MRCON 2020

MRCON-2020  Conference on ‘Building Sustainable Competitive Edge’ held on February 24-25, 2020

  In its continued efforts towards excellence and industry academia synergy, Faculty of Management Studies, (MRIIRS) organized MRCON 2020, a conference on Building Sustainable Competitive Edge on February 24-25, 2020.

The event was a mile stone for FMS in bringing together the best mix of eminent practitioners from industry and academia to deliberate about creating a sustainable model of development and a possible architecting of achievable competitive sustainability strategies towards perfect deliverables. Conference conveners Dr. Anindita Chatterjee Rao, Dr. Stuti Sahnia nd Sahil Malik put together the conference, under the mentorship of Padma Shri Dr. Pritam Singh and Prof. Nandlal Dhameja. For the inaugural session, the Guest of Honour Mr. P. Dwarakanath (Director, Group Human Capital Max India) said in his address that in this VUCA world, some changes can be predicted while some cannot. He elaborated majorly on the fact that what was true yesterday may not hold true tomorrow. Honorable Vice Chancellor, MRIIRS, Dr. Sanjay Srivastava, in his eloquent speech said that Research, Teaching and Industry are Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh in these times and according to him ideal way is teaching contributes to research which in turn fulfills industry needs. The Key Note Address was delivered by Dr. Subir Verma (Professor, Fore School of Management). Prof Verma said that  in order to become 5 trillion dollar economy, India needs to grow at 9% rate which is not possible as of now and that India’s position on various indexes are negative and questions India’s survival. Padma Shri Dr. Pritam Singh added that he believes that economic power will come to India and it will be among the leading countries. 

The technical sessions were replete with energy, zeal and participation. The themes for the sessions were: ‘Building People Power’, ‘Speedy Innovation for Building Sustainable Competitive Edge’, ‘Cost and Qualitative Competitiveness’ and ‘Customer Leadership’. Paper presentations on a plethora of topics ranging from Impact of Personality Factors on Job Satisfaction for Competitive Advantage, Innovative HR practices, Workplace Happiness, Career Re-entry Programs, Creative Training, Acceptability of Third Gender in Organizations, Emotional Health of Women to Managing Stress for High Performing Organizations, Medical Tourism, Customer Satisfaction in Banking Sector and many more. The sessions were chaired by senior academicians: Prof. Gautam Negi (LBSIM, Delhi), Dr. Geetika Chandra (Gurugram Unversity), Prof. Samina Bano (Jamia Milia Islamia), Prof. Shikha Kapoor (Amity University) and Prof. Sunita Shukla (ITS, Ghazibad).

The Valedictory Programme held on Feb. 25, 2020 was graced by eminent dignitaries. Pro Vice Chancellor, MRIIRS, Dr. M.K. Soni’s provided a comprehensive overview of research contribution by the university. The guest for the day Dr. Y.V. Verma, Management Thinker, Author and Strategy Consultant and former COO- LG Electronics, emphasized that in this VUCA world, corporate either wins or loses and business becomes war ensuring only the survival of the fittest.

The best student paper (Mr. Varun, Mr. Prarit, Mr. Manpreet and Ms. Jyoti from FMS) and the best research paper (Ms. Monika and Prof. Surbhi from FMS) were awarded by Padama Shri Dr. Pritam Singh – Mentor Manav Rachna Educational Institutions, Dr N C Wadhwa, Director General, MREI and Major General (Dr) Hari Arora. This was followed by the valedictory address by Dr. NC Wadhwa who complimented the conference conveners for organizing a successful event and stressed on the importance of close industry academia interface, infrastructural development, best technology and skilled workforce in building sustainable competitive edge.

With more than 90 delegates and 60 paper presentations, the two day conference was managed by MBA students from FMS. It is our endeavour to make MRCON an annual event, to contribute to applied research and solutions for a better tomorrow.

MRCON 2021

MRCON 2021  International Conference on “Reinventing Business, Entrepreneurship and Sustainability in the Era of Challenges” held on  February 26-27, 2021

In its continued efforts towards excellence and industry academia synergy, Faculty of Management Studies, (MRIIRS) is organizing MRCON 2021, an international conference on Building Sustainable Competitive Edge, on February 26-27, 2021.

MRCON is an initiative of FMS, MRIIRS which was started in the year 2020 in this very month of February. The first edition of MRCON in February 2020 was guided and inspired by the thoughts of our revered mentor Padamshree Late Dr. Pritam Singh. His forecast regarding sustainable competitive edge which businesses should strive for has motivated us further to take this up as a continuing theme of MRCON 2021. 

The event was another mile stone for FMS in bringing together the best mix of eminent practitioners from industry and academia to deliberate about “Reinventing Business, Entrepreneurship and Sustainability in the Era of Challenges”- the theme for the conference. The conference began with Saraswati Vandana and was followed by the welcome address by Dr. Meghna Chhabra, convener of the conference where she apprised everyone about the journey of the conference from conceptualisation to its final theme. She also briefed about the screening process and mentioned that in this two-day conference, 50 papers would be presented, authored by 75 research scholars and faculty members from various national and international institutions and universities of repute.

Dean, FMS, Prof. (Dr.) Nand Dhameja welcomed all dignitaries and guests to the MRCON platform. Honorable Vice Chancellor, MRIIRS, Prof. (Dr.) Sanjay Srivastava, in his eloquent speech, urged that as one of the leading 17 business schools of the country (as per TIMES B School rankings, 2021), it is important to recognize and deliberate on issues critical to business.

For the Key Note Address, we were joined by Dr. Amzad Shamin, Program Manager, University Teknologi Petronas, Malaysia. Dr. Shamin  spoke about service thinking and value co – creation, emphasizing on how it can affect the customers’ offering. He also touched upon logics behind goods dominant vs service dominant markets. He used a fusion business model (as he named it) to explain goods vs services. The inaugural session was also graced by Dr. Sanjiv Mittal, Vice Chancellor, Sambalpur University. Dr. Mittal spoke about marketing communication, marketing transitions which used to be and are now opted for. He emphasized on new marketing concepts evolved during the pandemic phase- viral marketing, experiential marketing etc. by sharing real life examples. Industry was represented by Mr. Vir Bharat, HR Business Partner with Yamaha Motor Solutions. He shared his thoughts on service dominant logic along with motivation and leadership.

The technical sessions on day one were replete with energy, zeal and participation on four sub themes, viz., Changes in Marketing Paradigm, Reimagining the Workforce, The Digital Organization and Social Re-engineering. The sessions were chaired by senior academicians- Prof. (Dr.) D K Batra from IMI, New Delhi, Prof. (Dr.) Rajat Gera from Jain University, Bangalore, Dr. Geetika Malik Chandra from Gurugram University and Dr. Nandini Srivastava, Director, Council for Doctoral Programs at MRIIRS along with the team from FMS, MRIIRS, comprising of Dr. Stuti Sahni, Dr. Bhavesh Prakash Joshi, Dr.Sahil Malik, Mr. Gautam Srivastava and Dr. Anindita Chatterjee Rao. Academicians from various parts of the country presented their views on relevant business issues, and were ably guided by the experts.

A few key perspectives that emerged from the discussions are- how big data works, social media influence, work life balance, employee engagement, employee trust, skilling etc. A total of nearly 30 papers were presented on day 1 of the two day event.

The Entrepreneurship track was chaired by Dr. Lata Singh Bajpai from the Ambedkar University Lucknow supported by Dr.Meghna Chabbra representing as Internal Session chair. This track being directly related with the them received many innovative researches based on themes such as digital entrepreneurship, role of women in empowering sustainable development especially in rural India, human rights, leadership styles amongst others and role of Job Layoffs and its impact on entrepreneurship Seven papers were presented. The Finance track on day 2 was chaired Dr. Dr.Ekta Sikarwar, From IIM Kozikode and Dr.Ridhhi Khattar from FMS. It led to fruitful discussions on the themes of evolution of Fintech industry and the Behavioral Finance and the Co-Movements & Cointegration Analysis Of Foreign portfolio analysis and tracing Tracing Investor Sentiments.

The final Track of the day was and Management chaired by Dr.Gautam Srivastava  where in papers on themes of  measuring high stress levels and job satisfaction during covid were dicussed. Other papers  discussed the Airport and Terminal designing for Sustainable environmental development, while another paper discussed the role of Nano Q operating system . This brought day 2 paper presentations to the end. This was followed by the Valedictory Session which was hosted by Ms.Anurakti, an MBA Student. It started with the message from Dr.Polona Tominc Dean, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Maribor, Slovenia who due to her illhealth could not join the Session. She shared her best wishes for successful completion of the conference. Her message was followed by the address by Ms.Geeta Jain, Founder & Mentor, MentorW who spoke on length about the role of women as entrepreneurs. She emphasized the urgent need for supporting women in becoming successful entrepreneurs so that they can play a vital role in contributing to economy. Her address was followed by message from Prof. Prof (Dr.) Fauzia Jabeen, Professor, College of Business, Abu Dhabi University. Sanjay Srivatava, Honurable VC, MRIIRS and MD,MREI then welcomed the guest of honour Shri.S.K.Bose, Executive Director HR, Corporate Office, Indian Oil . Mr. Bose spoke about how free trade policy can help India to grow faster like countries like South Korea and Malaysia . His speech was followed by an Overview of the Conference which was delivered by Dr.Amandeep Dhaliwal, Convener of the conference. She shared a brief report about the various tracks, session chairs and the submission themes and innovative researches received in conference. She also acknowledged the at the Inaugural & Valedictory program. The conference came to an end with vote of thank proposed by Dr.Deepti Dabas Hazarika, Director, FMS. Overall the conference led to many innovative and creative ideas being shared and discussed across the online platform where in the participants and researchers got the opportunity to interact with senior academicians and present their work to them. It would lead to even newer innovative ideas and future researches.