ranging from the Great Depression of 1929 to the IT bubble of early
2000s. He remarked that the current crisis is different in nature as well as its impact. “…
Current crisis has pretty much hit every asset class”, he said. . He termed the current crisis,
‘a crisis of confidence.’ However, Mr. Aluri pointed out that Asia today looks different from
before and the recovery in Asia is going to be much faster that the western nations. He
attributed this to the rise of China and India.
On the other hand Ms. Shikha Sharma, Managing Director & CEO of ICICI Prudential Life
Insurance Co. Ltd looked into the factors that led to present credit crisis. She compared the
financial crisis with the war of Mahabharata as both witnessed bright minds leading the
world into chaos by letting insatiable greed take reign of their games.
She averred that this is the time to sit back and introspect and align incentives to
incorporate risk elements. Ms. Sharma pointed out that the current financial turmoil has
brought back the importance of basic credit principles like repayment abilities. Commenting
on the challenges faced by her in her career, Ms. Sharma considered her decision of taking a
stand against copying the instruments floated by the competitors that could potentially
harm the customers and the franchise to be the highlight of her career. She opined that
every individual has the power and the choice to avoid the crisis. “Do what you believe is
right and makes sense”, said Ms. Sharma while summing up the lessons that one could
learn.
Workshop
The afternoon witnessed an interesting workshop on ‘Speaking Strategically and Listening
Authentically’, conducted by Dr. Asha Kaul, a faculty member in the communications area at
IIM Ahmedabad. Dr. Kaul chose to make the session very interactive and sought the active
participation of the audience through innovative exercises. She felt that “Communications
cannot be steeped in theory” and made use of video clips to demonstrate some of the
practical issues involved in effective communication. She explained that a good speaker
should analyse the audience and establish a connection with them. Dr. Kaul brought out the
importance of effective listening and illustrated how the same message may be interpreted
in different ways by listeners. She also laid emphasis on structuring of content ‐ “Speaking
style is important to gain the listener’s attention, but, if the audience doesn’t retain the
content, the purpose is defeated” she warned.
Events
The GSPC Masterplan, the flagship business plan event of Confluence 2008 has reached its
culmination. The focus of the event is to identify business plans that can achieve scalability,
sustainability and are economically sound. Initially 165 teams registered for the event. In the
next stage, 85 business plans were evaluated. Finally, 7 teams from prestigious campuses
such as IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Indore, ISB Hyderabad and XLRI Jamshedpur presented their
innovative business plans in the fields of renewable energy, energy transmission and
production. The plans explored areas of alternate power generation such as biomass and
Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF). “…We are focusing on the B2B space especially in areas such as
Surat where textiles mills will be given the option to replace coal with RDF”, said Chinmay, a
participant from ISB Hyderabad. He pointed out the calorific value to cost ratio of RDF is
comparable with that of coal but since it doesn’t release harmful pollutants in the
environment, this shall earn the firms valuable carbon credits. Other ideas also included
‘Strategically placed small scale power plants’ and ‘corporative model for Jatropha based
bio‐diesel production’. The participants highlighted achieving economies of scale and huge
employment opportunities. The eminent panel consisting of Mr. Raj Nair‐ Chairman, Avalon
Consulting, Mr. P.P.G. Sharma‐ CEO, Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) and Mr. K
Prakash ‐ Corporate Communication Manager, GSPC judged the event. The total prize
money for the event was Rs. 4,00,000.
Energy plan presented by Saransh Varma, Chintan Shah and Sidharth Vashist from IIM
Indore was adjudged the best and received the first prize of INR 2, 00,000 while Mohit
Gopal, Anirudh Singh and Milan Saxena from IIM Ahmedabad secured the second place and
Deepak Sethia, Ravi K and Vibhav Virlekar another team from IIM Ahmedabad stood third.
“...happy and overjoyed to comment “, said Saransh after winning the prestigious event.
Judges had a tough job deciding the winners. “The innovativeness and quality in the plans
shows the amount of hard work put in by the participants and the concepts were eye‐
openers for us”, said Mr. Sharma while congratulating the winners.
Another major event today on campus was the first round of ‘Nestle Munching Forward’,
the strategic business plan contest. A total of 15 teams from b‐schools across India were
shortlisted to present their ideas before the esteemed panel of judges. On campus today as
jury were Mr. Puneet Dua, Business HR and Sourcing Manager for Nestle South Asia Region,
Mr. Nikhil Chand, Marketing Manager, Chocolates, Nestle, Ms. Rasika Fernandes, Strategic
Planning Director, JWT, Mr. Rajat Kumar Jain, Brand Manager for Nestle Munch and Ms.
Rishika Kohli, Communications Manager, Nestle. “It will be the quality and relevance of Idea
along with the presentation skills that will help the teams to qualify for the next round”, said
Mr. Dua. Six teams qualified for the grand finale of the event scheduled for the concluding
day of the summit.
The morning of the third day at Confluence 2008 also witnessed over 50 teams from across
India competing in the preliminary round of ‘The Soothsayer ‐ A Simulation Modelling
Contest’ which tested participants on their knowledge and understanding of macro‐
economic concepts. Six teams would battle it out in the finals where they would develop a
model. The model would be evaluated based on the breadth and depth of analysis and the
reasoning involved. The finals are scheduled for tomorrow.
Panel Discussion
The panel discussion titled "The Financial Crisis ‐ Have we reached the bottom yet?" was
chaired by Prof. TT Ram Mohan of IIM, Ahmedabad. The esteemed panel included Lord
Meghnad Desai, Professor Emeritus, London School of Economics (LSE), Mr. Aluri Rao, Head,
Morgan Stanley Private Equity India, Mrs. Shikha Sharma, MD & CEO, ICICI Prudential and
Professor Jayanth Varma, IIM Ahmedabad.
Kicking off the discussion, Lord Desai opined that the crisis wasn’t over yet and suggested
that we still haven’t fully understood the extent to which financial institutions have been
exposed to the crisis. He stated that there is a “crisis of confidence” which is preventing
banks from lending to each other and said that we need to fix this situation before worrying
about the mountain of bad debt. He envisioned the current crisis continuing for another 24
to 30 months and felt that it could be sorted out by 2011.
Prof. Varma while agreeing with Lord Desai felt that the liquidity crisis could be effectively
dealt with by countries like India and South Korea which have sufficient reserves to tide over
the situation. He felt the situation was being exacerbated by the “derivative deals gone bad”
largely due to the mark to market losses in crude and metal derivatives. Another cause of
concern according to him was the impending crash in the real estate market in India and he
declared that the current crisis was worse than the Asian crisis of 1998.
On a more positive note, Mr Aluri Rao felt that the recognition of the problem and the
willingness to solve it by all corporates and countries was a welcome sign and stated that “...
now there are no laggards in the process”. He felt that there was a need to restore investor
confidence, which was crucial for the recovery phase to begin. He stressed that pragmatism
rather than ideology was the need of the hour. He said that a V‐shaped recovery in the
equity markets is not possible without a significant improvement in the housing market in
the US and expressed confidence that an improvement would occur by 2010.
Mrs. Sharma stated that “the recent events have proved that local markets in Asia are not
insulated from those in the West and what we are seeing currently is probably an over
correction given that the Indian banking system in particular doesn’t have much exposure to
toxic debts. Looking for positives in the current scenario, she said that the crisis is forcing
governments and policy makers to think of measures to revive growth. She felt that the
turnaround will happen in about 4‐6 quarters from now.
Prof. Ram Mohan sought to take the discussion forward by finding the link between the
financial market crisis and the real economy. Commenting on this, Lord Desai said that the
financial sector has penetrated a lot deeper into the real economy in the last 20 years. He
felt that “banks are not behaving like banks” by not lending among themselves.” “The real
economy is always in equilibrium and the financial markets follow the efficient market
hypothesis but there is no interaction between the two” he concluded. Prof Varma
stated that the financial markets were like a messenger that indicated the deflation of the
bubble in the real economy. Mr. Rao felt that there was a delayed response to the current
crisis since the initial stages were characterized by a feeling of denial. However, Prof. Varma
cautioned the governments, commenting that the governments form only 20‐25% of the
GDP and cannot carry an entire economy on their shoulders. He expressed the need for pre‐
emptive recapitalization of banks but hinted that it might be affected by political
interregnum in the near future.
Commenting on the expected growth rate in the economy, Mrs. Sharma opined that it
might be 5.5 to 6% in 2009‐10 and will increase to about 8 % the following year. Though Mr.
Rao concurred with Mrs. Sharma, Prof. Varma had a bleak outlook stating “...for 2009‐10,
5% would be good news”. However, Lord Desai predicted a trajectory of low growth and
felt that government interference with regard to corporate decisions could adversely affect
investments.
Prof. TT Rammohan finally concluded the event by drawing attention to the grim outlook of
the panelists.
In continuation of the various socially laudable efforts that IIM Ahmedabad has prided itself
on, 55 units of blood were also collected for thalassemia patients at Confluence 2008.