MICA, Ahmedabad, concluded its three-day event of sixth International Communication Management Conference (ICMC) 2020 with a valedictory ceremony rewarding the academicians, scholars and researches who presented their research work and papers at ICMC 2020. The chief guest for the event was Viswanath P, Executive Director, KPMG, India.
The theme was “Managing businesses in the digital economy”. The conference witnessed 72 paper presentations by over 100 presenters. A total of 45 faculty members from India and abroad and 50 academic scholars and industry representatives attended. On day two, 72-year-old Padma Shri Astaad Deboo performed as part of the cultural night.
Four fundamental elements
Viswanath said: “There are four fundamental elements causing digital transformation in the world. The way we access resources has changed. We do not need to own resources; what is important is access to them. The concept of ‘pay per use’ or renting the resources has changed the rules of the game. Second, information asymmetry: the time spent to get data has reduced significantly. Access to information has changed how different sectors work. Third, being the multichannel flow of information, with all the user-generated content information flow is no more unilateral. This multi-flow channel has changed how businesses work. Today, creating a product, getting people to test a prototype and obtaining user feedback can be done instantaneously. And the last is the intermediation and dis-intermediation.”
“In some industries, new type of intermediaries are coming up, whereas in some others, such as recruitment spaces, the role of intermediaries has vanished. A company’s HR no longer asks for a CV from an employee as it can be sourced through LinkedIn,” he said.
On a concluding note, Prof Subrat Sarangi, ICMC Chairperson, said: “The advent of IoT, blockchain, big data and disruption by digital platforms of the way data is exchanged between people, devices and processes was discussed threadbare through the 72 papers presented across four distinct tracks focusing on the economics of strategy, marketing decisions, organisational behaviour, and impact on finance and operations. The industry panel of stalwarts from FMCG, consulting, banking and technology sectors added a new dimension to the conference.”
Unveiling the theme for next year’s conference, Dr Shailendra Raj Mehta, President and Director, MICA, stressed the importance of having such congregations of researchers, academics and industry, and said next year’s ICMC theme would be ‘Creativity and management for an emerging world’.
Awards
The first prize for the best conference presentation was awarded to Prof Sonali Srivastav (NIFT Bhubaneswar) and Prof Shikha Rai (IGNOU, New Delhi) for their paper on ‘Virtual communities as sites of market genesis: A netnographic study of Amazon Prime Video and Netflix India’s Facebook groups’.
The second prize was given to MICA Prof Anjali Bansal, Prof Anushree Karani (Shri Jairambhai Patel Institute of Business Management and Computer Applications, Gandhinagar) and Prof David King (Florida State University, Tallahassee) for their paper titled ‘A study of psychological contract of gig economy employees: Towards developing a four factor model’.
The third prize went to Sugandha Gumber (IGNOU, New Delhi) for her paper titled ‘Unlocking possibilities of advergaming in brand communication’ and Prof Ramalakshmi Lakshmanan (and Prof Rajalakshmi Vel, both from Vel Tech Rangrajan Dr Sagunthala R&D Institute of Science and Technology, Morai, for the paper on ‘Marketing sexual wellness through the road less travelled: A case study on Shycart.com ’.