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MDI to hold three management events in four weeks

Vinod Behl in New Delhi

Gurgaon near Delhi will be the venue for the OPSCON '98, an international conference on supply chain management.

The two-day conference will open on November 20. It is the first of its kind to be held in India and is being organised by the Management Development Institute.

The event would attract participation of industry captains, policy-makers, business executives and eminent academics. How can organisations attain sustainable competitive advantage to meet global competition? The experts shall mull over the question.

Among the likely participants are RSSLN Bhaskarudu (managing director of Maruti Udyog Limited), H L Zutshi (chairman and managing director of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation), Subodh Bhargava (chairman of Eicher), Satish Kaura (CMD of Samtel), Anu Aga (chairperson of Thermax), R V Shashi (CMD of BSES), Paul Wilkilson (CEO of Gestetner), Geoff Skingsley (MD of L'Oreal), S N Mathur (chairman of IBP), Garrick D'Silva (MD Whirlpool), Manoj Kohli (CEO, Allied Signals), Deepak Ruchandani (director of Baan) and S K Acharya (MD of Indian Container).

The other top participants include N Vittal (chief vigilance commissioner, P V Narasimham (CMD of IFCI), Prof M R Rao (director if the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore), Prof Prem Virat (deputy director of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi) and Dr Heikki Nikali (director of Finland Post) and Prof Madhukar Angur (the University of Michigan).

According to conference chairman, Dr B S Sahay, the event will have plenary and technical sessions focussing on various strategic aspects of supply chain to achieve better business results, like supply chain communications, customer focus, information technology and E-commerce, enterprise resources planning, management practices and corporate profitability.

The MDI is expecting a good response from top executives of management, marketing, IT, finance production, purchase and HRD besides management consultants and faculty members from business schools.

As a run up to OPSCON'98, the MDI will organise a ''Retreat'' on ''Developing Organisations for the 21st Century'' for the human resource heads of organisations on November 6 and 7. Prof Fred Messark of the University of California will be the facilitator for the meet. He will explore developmental changes in building organisations for the next milliennium.

The Retreat would offer a platform for deliberations on restructuring and redesigning organisations to suit the imperatives of cost, quality, speed and innvoation with a view to manage strategic change in the liberalised era. Prior to Retreat HR'98, a conclave on the theme of corporate leadership, performance ethics and governance would be held on October 24.