The 2021 edition of IIM Bangalore’s two-day annual international business summit Vista, with the theme — Together towards Tomorrow, concluded on August 8, 2021. As this year marks the beginning of a new decade, the event aims to tackle unprecedented challenges and explore the plethora of opportunities that lie ahead, a release from IIMB, said.
Post-inauguration, the first day featured several prominent business leaders such as Harsh Mariwala, Founder and Chairman, Marico, and Rajat Sharma, Chairperson and Editor-in-Chief, India TV. The keynote speaker session was delivered by Brian Moynihan, Chairman and CEO, Bank of America. He offered his perspectives on multitude of topics such as adoption of ESG framework at global banks while also maintaining profitable growth, the post-pandemic economic recovery, and inflation.
A CXO panel discussion on "India’s century: Why should the world bet on India’s sustainable growth?" and Auto panel discussion on "EVs, Alternative Fuels and Developing an Ecosystem" followed next. The third-day started with a fireside chat with Nikunj Dalmia, Managing Editor, ET NOW, on "Has COVID changed our life for the better?"
CP Gurnani, MD and CEO, Tech Mahindra discussed what it means to be a tech entrepreneur in the new normal. Shri Sudhakara Nayak, General Manager, Bank of Baroda, Bengaluru Zone, talked about the role of banking in the economic development. He stressed on how banks are the backbone of the economy. Even during the pandemic, banks were at the forefront in implementing the government-sponsored benefits programmes.
SS Rajamouli, Indian film director and screenwriter, shared his insights about the filmmaking process and the use of technology in the same.
The Vista 2021 speaker series concluded with Union Minister Smriti Irani's speech. She acknowledged how the members of the civil society members and IITs and IIMs lent their help to the under-privileged sections of the society.
A host of workshops were organised in industry specific domains. Digital story telling workshop conducted by Sunder Madakshira, Head of Adobe India, elucidated the common mistakes to avoid in the Cambrian explosion of digital storytelling. Inside the mind of a marketeer workshop conducted by Pratik Ranjan, gave insights on what makes iconic brands iconic and brand journeys from an Indian context. Cracking the product management interview workshop, conducted by Mohammad Sarosh, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft, delved deep into product management at Microsoft and detailed case discussion. Ace the Case workshop conducted by Grad Partners offered a structured approach to solving any case problems.
Vista witnessed a diverse array of events on its first day of the summit with events ranging from testing the unconventional solutions of new-age marketers in MarkGuru, to building green ideas in Ecolution, and solving supply chain simulation in Opathlon. Negotiation skills were tested in Conloquium Quiz Master, and a thrilling adventure hunt was conduced in Unexplored Edition. Aniket Mishra hosted the event finale of Sport-O-Mania: A Fact & Furious Quiz. The day ended with a fun and entertaining cultural night.
Throughout the day there was a series of flagship competition across domains of management. Testing the wits of management students and aspirants, Conloquium gave a flavour of real-life negotiation between corporates. The legacy marketing event, MarkGuru conducted its final round in which top seven teams presented strategies and execution plan for building a digital brand for True Elements, the event partner. A general trivia quiz called Modern Major was conducted by Quiz Master, Major Chandrakant Nair. Amongst the other events were- private equity competition Drawdown, a digital marketing competition DigiBytes, Thinking out of the box under the guidance of IIM Bangalore Alumni, analytics competition Data & Beyond, consulting case Trojan Horse and strategy case Numero Uno.
Vista also conducts professional trainings by renowned industry leaders from global MNCs. A brand planning workshop was conducted by Soham Wagh, Global Marketing Manager at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Wagh shared tips and tricks to build an annual brand plan. Another marketing workshop for digital era was conducted by Arvind Bhandari, Global Category Head, Nestlé where attendees learnt what it takes to build and sustain large brands. Excel Prodigy veterans conducted two workshops, Power BI and Design Thinking imparting design paradigms and data analytics toolkit.
The two-day event concluded with a houseful stand-up comedy night by Abhishek Upmanyu with 1,000+ participants. The 21st edition of Vista saw huge participation in speaker sessions, workshops and competitions making this business conclave a success.