BANCON, the annual mega event for top bankers, has in recent years hogged the limelight, providing a platform for top bankers, Finance Ministry officials and RBI executives to converge, deliberate and debate on a chosen theme.
A host bank and the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) Secretariat collaborate and begin gearing up for the event months ahead of the scheduled date. The event is happening for the second time in the same calendar year (after 2001), as Central Bank of India prepares to play host at Hotel Taj Lands End, Mumbai, on December 3 and 4.
As one watches the run-up to the event from close quarters, one notices the similarities in the way countries conduct, say, the Commonwealth, Asiad or Olympic Games. Just as each country tries to better the record set by the previous hosts, banks also take pains to turn in their best performance for the conduct of the event. For them it is a matter of prestige, and they strive to make it more unique, special and memorable.
Right from choosing the conference venue and the theme, to identifying key speakers and receiving guests, the host bank tries to ensure that there are no last minute hiccups, by roping in man and machinery from far and near. “It is like preparing for a family wedding,” the then Chairman of Andhra Bank and present Chief Executive of the IBA, Dr K. Ramakrishnan, said way back in 2006.
Earlier events
BANCON 2006 was hosted by Andhra Bank at the International Convention Centre, Hyderabad. Bank of Baroda played host to the event the following year by conducting the conference at Hotel Taj Lands End, Mumbai. BANCON 2008, scheduled to be held in Srinagar in the last week of August 2008, never saw the light of day. SBI played host to BANCON 2009 by conducting the event at Hotel Trident in Mumbai early this year.
And now, it is the turn of Central Bank to host the event. Business Line has been tracking the conference from close quarters during the last couple of years. While there has been no major change in the choice of speakers, with many CEOs becoming a part of the regular process, the noticeable difference is probably in the design and conduct of the conference.
And, as in the earlier years, Central Bank of India too commenced preparatory work four months ahead of the scheduled date of the event. Papers were invited and after looking at the diverse interest of the delegates and the number of papers, the bank decided to have a number of parallel sessions. The agenda is packed and delegates will have more than a handful of programmes on their hands.
Chain of committees
While Bank of Baroda and Andhra Bank formed more than a dozen committees, headed by an officer not less than the rank of a General Manager to coordinate the entire programme, Central Bank has preferred to restrict the number of committees to six. Each of the committees is assigned a specific task to manage and it is a chain that links one committee to the next.
The hotel committee, for instance, is in charge of receiving the guests, ensuring comfortable accommodation and so on; the special committee headed by a public relations officer of the bank would take care of the media and press related matters; the key committee for taking care of the dignitaries/guests; the transport and security committee for making the necessary transport arrangements and ensuring overall security, and so on.
While media interactions on the sidelines, social vibes and business connections will add to the hype, the host has not forgotten to provide entertainment by scheduling a ‘Black and White' event at the end of the first day's programme. ‘We can enjoy music of the 1930s and 1940s for about an hour and half,' the official said. While this year's theme is ‘Transform to Outperform: Ideate, Innovate and Inspire', the underlying message that one infers in the run-up to the event is ‘Teamwork Wins'.
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