"Turbulence is life force. It is opportunity. Let's love turbulence and use it for change."
- Ramsay Clark

When the world around you changes in the dramatic manner that it has, it can throw the best laid plans out of the window and force companies to take a careful look at their situation. It is a time of opportunity but also one of chaos as new avenues present themselves and old problems raise their heads again. What should the average corporate leader to do? Does he look to conquer or consolidate?

Keeping these questions in mind, the Consulting Committee at SPJIMR organised Vinimay '09 - the Annual Consulting Symposium on 16th January'09. The theme for the event was "Strategies to sail through the Economic Maelstrom".

The symposium brought together the finest minds from industry and academia who tried to answer these challenging questions.

The Event began with Retrospectrum where the industry experts presented their strategies, to cope with the economic downturn. Mr. Ravi Trivedy from KPMG and Mr. Naimesh Dave from Avalon gave a perspective of the Consulting Sector on the economic downturn. It was followed by a presentation my Mr. G. Sundar, CEO, Onida who shared his experiences from the consumer electronics industry. Taking cues from the day to day operations at Onida he talked about the serious impact of the downturn and the strategy his company applied to sail through this maelstrom.

This was followed by Crack-a-Case: Inter-BSchool case analysis competition. Students from the best B-Schools in India had sent in their case analysis with the best entries getting an opportunity to present their analysis to an eminent jury. The final round had the teams presenting the case related to the Laser Machine Industry. The winners for the event were,

• 1st prize of Rs 25000 JBIMS, Darshan Engineer and Mayank Sanghai
  
• 2nd Prize of Rs 10000 IIMA, Hrisheekesh Sabnis and Ankur Chandgothia

The symposium ended with MindSpeak- a Panel Discussion consisting of eminent speakers from Consulting Firms, Industry Experts and academia on the same theme.

The eminent guests included:

• Mr. G Sundar, CEO, Onida
  
• Mr. Sanjay Chakrabarti , Partner, EnY
  
• Mr Rohit Vohra, Principal Consultant, BCG
  
• Mr Sadeesh Raghawan, MD, Accenture
  
• Mr K. Raman, Head of Telecom & Media Practise, Tata Strategic Management Group
  
• Mr Ravi Trivedy, ED, KPMG
  
• Mr. Naimish Dave, ED, Avalon Consulting
  
• Mr Govind Balan, Principal, Diamond
  
• Ms. Mini Menon (Senior Editor, UTVi)

Also Prof. Prem Chandrani [Professor Incharge: Consulting Committee], Prof. Jiban Mukhopadhyay, Prof. S D Kshirsagar, Prof Vasant Sivaraman and the Students Consulting Committee played a major role in the success of the event.