SYMFORUM - Recent development in world trade

The International Club of SCMS NOIDA organized an event titled “SYMFORUM 2.0” consisting of a webinar on the topic “Recent Development in World Trade & Logistics and the road ahead” by Mr. Prachur Shukla, and a rapid-fire Q & A round accompanied by a panel discussion on the topic of Future of world trade in next 12 months. The event was held on 30th of October, 2020 at 09:30 AM in which students of 3rd year (Batch 2018-21) & 2nd year (Batch 2019-22), from across specialization participated.

Webinar participants were delighted to have Mr. Prachur Shukla, head of HR strategy and projects, Aluminum Bahrain (Alba) as the guest speaker for the event. Mr. Shukla manages HR strategic planning, Manpower planning, OD initiatives, competency mapping etc. for Aluminum Bahrain (Alba) which is one of the largest single site aluminum smelters with more than 3000 employees. 

The webinar commenced with the introduction of the speaker. Mr. Shukla began his discussion on the topic of recent developments in world trade. During his talk, Mr. Shukla addressed various aspects related to International Business, global trade, supply chain and logistics management. He spoke widely about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on world trade, the situation in the Middle East, Latin America and China. The in-depth conversation covered a variety of crucial issues that have been revolving around world trade and have been impacted by COVID-19 pandemic. Mr. Shukla, with all his experience and knowledge, expressed his views on the changing paradigms of the logistical challenges, the economic environment (from both India and global point of view), the price of oil and the recovery from the recession that we might hope to witness in the future. Our student panellists too complemented the informative session by adding a number of their inputs and points which made this conversation a very fruitful discussion. He was kind enough to share some of his valuable life experiences with the students, too.

He also put forward six questions from the students and was generous enough to extend a free copy of the book to the student with the best answer, as a token of appreciation from his side. The webinar followed a Question and Answer round, in which students asked different questions and clarified some of their queries. This gave them an opportunity to interact with the speaker and express some of their thoughts.

Q & A round then followed a panel discussion on the topic – Future of world trade in next 12 months, which was attended by 6 of our 2nd and 3rd year students. The opening statement of the students was for one minute. They were given additional 3-4 minutes to describe their opinion in length and back up their statements with additional details. Towards the end, they were asked to conclude the discussion with closing statements.

This event concluded on an extremely pleasant note with a vote of thanks from the I.B. Club to all participants for attending the event and making it a success.