Imprints
SIMSR Alumni Newsletter
Team ALCOM Speaks
January 2018 Edition
His Holiness The Dalai Lama on Campus
Team ALCOM wishes everyone a very Happy New Year. With the onset of the new year, we present to you the January edition of Imprints, our theme being ‘New year, New beginnings’. This edition features exciting events and conferences held on campus and an exclusive interview with Mr. Prakash Nair, EVP and Cluster Head, Ogilvy and Mather Advertising, Alum of batch 1994-96. As we strive to make Imprints better with each passing month, we would love to have your feedback/suggestions on the following link:
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His Holiness the Dalai Lama paid a 3 day visit to Somaiya Campus from 8th December, 2017 to 10th December, 2017. He delivered a public talk and gave private teachings in the event, organized by Vidyaloke, an Indian wisdom initiative of Vana Foundation. The teaching sessions were attended by faculty, staff, students & alumni of Somaiya Vidyavihar & Ayurvihar
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The spiritual leader interacted with school students on the first day and said that “The young generation needs to learn more about the ancient knowledge of the country to move ahead in life”
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On the final day of his stay on campus, he addressed the college students about the religious scriptures, world peace, his own life struggles and the importance of peace of mind. Famous Indie band Kabir Café performed live at the event to add more charm to the talk
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MOU with The School of Business, University of San Diego, USA •
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SIMSR and Research Innovation Incubation Design Lab (RiiDL), which is a start-up incubation centre of Somaiya Vidyavihar that promotes and facilitates innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, jointly signed an MOU with The School of Business, University of San Diego, USA This will enhance the internationalisation of SIMSR It will help students and faculty to benefit out of it through student exchange and faculty exchange programs respectively
Milaap—Batch Reunion of 1992 and 1997 •
Milaap - Batch Reunion of 1992 and 1997 was held on
9th
December,
2017
to
celebrate
the
completion of 25 years and 20 years respectively of being a SIMSR Alumni •
The event filled with nostalgia was addressed by Dr.
Monica
Khanna,
Director,
SIMSR
and
Dr. Bharati VW, Chairperson, Alumni Relations who enlightened the Alumni about the latest developments in SIMSR and the activities of the Alumni relations team, followed by a wonderful batch video and a musical performance by the band of SIMSR - Mauj •
Following this, High-Tea was organized where the Alums interacted with each other and refreshed memories of their college days Read more
Convocation Ceremony •
The convocation ceremony of PGDM, batch of 2015-17 and PGDM Executive, batch of 2015-16 was held on 2nd December, 2017 • The Guest of Honor, Mr. Adnan Ahmad, Vice President and Managing Director of Clariant India Ltd., addressed the ceremony Video Link: Watch Here Photos: View Here
AlumSpeaks
with
Mr. Prakash Nair
SIMSR Alum Batch 1994-96 | EVP and Cluster Head, Ogilvy & Mather Advertising Mr. Prakash Nair, with 21 years of rich experience in Advertising, has worked on Global brands. He is currently the EVP and one of the top 5 Cluster Heads at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising. Previously he was associated with Lowe Lintas as a Senior Brand Service Director. Favourite Movies
Favourite Holiday
Star Wars & Godfather I
Destination
One Word/ Line you say the most
Any Beach Destination
Awesome
Favourite Book
One word that describes you the best
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Solid
Role Models
Sunil Gavaskar & Prakash Padukone Favourite Quote
“If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learnt how to live ” by Lin Yutang
Being in service industry, your work life is dependent on someone else’s need
Q. What has been the most memorable event in your professional life so far?
Q. Recently O&M reshuffled their clusters. What is your opinion on that?
A. My professional life has given me my most memorable event – finding my life partner! I met my wife here at Ogilvy & Mather. We work in the same office (although in different departments).
A. As organizations grow, it gets tougher for one person to handle all divisions. Our clients need the right kind of attention which led us to believe that it was healthier to divide the organization into clusters. This allows everyone to focus on their core competencies.
Q. You have worked on some iconic brands like Dairy Milk Silk, Comfort Fabric Conditioner, Dove and Westside. How do you manage to appeal to such varying customer segments? Also, what kind of research do you base your ad campaigns on? A. These brands invest a lot of time and effort in understanding their clients and customers because if you do not know what your customers want, then your ad campaigns won’t yield the required results. Like for Cadbury, chocolate is an alien/ western treat. We had to find something that Cadbury could use to connect better with the Indian audience. Digging deeper into the Indian consumer, we found a huge cultural role that sweets play in day to day life – be it celebrating successes/good news or auspicious beginnings, sweets had a very important role. This simple cultural insight helped us unlock the ‘Pappu Pass Hogaya’ and the ‘Shubh Aarambh’ campaigns. These campaigns have managed to transform chocolate from being an alien treat to being accepted as an Indian sweet! B. Research if done well, can provide you with good insights into consumer behaviour/attitude. It also can be used to validate some of the creative ideas. Q If you have to use three words to describe the role of an EVP of an Ad house, what would those be? A. Pressure, Pressure and Pressure: Monetary, People, and Creative pressures with the increasing customer demands and the tightening budgets of clients. And adding to this chaos is the new kid on the block – digital content/advertising. Clients think of digital as ‘cheap’ option to advertising. And this is putting added pressure on creative agencies. Also, media houses have started becoming aggregators of content which is adding to the now complex communication business.
management
into
Q. With such a demanding job, where late nights are usual, how do you manage work and leisure? A. Being in service industry, your work life is dependent on someone else’s need which makes it slightly more difficult because there might be a need arising at any hour of the day. Having said that with the arrival of my son, I’m more protective of my weekends. Also, technology allows you to stay away from office but still be at work, if needed. Q. What are the significant learnings you had in your two years at SIMSR? A. SIMSR helped me realize where I wanted to go ahead in my career. The environment was very collaborative, open. The culture at SIMSR molded me in a certain way, allowed me to pursue what I wanted to, and at the same time kept me in check on the right course. Prof. Arya was a big support pillar for us. Q. What would your advice be for young alumni wanting to start their career in advertising? A. Advertising might look very glamorous from the outside, but it is very tough and straining, especially in the beginning, so be ready to be disappointed and be ready to bend your back. But, these formative years teach you the best lessons. For account management in advertising, you need to be brilliant at managing people’s egos as it is a relationship business. Overall, advertising is tough and not very rewarding, but if you have a passion for it, do pursue it.
Read Full Interview here
Alumni Survey •
SIMSR is proud of its Alumni and always strives to foster better Alumni - Institute connect which forms one of the key blocks in our journey. SIMSR is undergoing accreditation process and as a part of which our Alums satisfying the following criteria are requested to take part in a survey: Patent Holders Entrepreneurs Authors of Published Books (or) Published Research Papers Pursued or are pursuing Higher Studies The purpose of this survey is to help improve the institute ranking (SIMSR has registered for NIRF 2018 and this data shall help the institute advance its ranking for the same). This survey will also help us to build a network to develop business relations & opportunities among Alumni
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SIMSR Alumni Survey 2017
Round Table Conference by General Management Area • •
The General Management Area of SIMSR organized its 4th round table conference on ‘VC and angel funding in India: Opportunities and Challenges’ on Friday, 15th December, 2017 The panel for the discussion was: Mr. Karan Sharma, Director, Co-Head – Digital & Technology Investment Banking – Avendus Capital, Alum of batch 2004-06 Mr. Abhijeet Kumar, Co-Founder – Ah! Ventures Mr. Rohit Kilam, CTO – Aditya Birla Finance, Alum of batch 1995-97 Mr. Vinod Keni, Partner – Artha Ventures, Executive Director – MyCFO & Chair – Fintech SIG, TiE Mumbai Prof. Rushi Anandan, General Management Area Faculty – SIMSR was the moderator
National Retail Summit 2017 •
The students of PGDM Retail Management organized the annual National Retail Summit (NRS) on the 14th and 15th of December, 2017 • Mr. Sadashiv Nayak, CEO - Future Retail, Mr. Avirat Shete, Co-founder and director, Midearth wildlife and adventure holidays and Mr. Kaushal Thakkar, Alum of batch 2000-02, attended and shared their learnings at the summit • The event included a panel discussion which involved: Dr. Shakti Singh Chauhan, Head-Facility Management and Mall Operations, Reliance Retail Ltd. Mr. Dinkar Suri, TiE Mumbai & Founder-CEO, Retail Market Movers Mr. Indrajit Gupta, Co-founder and Director, Founding Fuel Publishing Pvt. Ltd. Ms. Shobha Subramanian, Founder, Market Vistas Mr. Nori Prabhakar, Chief general manager-Brand and PR, BPCL Read more
Navikaran
Global Supply Chain Management Conference • •
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The 5th Global Supply Chain Management Conference was held on 16th December, 2017 at SIMSR The conference was attended by Dr. Dirk. Hartel, Professor, LSCM at DHBW, Stuttgart. The keynote speaker was Dr. Katja Kuhn, Deanery of the faculty of Engineering, DHBW, Stuttgart and Mr. Sanjay Patil, Cluster Head, L&T It was followed by a Session on Mumbai Dabbawala working framework by Shri. Ragunath D Medge, President of Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Supplier Association (NMTBSA)
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The marketing committee of SIMSR, Interface, conducted their annual flagship marketing event ‘Navikaran’ on 21st and 22nd December, 2017 The event had keynote speakers like: Ms. Anuradha Bose, National Marketing Head of Shoppers Stop Mr. Subhobroto Chakroborty, a Brand Communication specialist with an experience of over 24 years, to enlighten us about the Recent trends in Digital and Retail Marketing This was followed by a panel discussion with: Mr. Sameer Prasad, Director-Marketing, The Thirsty Crow Marketing Services, Alum of the batch 1998-00 Mr. Sachin Parekh, Ex - DGM-Marketing and Sales, Apollo Hospitals, Alum of the batch 2000-02 Ms. Purvaa Kapadia, Head-Marketing, Lakmé Lever Pvt. Ltd, Alum of the batch 2002-04 Read more
Job Opportunities Total no. of recruiting companies
Outreach •
The Alumni Committee has launched its Outreach initiative for the current year, where we try and connect personally with Alums working in different sectors
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It gives the students a chance to have a closer view of the corporate challenges. We also let the Alums know about the current happenings at SIMSR and ask for their suggestions for the overall improvement of SIMSR fraternity
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We had the privilege to meet the following Alums recently:
11 Total no. of Vacancies 14 Top Recruiting Companies (in December)
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L&T Financial Services UPL TresVista Financial Sevices Secure Meters Ltd Shopclues
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Lexiconn ICICI bank Goldman Sachs The Smart Cube Hindustan Unilever Limited TAFE
To share a job opportunity at your organisation write to us at simsrjobs@googlegroups.com
Alumnus
Batch
Designation
Organization
Mr. Anuj Mathur
1992
HR Consultant
Self Employed
Mr. Rohit Pushp
1997
Director—Operations
Citi Bank
Mr. Khanjan Lodhavia
2009
Assistant Vice President
Deutsche CIB Center Pvt Ltd
Connect with our Alum family by signing up hereAlumni Portal Sign-Up Team Alumni Relations Chairperson Dr. Bharati VW Advisor Dr.Radha Iyer Manager Arvind Pandi Dorai Co-ordinator Hemanchi Hublikar Team Imprints Chief Editor Arvind Pandi Dorai Editor Suryani Sinha Ray Designer Kushal Thakkar Sreya Mukherjee Contributors: Kushal Thakkar Tulika Singh Sreya Mukherjee Divya Parekh Ankit Kumar Ishita Gulati Jagruthi Reddy Priyanka Shetty Radhika Vidyarthi Riya Jain Shreyas Bhaskare Smruti Thaker Swarna Sanghai Taha Chechatwala Yesha Kulshreshtha Arvind Rungta (Convener, Alumni Committee) Kushal Thakkar (Co-Convener, Alumni Committee) Surabhi Singh (Co-Convener, Alumni Committee)
Somaiya Alumni Reunion 2018 •
The Alumni Relations team at Somaiya Vidyavihar is excited to announce that Somaiya Alumni Reunion is going to be held on 20th January, 2018. Somaiya Alumni Reunion is a get together for the Somaiya Institutes at Vidyaihar and Ayurvihar campuses.
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Venue for the grand event will be Gargi plaza near the engineering college from 3:30pm to 10pm
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Online registrations for the same have already started, please register at https://goo.gl/K8pfHX and help us make it a great success!
Contact Us
Write to us / Contact us alcom.simsr@somaiya.edu 022-6728 3120/3295