Kontempore, drawn from the words contemporary and relevant is a movement. Organizations are going to go through huge talent transformation in next one decade because of automation, digitization, artificial intelligence etc. Type of talent industry required and opportunity industry provided in the past will go through huge transition with more part-time, contractual and consulting jobs. India needs to add more than 300 million employable individuals across industries by 2022, over 2013. That is a herculean task, but holds great promise to take our country to the next level. So, we are really excited to tap into your tremendous experience in this journey, that can make a big difference. Kontempore aims to bring industry professionals together to explore, evolve and co-create a next generation talent management plan. We also aim to bring different stakeholders like academia, industry, consulting bodies and government organizations together to evolve a holistic change management agenda. Team Kontempore organised it’s its first ever symposium on 7th Nov 2017, 4:00 pm onwards at Taj City Centre, Sector 44, Gurgaon, the event being one-of-its-kind in the country This kick-off event was attended by 90+ business leaders of from Auto and Auto Industries which included CEOs, Auto Entrepreneurs, CXOs, CHROs and Industry Advisors   together to discuss and create actionable work revolving around the Talent challenges for the Automobile and Ancillary Industries. KIIT School of Management, Bhubaneswar (Academic), Think Talent Services (Knowledge) PHD Chamber of Commerce (Industry Engagement) and Human Capital (Talent Community) were partners for the event. Event was led by Mr. G.P Rao (Event Convenor) and Mr. Anil Bajpai (Kontempore Advisory Team Member)

Auto Kontempore saw the who’s who of the Indian Automotive and Auto Ancillary congregate to discuss the challenges facing the Indian Auto industry – both present and future. The presence of industry leaders like SY Siddiqui (Chief Mentor, Maruti), Rajiv Kapoor (CHRO, UNO Minda Group) and Pankaj Dubey (CEO & Director, Eicher Polaris) helped the participants to view the challenges from the widest possible lens and look for potential solutions that are beyond the obvious, tried and tested ones.

Auto Kontempore treaded on territory where most industry events hesitate to go. It was a true crowd-sourcing of ideas and was achieved through a Large Scale Interactive Process (LSIP) which was facilitated by Mr. Bimal Rath, Founder, Think Talent Services followed by panel discussion where actionable ideas were discussed. Auto industry experts Mr. Pankaj Dubey, Mr.Pradeep Kapse, Mr. Rakesh Kalra, Rajiv Mr. Romesh Kaul, Mr. Rakesh Jinsi and Mr. R.C Jain were the part of panel. The discussion was moderated by Mr.Bimal Rath

Participants were divided into groups. Each group had a team leader who facilitated a 5-step discussion process by asking provoking questions, encouraging debate and keeping the discussion on track without influencing the opinion of the group.

This highly participative and iterative process yielded the following output:

AREA CURRENT CHALLENGES IDEAS FOR ACTION
Skill/ Capability Gap
  • Most Fresh graduates are not readily employable
  • Lack of skilling opportunities for experienced professionals
  • Scarcity of deep domain expertise

 
  • Career paths for domain experts
  • Mentoring for new joinees
  • Industry experts to teach students
  • Revamp of Technical & Vocational Education Systems
  • Review of current curriculum by an Apex body with representation from Government, Academia and Industry
Infrastructure/ Eco-system
  • Geographical mismatch between Point of Availability of Talent vs Where Talent is Required
  • Infrastructure lags behind fast-paced changes
  • Lack of world-class training infrastructure
  • Create industrial clusters that are scattered and de-centralised
  • Convince companies with ace training facilities to allow it to be used by other companies
Brain-drain to other industries
  • Reluctance to join manufacturing industry
  • Significantly low wages in auto sector
  • Lack of structured career trajectories
  • Creation of Automotive townships
  • Talent management, career planning process for all levels
Leadership & Work Culture
  • Slow and complacent overarching work culture
  • Weak Leadership pipeline
  • Inability of leaders to deal with performance issues
  • Induct International experts to create deep domain expertise
  • Heavily invest in leadership development

Team Kontempore will regularly organize series of events to be attended by Industry Leaders from different industry segments, from time to time. However, it is not just about networking and discussion. Key thing is to have both moderated / un-moderated talks focusing on the talent challenges, capture the main points and create documents, blog posts, proposals and memorandum for the larger audience, including academicians, small business and the entire corporate world in general that’s grappling with talent and resource challenges.