This was an excellent Program designed and coordinated by Dr. J. K. Jha, Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur and Dr. Jitesh J. Thakkar, Associate Professor, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. In today’s business environment, organizations and managers are looking for structured, logical and evidence-based decision making due to unparalleled growth of businesses. Consequently, industrial and academic research facilities need to apply rigorous analytical methods to business decision problems for systematic ways of managing the organization.

The purpose of the five-day short-term course on Quantitative Decision Modeling was to equip participants with the advanced analytical tools and background needed to analyze and solve business decision problems.

These are the some of the major learning outcomes:
• Introduction to Quantitative Approach of Decision Making
• Modeling with Linear Programming and Graphical Solution Approach
• Simplex Method and Special Cases
• Revised Simplex Method
• Theory of Duality, Sensitivity Analysis and Post Optimality
• Transportation Problem and Its Variants, Integer Programming
• Assignment Problem
• Integer Programming
• Queuing Theory
• Heuristic Methods in Operations Research
• Hands on exercise using CIPLEX /EXCEL

The first session was done by Prof. C K Sabharwal who set the right platform by sharing his thought on Future of Marketing. He presented the mixed view of what marketing guru, Philip Kotler reflected in his book Kotler 3.0 and his own visualization about the future of marketing. Faculty members of marketing area shared their views in the form of presentations of the topic in their chosen areas of interest. Every presentation by the faculty was thrown open for the discussion among the participants followed by the valuable comments by the Industry experts.

Mr. Ajay Duggal, Ex-GM, Berling Chemine, New Delhi, Mr. Vikash Bagga, Ex Head-Marketing, Tata AIG, New Delhi , Mr. Sanjeev Shukla and Mr. B. D. Nathani, CEO, G & D Shoes (Disney), New Delhi were the guest from the industry in the panel of experts. Dr. Sujata Khandai, Principal UG Campus was invites as an in-house expert for the FDP. She has contributed a lot by giving her valuable suggestions and comments. Deliberations on Co-creation of value in marketing by Dr. V. N. Bajpai, Cause marketing by Dr. Satish Kumar, Permission marketing in hospitality sector by Prof. Lalit Sharma, Visual merchandising as tool for sensory marketing by Prof. G. N. Srivastava, Ethical issues in Pharmaceutical industry by Prof. Vineeta Srivastava, Return on marketing Investment by Dr. Mukesh Porwal, Measuring Customer satisfaction in Banking Industry by Dr. S. Bhattacharya, Managing Innovation by Prof. A. P. Tripathi were the eye opener in terms of future ahead. Prof. Sweta Bajpai and Prof. Priyanka Lawania from I.T.S UG Campus attended the FDP.

The FDP was really interesting, thought provoking and was very well co-ordinate by Prof. C. K. Sabharwal and Dr. Mukesh Porwal.