Building Successful Digital Enterprises: SP Jain hosts IT Management Conclave 2018 at Sydney Campus

SP Jain School of Global Management hosted the Sydney chapter of IT Management Conclave 2018 on 13th December at its Sydney campus. This is the fourth IT Conclave held this year and it focused on ‘Leadership and Governance in the Digital Age: Building Successful Digital Enterprises’. Similar conclaves have been held successfully across SP Jain’s other three campuses in Dubai, Singapore and Mumbai earlier in 2018. The aim of the IT Management Conclave is to foster collaborative knowledge creation together with industry through a combination of research and the sharing of case studies and best practices on issues pertaining to digital innovation, leadership and governance.

 
(From left to right) Dr. Karippur Nanda Kumar, Associate Professor and Area Head of IT – Singapore, SP Jain;
Dr. Munib Karavdic – Managing Director, Wave Design; Dr. Balakrishna Grandhi, Dean – Global MBA & MGB
and Professor of Marketing & Strategy, SP Jain; Mr. Peter Helson, CEO and Head of Campus – Sydney, SP Jain;
and Mr. Sameer Pandey, Councillor at Parramatta City Council at SP Jain’s IT Management Conclave 2018
held at Sydney Campus

The Conclave commenced with a welcome address by Mr. Peter Helson, CEO and Head of Campus – Sydney, SP Jain. In his speech, Mr. Helson said, “At SP Jain, our approach towards preparing and future-readying our students is underpinned by two central and overlapping strategic themes: ‘Global’ and ‘Technology’. For Technology, this means positioning ourselves to embrace future technologies such as AI, machine learning, blockchain and data science and to include these within our curriculum. It also means a clear strategic direction of integrating future technologies into the delivery of education itself. A strong example of how SP Jain is re-inventing online education delivery through technology is a brand new innovation called Enhanced Learning Online (ELO) recently built at our Mumbai campus which will be rolled out here in Sydney in 2019.”

 
(From left to right) Dr. Karippur Nanda Kumar, Associate Professor and Area Head of IT – Singapore, SP Jain;
Mr. Malik Irfan – Co-founder and Director, InQ Innovation Global; Mr. Stephen Rutter, Founder – The Scale Institute;
Mr. Stephen Novacek – Senior Director, Mindtree; Mr. Glenn Downey – Executive Director, The Maltby Group;
Ms. Ruchi Motial-Suri – Founder, Success Culture; Dr. Munib Karavdic – Managing Director, Wave Design;
Dr. John Lodewijks, Dean of Undergraduate Programs, SP Jain; Dr. Balakrishna Grandhi, Dean – Global MBA & MGB and
Professor of Marketing & Strategy, SP Jain; and Mr. Peter Helson, CEO and Head of Campus – Sydney, SP Jain

The Guest of Honour was Mr. Sameer Pandey, Councillor at Parramatta City Council, who presented an overview of the digital innovations being deployed by local government, including Smart City, urban heat map technology and mobile data analytics.

This was followed by a keynote address by Mr. Stephen Rutter, Founder - The Scale Institute, who spoke on the importance of culture and collaboration skills versus strategy within entrepreneurial leadership.

Dr. Karippur Nanda Kumar, Associate Professor and Area Head of IT – Singapore, SP Jain, presented the results and key insights of the IT Management Industry Survey 2018 which was conducted in Sydney, Dubai, Mumbai and Singapore in preparation for the Conclave.

Dr. Kumar said, “Whilst there are some regional differences amongst the survey results in some of the questions surveyed, a lack of digital vision and innovative thinking were found consistently to be the key organisational barriers for digital transformation in all regions. The transformation of legacy systems and adopting new platforms are amongst some of the key challenges in building a digital enterprise in Australia.”

 
(From left to right) Mr. Peter Helson, CEO and Head of Campus – Sydney, SP Jain, moderates a panel discussion
on ‘Building Successful Digital Enterprises’ with panel members Mr. Malik Irfan – Co-founder and Director, InQ
Innovation Global; Mr. Stephen Rutter, Founder – The Scale Institute; Mr. Stephen Novacek – Senior Director,
Mindtree; Mr. Glenn Downey – Executive Director, The Maltby Group; Ms. Ruchi Motial-Suri – Founder,
Success Culture; and Dr. Munib Karavdic – Managing Director, Wave Design

The Conclave continued with an engaging panel discussion on ‘Building Successful Digital Enterprises’ which touched upon a number of areas including the shift from centralised IT management control to the evolution of a collaborative technology eco-system populated by corporates, tech startups, incubator and accelerator hubs which Sydney and Melbourne have been experiencing over the last few years. The panel also discussed the new skill sets that future managers will need to cultivate to manage successfully in the new digital operating environment, including problem-solving, open-mindedness, curiosity and continuous learning, empathy and versatility.

The panel discussion was moderated by Mr. Peter Helson, CEO and Head of Campus – Sydney, SP Jain, with panel members drawn from a strong range of technology, entrepreneurial and design thinking backgrounds: