Speaker: Prof. Piero Formica

Date: 15th Dec 2023

Summary of the event:

Prof. Piero Formica delivered an insightful plenary session on “Strategic Agility and Resilience: A Cultural Perspective,” emphasizing key principles essential for navigating the complexities of today’s business environment. He highlighted the concept of antifragility, stressing the importance of not merely bouncing back from challenges but thriving in the face of adversity. Prof. Formica likened innovation to the graceful yet stable movement of a dolphin, emphasizing the need for speed and effectiveness. Agility, he explained, enables organizations to identify critical moments for change and fosters adaptability, creativity, and collaboration. Moreover, the session underscored the significance of transdisciplinary education in nurturing individuals capable of bridging disciplines for fresh perspectives. Prof. Formica also cautioned against the unchecked proliferation of technology, urging attendees to prioritize human values. Overall, the event emphasized breaking mental barriers for open innovation, while highlighting the importance of agility, resilience, and harmonious collaboration in organizational success.

Learning Outcome:

1. Gained a comprehensive understanding of antifragility and its significance in organizational resilience.

2. Students have enriched with various new perspectives of agility which can be inculcated in their career ahead

Panelists:

1. Harold Andrew, Dean CMS Business School, Jain (Deemed-to-be-University),
2. Thomas DAL Director, Strate, School of Design, Entrepreneur and Design Evangelist,
3. Shashiprakasha L S, a Manufacturing Professional and Author
4. Shashiprakasha L S, a Manufacturing Professional
5. Prashant Janadri, Co-founder of Taskmo

The panel discussion titled “Benchmarks & Sharing Best Practices for a Dynamic Tomorrow” brought together esteemed panelists from various fields to share their expertise and insights. Dr. Harold Andrew highlighted leadership and organizational development in the education sector, while Mr. Thomas DAL discussed design thinking and innovation. Mr. Shashiprakasha L S provided insights into operations and supply chain management, and Mr. Prashant Janadri shared perspectives on the gig economy. Additionally, Mr. Madan Ganesh shared invaluable experiences from the finance sector. Prof. Eishwar Maanay’s exceptional moderation guided the dialogue, facilitating a rich exchange of ideas that resonated with the evolving landscapes of business, education, and finance.

The students of the third semester eagerly participated in the session, demonstrating high enthusiasm to gain insights into current trends across diverse industries. They actively engaged with the esteemed panelists, posing numerous questions to delve deeper into the topics discussed.

Learning Outcome:

• Fostered critical thinking and encouraged students to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world scenarios, enhancing their overall learning and professional development.
• The panel discussion provided students with the opportunity to networking with varied industry experts

Data Visualization Workshop, Exploring Tableau and Power BI was organized by Department of business administration of, BNMIT.  

Business Toys, a renowned analytics consulting firm, conducted a comprehensive workshop on Tableau and Power BI. The objective of the workshop was to equip participants with the skills and knowledge necessary to effectively utilize Tableau and Power BI for data visualization and analysis in the context of business operations.  

Details of workshop: 

• Introduction to Data Visualization and Tableau 

The workshop commenced with an introduction to the importance of data visualization in modern business analytics. We were introduced to the fundamentals of Tableau and Power BI, including their features and capabilities. We were trained to navigate through the Tableau interface, import data, and create basic visualizations such as bar charts and scatter plots. 

• Advanced Tableau Techniques: 

We were trained about advanced data connections and blending, 

Introduced to calculated fields and parameters for customized analysis. 

We worked on creating more complex visualizations and dashboards using multiple data sources and advanced Tableau features. 

• Introduction to Power BI 

We got Overview of Power BI and its advantages for business intelligence. 

 We worked on getting started with Power BI Desktop: importing data, creating relationships, building basic reports and interactive dashboards using Power BI Desktop. 

• Advanced Power BI Techniques: 

We were able to work on more advanced concepts to  Create interactive dashboards using shortcuts, various graphs , formatting dashboards , creating KPI’s , using queries to create dashboards . 

• Projects: 

We worked on various assignments throughout the workshop.  We implemented various techniques, attributes, tools and features of tableau and power BI on the projects. 

These projects  helped us to understand data visualization concepts better and  gave us an idea about  practical  application of these  data visualization tools in the real  business scenario.  

Various projects we worked on included: 

• Hr analytics dashboards  
• Big Bazaar dashboards  
• OYO dashboards  
• CRED dashboards 
• Zomato dashboards 

The hands-on training sessions were particularly beneficial, allowing us to explore the software interfaces and create visualizations from sample datasets. Trainers  provided step-by-step guidance, ensuring that all  could follow along and grasp the concepts effectively.  

Advanced features and techniques were also covered to provide participants with a deeper understanding of the tools’ capabilities.  

Case studies and real-world applications were presented to demonstrate how Tableau and Power BI are used in various industries for data analysis, reporting, and decision-making. 

The workshop concluded with a lively Q&A and resume building session where we had the opportunity to clarify doubts and seek further guidance from the trainers on resume building.  

The workshop provided us with a comprehensive understanding of Tableau and Power BI, enabling us   to leverage these tools effectively for data visualization and analysis in a business context.  

Through a combination of theoretical concepts, interactive sessions and practical exercises we gained hands-on experience in creating impactful visualizations and dashboards. The workshop fostered a culture of innovation and analytical thinking, preparing us   for future careers in data-driven industries. 

 Overall, the Tableau and Power BI workshop conducted by Business Toys was impactful and   was a resounding success in achieving its   objective of equipping students with industry-relevant competencies and fostering a culture of innovation in data analytics. 

The Department of Business Administration, BNMIT had organized a talk “Specialization matters, to help students wisely choose their specialization.

Four speakers were invited to speak about four different specializations, offered by BNMIT, Banking and Finance, Digital Strategy and Applied Marketing, Human Capital Management and Business Analytics. These four speakers are –

1. M V Narasimhan – Founder, NHRWA Trust
2. Sriprakash Nadadhur Sridharan – Founder, Prajna consulting
3. Poornima Kadambi – Co-founder Saiesh Info-solutions Pvt. Ltd.
4. Kashish Aggarwal – Co-founder and Partner at LitterFam

The session began in the morning at 10 am. Mr. M V Narasimhan addressed the students and highlighted various job opportunities available in Human Capital Management.

Further, Mr. Sriprakash Nadadhur Sridharan spoke about Digital strategy and applied marketing specialization. He gave various inputs to the students related to digitalization and few other marketing concepts which the students must be familiar.

Ms. Poornima Kadambi who spoke about business analytics mentioned the importance and opportunities in Analytics field.

Finally, Mr. Kashish Aggarwal, who spoke about Banking and Finance Specialization explained the benefits and opportunities of the specialization.

At the end of every session, students’ questions were answered by the speakers.

MBA Department of BNMIT in collaboration with upGrad campus had organized a MOOC’s course to 4^th Sem Marketing and Business Analytics specialization students on Advanced Digital Marketing

The course was successfully completed by our students and top performers were felicitated by upGrad on August 9th Mr. Amit Mahensaria, CEO, upGrad Campus, Mr. Vishal Anand ,Customer success Head Pan India, upGrad Campus, Mr. Rahul Kucheria ,Customer success-South Head, upGrad Campus and Mr. Akash Tiwari ,Sr. Marketing Manager, upGrad Campus had graced the occasion for giving certificate of appreciation to top performers and awarded BNMIT as Industry ready campus, Dr. S.Y. Kulkarni, Additional Director with Committed to education Excellence, Dr. N Mukund Sharma, HOD, MBA with Excellence in curriculum development and Dr. Charithra, Associate Professor, MBA with outstanding contribution to student’s success awards.

BNM Institute of Technology, in association with NHRWA had organized an industrial visit on 8^th  & 9^TH of August, 2023 to BIESSE manufacturing company Private Limited located in Huskur Road for the 1^st year students of MBA. A total of 110 students were present for the same.

About company:

Biesse is an international company that designs, manufactures and distributes systems and machines for processing wood, glass, stone, metal, plastic and composite materials aimed at the furniture, housing & construction, automotive and aerospace sectors.

Since 1969, it has designed, manufactured and marketed a comprehensive range of technologies and solutions for joiners and large furniture, windows, doors and wood building components manufacturers.

In recent years, it has also been active in the plastic processing machinery sector, developing ad-hoc solutions for a growing market.

Visit details:

The students were first taken to “Gurukula”, the company’s seminar hall to  educate about plant’s safety measures. The presentation was conducted by the safety officer Mr. Umesh where different rules and regulations were explained. The plant had a siren in case of any mishap, emergency exit on all floors, fire extinguishers and the employees were made to wear safety shoes in order to keep them safe.

After a 10-minute tea break, students were taken to the manufacturing plant and the following points were observed:

• The plant is situated in a 35000 sq. ft. area and is the only plant in India where all the manufacturing processes is under one roof.
• Machinery to design wood and glass is manufactured in this unit. The three machines manufactured here are CNC, SELCO and JADE.
• Every step of the manufacturing process was running very smoothly and each station had a lighting system that indicated different messages relating to testing.
• Testing is conducted after every step of the process so that there are minimal or no errors in the final product.
• The base of the machinery is manufactured at the plant itself. The material used is sheet metal.
• Warehouse of the plant was properly organised and more than 10,000 parts are stored to make the machine. The parts are organised in such a way that everything is easily accessible.
• The unit is environment friendly as it produces minimum metallic waste. The waste segregation was also very well organised. There were different bins based on the type of waste i.e. wet waste, dry waste, metallic and hazardous waste.
• The machinery is manufactured based on customers’ orders and after the analysis of previous 6 months reports.

To help the PGCET aspirants prepare for their exams, the Department of Business Administration, BNM Institute of Technology, had organized a 2-day online training “eMBArk– 2022” on 16 th and 17 th of November 2022. The training program covered the basics of all four sections of PGCET, which are General Knowledge, Quantitative ability, English proficiency,
Logical reasoning and general intelligence. The entire program was hosted on Microsoft Teams platform for convenience of the participants. The training started with addressing by Dr. Mukund Sharma, HOD, followed by strategies to crack PGCET. Ms. Zeenath K J, Mr. Rishi Ranjan, Ms. Usha Rani and Mr. Santhosh K V were the trainers involved. The trainers discussed various topics from each section that are important from the perspective of PGCET exam. More than 150 MBA aspirants registered and took benefit of the program. The participants felt that the program was helpful and appreciated the initiative of BNMIT.

Faculty Development Programme on ‘Tableau and Power BI for Effective Data Management’ was conducted by Department of Business Administration from Nov 10 th to Nov 14 th , 2022, through online mode. The objective of this FDP was to equip teaching fraternity with functional knowledge of the two popular data analysis and visualization tools – Tableau and Power BI. The FDP was conducted by resource persons from the training institute ‘Business Toys Pvt. Ltd.’, Bangalore.
The first session on Day 1 was about Fundamentals of data analytics and data science by Mr. Omkar Raikar. Trainer gave an overview of building blocks of data analytics and explained the relationship between data analytics and data science. He emphasized on the fact that understanding the business and its operations is key to become a successful data analyst and data
scientist. Trainer explained how each data can tell a story about the business and one must learn the art of storytelling through data. He explained the difference between categorical data and continuous data. The 3 econdd session was by Mr. Manikanta Prasad who demonstrated the features of Tableau, a Business Intelligence software application by Salesforce Inc. USA. Trainer used real time data to demonstrate the various features of the application. The data was shared with the participants
beforehand so that participants can work on the application along with the trainer. Data visualization, Strategy Building and Dash board preparation were aspects covered during this session. Advanced concepts of Tableau were covered during Day 2 with the help of a various data sets related to business. Participants learnt about various metrics and dimensions, deriving new
dimensions from existing data, parameters and calculated fields and advanced dashboards. In the following session, participants worked on a project through which they learnt the entire cycle of dashboard preparation – getting the data ready, data transformation, identification of KPIs, designing dash board layout, building functionalities and user acceptance testing. Sessions on Day 3 was about ‘Power BI’ an interactive data visualization software by Microsoft. Mr. Sagar Chadha was the resource person who started the session by explaining the difference between Tableau and Power BI. After giving an overview of the application and its basic features, trainer shared few sample datasets with the participants. Trainer demonstrated the various functionalities of the application with the help of datasets and participants were asked to work on it simultaneously. Following are the aspects covered during the day – Step approach to building BI report, types of visualizations, plotting charts, plotting complex charts using
calculated fields, sets filters, connecting charts on dashboard, colour scales and dimensions and building dashboards. An assignment was given on Day 4 to build a business dashboard and participants were asked to complete the assignment using Power BI tool. First session on Day 5 was conducted by Mr. Ashwin, who begin the session by reviewing the assignment submitted by the participants. Discussion was held about the solution to the assignment and how it can be improved. Q&A session was the last session and all the trainers answered questions raised by participants on various aspects. Trainers also explained how management students can make use of Tableau and Power BI to build their skillset. Trainers provided details of few free online resources through which students can learn these tools and improve their employment prospects.

MBA department, BNMIT in association with Skillgenix conducted an SDP in the topic ” REAL-TIME MARKET RESEARCH” from 19^th to 24^th October 2020 for the 2019-21 batch student.

Market research is a powerful marketing tool. Today, there is a growing demand to carry it out in an intelligent, innovative, and faster way. Consumers communicate at breakneck speed. With mobile phones in hand, they immediately let you know what they think and experience. Creating campaigns based on a traditional market survey done months ago may be of little use today. The real-time market research is the one that would help the brand to react quickly and according to the needs of its customers.

TOPICS COVERED

MBA department, BNMIT had organized an online SDP in the Topic “Advanced Excel” from 19th October 2020 for the 2018-20 Batch students between 9 am to 2:30 pm conducted through Zoom platform. With an idea to prepare students to take up new jobs and be Industry ready.

The students were trained in basic functions of excel and advanced operations covering the topics like logical functions, computation of stock returns, graphs, V lookup H lookup functions, regression analysis, and application of these in Real-time situations. The data set and the formula sheet was shared with students before the commencement of the SDP. Every day assignments were given to execute the topics discussed and on the Final day a test was conducted to evaluate the students on topics covered

A five day Workshop on “Business Analytics and E – Business” for 3rd Semester MBA students was conducted in association with Makeintern & Echoes’ (IIM Kozhikode Event) from September 08, 2019 to September 12, 2019. The trainer for the 5-day program was Ms. Maneesha from Makeintern Institute.

The students were introduced to R, a programming language used by statisticians and data miners for data analysis.. Five students, selected by the trainer, were awarded the Merit certificates and given an opportunity to present business plan in IIM-Kozhikode at the Echoes’ 2019 event. This was the rarest of rare opportunity for the students of MBA.

The Department of Business Administration had organized an orientation program for the new batch of MBA students from January to 22nd, 2021. The objective was to orient the students on the following aspects – Facilities available to the students at the institute, Learning Resources, Student Clubs, Extracurricular and co-curricular activities conducted by the Institute, Code of conduct to be followed by students, Covid-19 protocol, MBA Course Structure, Internal Assessment Process, Examination System, Training and Placement Support. These aspects were explained in detail by the internal faculty members.

The orientation program also included many skill building activities such as – Goal setting, Motivation, Managing expectation, which were conducted by external trainers – Mr. Jayasimha, Mrs. Pooja Sreedhar and Mr. Adarsh Basavaraj.