IIM Raipur students were today
graced by the presence of the man behind implementation of online railway
reservation system in India, Mr Amitabh Pandey. Mr Amitabh was here to deliver a
guest lecture about the future of e-commerce in India. Mr Amitabh, who has also
been the President and Head of E-Business for Thomas Cook India, concentrated
on the learning from his real life projects. The students were fortunate enough
to know about the implementation of one of the earliest internet based commerce
project in India and the lessons learnt from it.
Mr Amitabh was adamant on
instilling the entrepreneur spirit among the students. He showed through
numerous examples that if opportunities are grasped at the right time, one can
achieve the success. In 2001 it was a tedious process for common people to book
the rail tickets standing in queues and when online reservation system was
introduced, people welcomed it and today almost 400,000 tickets are booked on
IRCTC daily. He emphasized that even today lot of such opportunities exist and
it is just a matter of time when various entrepreneurs will come up with
innovative solutions. Even today more than fifty percent of the e-commerce
business in India is related with online travel booking which leaves a huge
scope in the retail segment.
While discussing various
practical experiences from his past projects, Mr Amitabh told about the
importance of limiting costs in initial phase and dealing with customers
honestly. He said we all learn great lessons in our classes but after joining
corporate, we sometimes limit our vision just to next quarter results and the
year’s bonus. He also discussed about the various risks related with the e-commerce
business and management of those risks. He mentioned about various problems
faced by him throughout his career of conceptualizing e-commerce business and
solutions he adapted at various places. All in all, the session was an
enriching experience for the students some of whom were seriously contemplating
about grasping any such opportunity existing today.
