CONFERENCE THEME

The theme of the conference is "Sustainable Business Models: Innovative Strategies and Practices". Every commercial organization, irrespective of its size and nature, has a business model, explicit or implicit. In fact, academics have defined “business model” as a way to make money. It is well accepted that a "business model" of a company explains the rationale for why a company's business approach and strategy will be a money maker (Thompson et al., 2010).

While majority of the modern business organizations have consciously designed business models, it is not unusual to come across successful entrepreneurs and sustainable business models that merely happened by accident. Likewise, age-old Indian industrial clusters like Agra, Firozabad, Aligarh to name a few, and clusters of tribal artisans at various locations also have a high degree of in-built sustainability in their business models. In fact, the business models of these micro and tiny enterprises and the entrepreneurs are based on rich cultural traditions and synergies (traditional skill, raw material, processes) of the operating regions. Importantly, these enterprises from emerging economies are mostly propelled by the skill passed on to them from their ancestors. (Kar, et al., 2014). But they have not limited themselves to this, and have created an environment in which innovation is constantly encouraged. They find themselves handicapped due to lack of support from governmental organizations and institutions both in terms of finance as well as training and development.

The companies are looking for competitive advantages based on key success factors related to technology, manufacturing, distribution, marketing, etc. to create sustainable business models. Likewise, modern-day clusters, such as the IT cluster at Bangalore, offer interesting research opportunities, where business models of individual companies, count on the comparative advantages arising out of clustering and the externalities that it creates, as well as of expected policy support in the face of major share of the IT sector in countries overall exports.

Importantly, in a dynamic world, business models need to be such that they can evolve with the times, but even this may not be enough, necessitating constant skill upgradation and innovations for sustainability. With this background in mind, this conference plans to provide a platform for exchange of ideas among academics, researchers and practitioners about the innovative strategies and practices which could help in creating sustainable business models.