‘Angle L&D Conclave’ organised in Mumbai

Over 50 top pharmaceutical companies from Kolkata, Hyderabad, Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai attended the conference

Angle Training Forum recently organised “Angle L&D Conclave” in Mumbai witnessing participation from more than 100 senior L&D professionals. Over 50 top pharmaceutical companies from five major metro cities — Kolkata, Hyderabad, Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai were a part of this conference.

Founded by Milind Mangle, an award-winning international certified coach and trainer, Angle Training Forum has reportedly evolved into one of the leading resources for trainers in the sector, with members from over 200 top companies. The event was graced by eminent speakers from Reliance Industries, Larson & Toubros, MSD, Abbott, Sanofi, Sun Pharma, Biocon, Alkem and Skillsoft.

The topics that were talked about at the gathering ranged from artificial intelligence in L&D to content creation and from making e-Learning effective to design thinking and story telling.

KG Ananthakrishnan, Former Managing Director, Merck Sharp and Dome (MSD), who was the Chief Guest, inaugurated the event. In his inaugural address, he emphasised the increasing importance of L&D function being the strategic business partner, and on the job training for frontline sales professional.

Bhagwat Dhingra, Former CEO, Unichem, was the Guest of Honour at the conclave. He touched upon the crucial effectiveness of frontline sales professionals with customers for impact on business and the requisite training interventions.

In order to get maximum ideas about innovative initiatives, a panel discussion was held on “Best Practices in L&D,” which was moderated by B Ramnathan, Senior Learning and OD Manager, Sun Pharma. The panellists included Manisha Vithaldas, Associate Director, Abbott; Ramesh Juneja, Vice President, Sun Pharma — Acute Care; Prabhat Pandey, Head –Sales and Training Development, Sanofi and Sushil Barkur, GM and Head L&D, Alkem.

Providing high-quality content to the right people at the right time with speed is the essence of ‘content curation’ in the volatile world of business today. Srinivas KS, Global L&D Head, Biocon, dealt with this subject with an authority.

Hemalaxmi Raju, Chief Learning Officer, Reliance Industries, dwelt upon how ‘design thinking’ can be leveraged to create focussed learning intervention that improves retention and results in better outcomes. “Focus should be more on learners than content, from programmes to solutions and interventional execution to learner experience,” she said.

Artificial intelligence in L&D is the emerging digital initiative. Moushmi Dasgupta, Founder, Analytics Domain, spoke about the scope for AI in L&D and how it can be incorporated into L&D strategies.

The L&D Conclave had an array of diverse and relevant topics in keeping with the emerging needs of L&D professionals, L&D Next being one such topic handled well by Dr Swatee Sarangi, Head – Capability Development, Larsen &Toubro. She offered insights into how Millennial and Baby-boomer generation of employees can be engaged with crisp micro learning that employees can pick up on the go and with flow.

“How an employee learns best is more important than what an employee needs to learn,” she opined. Dr Swatee also underscored the need to incentivise learning for better long-term engagement, offering employees learning courses while still in the employment.

Learner centricity is at the heart of design thinking, said Vinay Pradhan, Country Manager and VP – India, Skillsoft. He also mentioned how e-learning programmes can influence employee engagement and employee productivity with reduced cost and the Skillsoft e-learning offerings.

Santosh Dayal, GM & Head – Sales Training, Glenmark Pharmaceutical, showed how the culture of ‘continuous learning, when aligned with learning and organisational strategy, can fuel growth with the help of digital initiatives.

Jagmohan Rishi, Vice President – Business Training, Business Intelligence and Digital Business Strategy at Wockhardt, reviewed his recently launched book, “Are you @ Digital Dinosaur?

Paper presentation made a debut at the conclave with Priti Mohile, Co-founder and MD, Media Medic Communications and Suman Deb, Sales and Behavioural Trainer, Emcure.

Lastly, it was business story telling time by Praveen Wadalkar, CEO and Founder, Techizer Tech Solutions.

Angle Training Forum has emerged as the leading free resource for the pharma trainers’ community. Every year, the highest contributors to knowledge are awarded as “Knowledge Ambassador”. This time, it was entitled to Ashish Jha, Sr Manager – L&D, Pfizer and Suprit Rampurkar, Chief Manager – Sales Education APAC, Siemens Healthineers.

The L&D Conclave 2019 was well accepted by the audience and speakers appreciated the topics.

The conclave concluded with Nitin Kagalkar, Senior Trainer and Coach, Angle Consultancy & Services, proposing the Vote of Thanks.