Where do I see BizTech in five years?

I was asked this question as part of the final interaction round for BizTech Academic Interest Group at IIM Lucknow. Having been on campus for little over a month, bombarded with a deadline or two a day, the ability to think in the long-term feels like a bit of a luxury.

And yet, like sleep, thinking about the long-term is a basic necessity for getting your short-term actions and priorities in order.

At that time, I could barely answer, spouting out some globe on the importance of alumni network. On reflection now, the right answer should start with understanding BizTech’s identity? BizTech’s very identity seemed to be pretty much in the cloud (pun intended).

When you start thinking seriously along those lines, the question breaks down to:

  • What is BizTech?

  • How do we execute so that BizTech is the best version of what it can be in the coming 2 years?

  • How do we strategize so that Team BizTech has a platform to be the best version of itself in 5 years?

In this blog I’ll try to unpack the question of:

What is BizTech?

For this analysis, it is important to consider the perspectives of three key stakeholders:

  1. Current BizTech members:

One way to get BizTech members’ perspective is through the overtures video and through the overtures presentation.

The overtures presentation, accessed via Facebook, is about how consumer products are enabled by technologies – mainly Information technology.

The posts on BizTech’s FB page are pretty good. Some of them are about How to succeed at Retail? The future of retail – Importance of Scale, Rapid Innovation and Data-analytics

  • Microsoft – Marketing technologies (Azure and HoloLens) by building Virtual Reality product

  • A schematic graph of Machine Learning

  • How Google Pay API works – the campus runs on Google Pay and PayTM

  • Mathematics of trading strategies in financial markets

These posts reveal a fascination with how Information technologies work to enable businesses

  1. My Perspective:

BizTech lies at the intersection of Business and Technology. A business has many verticals/ functions – there is the marketing function, the finance function, the operations function, the strategy function and the Human Resources function. For each of these business functions technology – whether it is the technology that enables business, or the technology that differentiates the product offering, is absolutely critical.

IIM Lucknow is widely considered as a mecca for marketing students. BizTech has the opportunity to build a different legacy for IIM Lucknow – of creating business leaders that know the importance of technology for businesses.

Information Technology is a critical part of BizTech. For managers, a working knowledge of the IT systems that underpin business is increasingly important. But I would like to be greedier – I’d like Biztech to cover Tesla Motors as well. Emerging technologies then? Emerging Technologies and IT sounds pretty accurate then. BizTech is about businesses that are enabled by information systems and emerging technologies, and for which the ability to innovate using technology is a key business goal.

  1. Perspective of IIM Lucknow Professors

Professors at IIML underline the importance of leveraging emerging IT technologies for businesses.

Prof Amit Agrahari, IT & Systems Area, IIML

Technology is what drives a business today. For a manager it is important to know: What technologies pieces are available

What are the core capabilities of technologies

How to use the technologies

Prof Arunabha Mukhopadhyay – IT & Systems Area, IIML

Operational excellence and Strategic Competency

Service oriented architecture, SAS, Deep Learning

Using technology for business should be priority

Prof Sameer Mathur – Marketing, IIML

Companies are making data-driven decisions. Predictive analytics for example is about making business decisions for the future based on how the customer has interacted with your product.

Execution over the next two years

Having delved into BizTech’s identity, I could start forming a picture of the different verticals on which Team BizTech would need to excel. The different verticals to prepare for would be

  • Content & Promotions

  • Website, Social Media

  • Placement Prep – Content for Placement prep, company research, networking

  • Events & Workshops – Events in campus should be designed to communicate relevant ideas and concepts. Likewise workshops can be organized for Placement prep

  • Inflection Point – Fest

More to follow.