Fourth International Conference on ” Innovative Business Practices for Creating Value in Global Era” on 24 December 2014.

Acropolis Faculty of Management & Research North Campus hosted Fourth Annual International Conference on theme “Innovative business practices for creating value in global era” on 24 December 2014. The previous three annual conferences were highly successful towards meeting the objectives of creating platform for the academicians and industry people.

The conference was inaugurated by Chief Guest Prof. Rishikesha T. Krishnan [Director, Indian Institute of Management, Indore];Guests of Honour Prof. M. P. Gupta [Professor, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi] and Mr. Sandeep Naolekar [Managing Director, Darling Pumps Pvt. Ltd., Indore] by lamp lighting ceremony.

In Welcome speech, director of Acropolis Faculty of Management & Research Dr. Sumer Singh threw light on the theme and explained the said that restructuring is everywhere now from shop-floor to strategic levels. With examples of TCS, Infosys and Bharat Forge, he elaborated the need of innovation. He said that today, the biggest challenge is offering value to stakeholders along with taking care of the social and environmental aspect.

Guest of Honour Prof. M. P. Gupta said that innovation is the way of life in business. With examples from Google, Philips and Citibank, he elaborated the inputs of technology in innovation. He emphasized on Open Data Source, which facilitates information with innovation. Mr. Sandeep Naolekar began his speech with Peter Drucker and quoted that innovation is the center point of business success. In Indian concept, he emphasized that the indigenous ‘Jugaad’ concept should be transformed into substantial forms, which needs improvement in thinking process.

Prof. Rishikesha T. Krishnan said that in India innovation started off with establishment of constitution and Voting rights, which given an edge over other nations of the world. The major ingredient of innovation is Quality. Innovation is highly relevant only when it offers low cost with high quality. In India, there is need for such fundamental innovations. With real life examples of Arvind Eye Care and Naranaya Hridayalaya he emphasized the importance of innovation. Fourth Volume of Acropolis journal “Shodh-Ganga”and “Conference edited volume” with ISBN were released during the conference and this has been the consistency that these are released on the day of conference for the fourth year.

The entire day had technical sessions on Marketing, Finance, HR and general management along with Best Ph.D. Thesis contest. Papers were presented across various functional areas including- Brand loyalty, Self Service Banking, Mobile Banking, CRM, Rural marketing, buying pattern, Organized Retailing, Green Brand, Social Media Marketing, E-marketing, Service Quality, Employee Engagement, Job Satisfaction, Work-life balance, Quality of work life, Managerial Failure, Organisational Citizenship, Financial Performance, FDI, Stock Market, Risk and Return Study, Mutual Funds, Financial inclusion, Microfinance, Six Sigma, TQM, Spice Exports, Analytical Hierarchy, Medical Tourism, Entrepreneurship, Cloud Computing.

There were 46 papers received from places like Macedonia from abroad; from India- Mumbai, Gandhinagar, Anand, Udaipur, Vallabh Vidya Nagar, Baroda, Odisha, Warangal, Bhopal, Ujjain and Indore. In Doctoral thesis contest, various research scholars presented their thesis and Dr. Sapna Premchandani received the Award. The event was conducted by Dr. Rajeshwari Gwal and Dr. Pragya Jaroliya. Vote of thanks was given by Conference Secretary Prof. Sandeep Singh and Dr. Jitendra K. Sharma.