IIMB to host 'India Sourcing Summit' February 2008

Bangalore, Nov 23: In the backdrop of India emerging as the hub of global sourcing, Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) would host 'India Sourcing Summit-2008' (ISS-2008) on February 8 and 9 next year.

About 150 top business leaders from world over including corporate leaders, chief executives and academia and researchers from China, Europe, the US apart from India would attend the conference. The Summit was being organised jointly by IIMB and the international management network, Supply Management Institute (SMI).

Briefing news persons about the summit, Constantin Blome, IIMB visiting professor and a top official from SMI said, sourcing and supply management had become decisive factors for ongoing growth of India's economy.

In view of this the the organising committee had decided to theme the conference as 'India as emerging hub of global sourcing', which showed the strategic importance of the country for MNCs in almost every industry. The topics of the summit would include sourcing in the areas of IT services, retail, R and D, engineering services, pharma, automotive and logistics.

"ISS is a knowledge event and not a trade fair or exhibition and it include formats like key note speeches, panel discussions and workshops," Dr Blome, who is the Conference Secretary, said.

Dr B Mahadevan, IIM-B professor specilising in sourcing and supply management said that supply hetroginity was happening in India and this would result in hyper growth in global industries in different fields sourcing from the country.

"Supply chains and its bottlenecks will have to be studied carefully for India to emerge as the leader in global sourcing and this event will help the industry in streamlining the future programmes," he added.

The first meeting of the Advisory board of ISS, which includes top officials both Indian companies and MNC was held here today.

UNI