IIM Bangalore and International Management Research Academy , UK hosted a conference on “Inclusive Growth & Profits with Purpose: New Management Paradigm” which brought together practitioners, academics and policy-makers from 15 countries — the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Australia, France, China, Indonesia, Canada, India, Malaysia, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates.
Chief guest S Sivakumar, Divisional Chief Executive, Agri Business Division and Chairman of Technico Agri Sciences Limited, and Vice Chairman of ITC Infotech India Limited and its subsidiaries, said that ‘policy makers of several nations have been expressing the concern that the benefit of economic growth is not being equally distributed among all sections of the society. Inclusive growth is the need of the hour for the pace and the pattern of economic growth’. Sivakumar also shared the experiences of running an e-choupal, which provides last mile connectivity with farmers and has addressed several bottleneck issues entire agricultural supply chain.
Building on this thought, keynote speaker Professor Saras D Sarasvathy said ‘we need to think beyond the Silicon Valley model of entrepreneurship and think of productive employment and increasing incomes of excluded groups. Towards the goal of achieving inclusive growth, the corporate sector needs to revisit and recognize that sustainable strategies not only fulfil a higher purpose but increased wealth can be generated by doing good things.’
Social Inclusion
Thulasiraj Ravilla, part of the senior leadership team at Aravind Eye Hospital since 1981, presented a case for social inclusion and also raised several fundamental questions such as ‘can we avoid having inclusiveness in the gene of an organization in present or for future?’
Professor Ravi Seetham Raju of Sydney Business School emphasised on the importance of Information Technology saying:Research shows that IT has not just significantly improved productivity of SMEs and added that SMEs have to go for relevant technology.
Prof M Jayadev, professor at IIM, Bangalore, and co-chair of the conference responded: “Inclusive growth is the need of the hour for the pace and the pattern of economic growth. It is more than just productive employment and increasing incomes of excluded groups. Inclusive growth allows people to contribute to and benefit from economic growth. More importantly, we went beyond the regular sustainability debate and raised critical issues and made participant engage with a higher level domain of ‘profits with purpose’.”
Dr Jatin Pancholi, conference co-chair, Middlesex University stated that while the previous management paradigms have been led from the Western perspective, India offers a ripe group to lead the new management paradigm as it is economic powerhouse with an ingrained democratic processes and a significant inclusive drive.
With a large number of woman participants and young researchers from across the world getting an opportunity to engage with senior practitioners and researchers, the conference really lived up to its motto of ‘inclusive growth’.