CMS Business School, JAIN (Deemed-to-be University) held a 3-day event inviting expert Business Practitioners to conduct sessions for the students. The event started on 10th April with the first speaker, Former Director & Principal of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Dr. N.S. Viswanath. He conducted two sessions, one in the morning for cohorts CM1, BA1 & CM4 and the second in the afternoon for cohorts CM2, CM3, MF1, AV & BFAS. He spoke on the topic, “Union Budget Analysis 2023” with the intention of teaching students about the country’s current financial situation. He began by talking about the economic performance of India with respect to all the sector’s contributions to economic growth.

Furthering the idea, he discussed the importance of social infrastructure to improve the unemployment and poverty rate in the country. Dr. Viswanath stressed on strengthening human capital and appreciated several government schemes, like MGNREGS, the New Education policy, health programs, and the role of SHGs in helping the rural areas bounce back post-COVID-19. He then went on to scrutinize the Union Budget of 2023 in great detail and helped the students understand the 7 dimensions of the budget by colour coding them. He presented it as a rainbow budget by showing ‘Inclusive Growth’ as orange, ‘Reach’ as yellow, ‘Infrastructure and Development’ as indigo, ‘Unleashing the Potential’ as blue, ‘Green Growth’ as green, ‘Youth Power’ as red, and ‘Financial Sector’ as violet colour.

Dr. Viswanath pointed out the gaps in the budget like no focus on pension schemes, employment generation in health, travel, and no proposal for sustaining forests while the world is focusing on global warming challenges. He concluded the session by answering the questions posed by students, followed by key suggestions for government intervention to improve the growth rate and focus on sectoral development.

The next Business Practitioner Session was conducted on 12th April by Mr. Vinod S I, Associate Director Head of Sales & Strategic Accounts, Embitel Technologies (Volkswagen Group). He tackled the topic, “Supplier - OEM relationships in B2B Marketing”. He used his own experiences as examples to highlight the importance of mutually maintaining business relationships. He laid out some key terms in the business and described them, starting with the buying centre. He explained it as the group of people within a business responsible for making the purchase decision. He directed his speech towards the automotive industry and talked about the buying behaviour of clients in the industry. He ended his talk by describing the environmental forces shaping the future of Automobile industry.

13th April was the final day of the event and Mr. Tejas Hemantkumar Bellubbi came in for a morning session. As an Associate Partner of Win Nest Private Limited, a leading financial advisory company, he chose to talk about ‘Time Value of Money’. He explained that it is a crucial concept in finance that reflects the idea that money today is worth more than the same amount of money in the future. This is because the money you have can be invested today and earn interest or returns, while money in the future is subject to inflation and other uncertainties.

In the Indian economy, the time value of money plays a crucial role in determining the cost of borrowing and the returns on investments. Mr. Bellubbi went on to talk about the growth and challenges faced by the Indian economy in recent years. He showed the students some facts and figures to support his views. He conducted activities towards compounding and discounting factors in accordance with secondary market operations.

Overall, the time value of money is a critical concept that has significant implications for the Indian and international economies. Understanding this concept can help individuals and businesses make better financial decisions and navigate the complex economic landscape and in order to ensure students keep these learnings in mind, they were asked to submit a report on what they learned from the session.