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Event Account brief

National HRD Network (Delhi Chapter) - Special Event 18th Dec. 2008 The scorched US economic upheavel is hitting our economy but for how long and in how many ways, nobody is really have clarity to answer. Every industry and sector is waiting for this time to pass. Employees is most corporates are looking for counter business strategies & direction along with an element of assurance from the top management. So, in order to ascertain CEO’s and top management’s perspective about the current downturn, a special event was organized by the team of the Delhi Chapter of the NHRD Network on 18th Decemember, 2008 at the International Management Institute Campus, New Delhi on the topic of “Global Economic Downturn & Counter Business Strategies”. The event began with the NHRD Code of Conduct led by Mr. Suresh Tripathi Vice President Delhi chapter. Then he introduced the moderator of the event Mr. N.S. Rajan & the panel members Dr. Sanjeev Choudhary. MD & CEO Religare Wellness Ltd, (Ranbaxy Group) Mr. Ajay Seth, CFO Maruti Suzuki & Mr. Inder Walia, Group HR Head & Executive VP HR, Bharti Group. The session started with the moderator asking each of the members to express their views on the current Economic downturn, how they viewed it and its impact on the pace of growth especially in the context of Indian business. The points that were raised indicated that this is not a recession rather a recess after the booming economic growth and part of the business cycle. The origin was clearly starting from US & as such the corrective measures planned to be taken by Barrack Obama regime will speed up the recovery pace all around the globe. It was also opined that the impact of economic slowdown was overplayed in India and resulting into low & negative sentiments in the people at large.The concept of optimistic pessimism emerged as the consensus of the panellists. Panel members emphasized that this is a tough time to test our mettle and professional excellence and a critical mass of corrective decisions will be needed to recuperate the wounded economy. Discussing on the measures to improve, the views that came out were the need to become detail oriented, revisit all business processes towards creating a highly productive, highly innovative & cost-sensitive culture. It was felt important to do regular resource audit, and focus highly on the Manufacturing sector besides continued focus on the Agriculture sector.. Message given by the speakers was to convert threat into an opportunity. On the role of HR fraternity’s in the current environment, it was said that the responsibility on them will be critical like never before. As the true conscious keepers of the organization they will have to maintain the level of commitment from each employee. For HR professionals, the need is to become the beacon of transformation. At the same time the panel was of the view to avoid the trap of knee jerk reactions e.g. downsizing manpower, which they felt would not serve any worthwhile purpose. The ability to be creative on people issues and manage humungous change will be the new competencies that would judge the effectiveness of HR Professionals. Being able to locate the profit centres in the organization and maximise operational efficiency would be the key areas of concern for them. By creating long run corrective measures, leveraging the core competencies and to be able to delineate the rest would help organizations in sustaining in the long run. Towards the last 30 minutes the Panel took questions from the audience. Every audience member was provided with a slip to write their question for a specific panel member, which were then passed onto them for their response. Questions asked were on various issues like people sentiment, impact on the service sector, Salary increase trends for 2009 and impact on recruitment plans & processes and the role of Government & Politicians in the current crisis. In the end, Mr. Rajneesh Bawa thanked all the panellists for making the event a great success and for doing a lot of value addition. Mr. Rajneesh Bawa then concluded the event by presenting a Vote of Thanks to the Panel members & the moderator. He also thanked the sponsors i.e. E&Y and Times of India – Asscent as well as Director, Faculty & Students of IMI. Mr. S.Y. Siddiqui, President Delhi Chapter handed over the mementos to the speakers to conclude the evening session.