The Chamber was honored to have Dr. Ajay Mathur, Director General, TERI, as a Special Invitee to its Managing Committee. Dr. Mathur joined The Chamber's Managing Committee Meeting on 15th December 2020 and delivered a talk on the topic “Towards the Business of Tomorrow”. 

At the outset Mr. Deb a Mukherjee, President, briefly introduced Dr. Ajay Mathur and heartily congratulated him for having been conferred with the Lifetime Achievement Award 2020 on 7th December 2020 by the International Society of Waste Management Air & Water Circular Economy at the 10th Icon SWM-CE 2020 for his significant and commendable contribution in the areas of environmental protection. 

At the outset, Dr. Ajay Mathur acknowledged that The Bengal Chamber is an Association which he greatly valued and was deeply moved by The Chamber’s invitation to be a part of its Managing Committee, a gesture which he deeply cherished. 

Highlights of Dr. Mathur’s Talk on “Towards the Business of Tomorrow”: 

• All businesses and organisations have been reinventing themselves and it is important to understand this process in order to ensure that change works in their favour and not against them. Many companies which had existed 50 years ago are no longer in existence. It is interesting to understand which are these companies which are non-existent now. The reasons why they do not exist can be found in their not upgrading technology in time, their being resource in-efficient and also environmental violations. Importantly, another reason was these companies losing their customer connect.  
• It was becoming fairly evident that today what we call as sustainable development has been and will continue to drive the business of tomorrow. 
• As companies moved towards becoming more and more efficient they have moved towards automation; but it is more important for Companies that move ahead to build social capabilities of the people working for them in order to enhance their consumer connect. Companies need to have their ears open to listen to their consumers.
• Indian consumers are more value conscious compared to price. The service level constitutes the value element which people are ready to pay for. Cheaper goods do not sell more and how this fact is communicated was important. 
• We have seen that the choice of CEOs matters a great deal. Leaders do not lead alone; they are able to excite people inside and outside the Company, they bring order to messy processes and engage in managing product-mixes by looking at opportunities.  It is important for CEOs to keep evolving benchmarks to enable reporting of continuous improvements. 
• Over the last few month SEBI has brought out a consultation document on Corporate Reporting. Dr. Mathur felt that it would be good if The Chamber looks at it and presents what its views are. 
• By their very nature, financial institutions are conservative in outlook. It is important for organizations like The Chamber to provide them with new learnings in the interest of growth of trade and industry. 
• It is important to periodically review strategies and thoughts of individual companies against those of the business chambers.    
• Dr. Mathur believed that the ‘Business of Tomorrow’ is sustainability. It means how you manage the transition towards greater resource efficiency, towards lower waste management, towards keeping the people in the organization together so that they can deliver. 

Dr. Ajay Mathur’s talk was followed by an invigorating round of discussions by Members.