INLEAD conducted a LEAD Activity - “Meet the Culture” on July 27th 2012 for the students of June and July 2012 batches. India has a rich cultural heritage and it’s very unique and versatile. The diversity in the cultural heritage can be seen throughout the country. Each and every state has different customs, traditions, beliefs and style of ceremonies as well. As INLEAD also has presence of students from different parts of the country so keeping this in mind the student affairs committee had thoroughly planned this activity for them. Students of both the batches have put in their best efforts to exhibit various cultures through skits and dance performances. All the acts were detail oriented, be it the costumes involved, lightning effects, and most importantly showcasing the cuisines of different cultures. The cuisines were tried by the judges and it left their palates salivating for more. All in all it was an afternoon which was full of fun & excitement and students of different programs were able to get to know more of each other.
All the acts were well performed and it did put all the judges in the spot of bother as they were not able to decide the winners because of the extraordinary performances by the students. But in the end there had to be one winner selected among the best performances and it was the Punjabi Team because of the vibrancy in the costumes, F&B Presentation and the exceptional role plays of all the characters. While the team performances received a thundering applause, special mentions were made for two individuals Mr. Tushar Saini depicting the character of Beeji (Punjabi team) and Nipun Gupta portraying as the Asur (Bengali Team). Both of them received the Individuals best performance award.

INLEAD conducted an Industry Expert Session for its International Hotel Management and Corporate Administration & Facility Management students of Jan and July 2012 batches. The session was conducted by Mr. Vaibhav Gaur, Sales Director – Radisson Suites. Mr. Gaur has over half a decade of experience in the Hotel industry and shared his experience with the students. He started the session with describing different departments of a hotel and how all of them are interdependent on each other in order to provide a hassle free service to the Guest. Mr. Gaur also talked on the grooming standards which are an important aspect, to work in the industry and also the right kind of attitude required in the organization, which will eventually help them to grow in this lucrative sector.
The session was quite interactive as students being new to the field were very curious to know more about the industry, what would be the growth path and the corporate expectations as well. The Q&A session helped students to understand the hierarchy that is being followed in the Hotels, to have a positive frame of mind while working and most importantly improving your skill set at regular intervals to have an effective growth. On being asked that how various hotel chains are surviving in such a competitive market, to which he said that "Service is the Key". One has to focus on the high quality service being provided to the customer because that will in the end will help you to uphold the guest for a longer period of time. All in all the session was quite well-informed and it helped the students to understand the insights of the hotel industry and overall what are the expectations of the corporate from the budding hoteliers.

INLEAD conducted an industry visit for its students of Event Management and Public Relations of June 2012 batch on 20th July 2012. Students were accompanied by Mr. Sandeep Bhandari, EMPR Faculty at INLEAD. The purpose of the visit was to familiarize students with the subject, Venue Operations. With the rapidly growing demand in MICE industry students should be aware of the latest facilities in a Hotel as a venue. A Hotel provides various Venue Options like Banquet Halls, Conference Rooms, Board rooms etc. The students were taken on a tour of the Hotel and were provided with information like the Layout Plan, Room Division Management, and Restaurant Operations. Students had a great exposure and learning during this visit.

INLEAD conducted a motivational session for its Event Management and Public Relations students of Jan and June 2012 batch. The session was conducted by Ms. Anubha Gupta, a motivational speaker and the topic of the session was Secrets of How to be Happy.The session was extremely helpful to the Events students as they undergo a lot of stress during their career, because of the constant pressure related to performance, client expectations. In order to have a successful event what is important is to remain calm under pressure and try to think of all those past glories that one has achieved (because thinking of happy moments gives you a lot of confidence). According to Ms. Gupta the only mantra of happiness is to remain optimistic all the time and always try to think of some pleasant memories. In order to be happy one just needs to put some efforts in forgetting the past (bad moments), living life with a purpose (to stay happy), building strong relationships and most importantly trying to make others happy.

INLEAD conducted an Industry Expert Session for its Event Management students of June’12 batch. The session was conducted by Ms. Ramita Chaudhuri – Business Consultant. The purpose of the session was to give them an introduction about the diverse Marketing Concepts like ATL/BTL activities, Trade marketing, Direct Marketing etc. Ms. Ramita also shared her practical experiences on various brand activation concepts. She stressed on the fact that comprehensive understanding of the Brand and the core Target Group should be the prime concern of the budding Event Marketers.

As India is majorly an emotion driven country so it is important that an event experience should be innovative so that it can engage more number of people and can strike on to their emotional chords. To come up with such a unique thought process it is essential that one should participate in brain storming sessions at regular intervals. The success of a BTL activity can only be measured through ROI (Return on Investment), hence it is essential for a marketer to invoke large number of people by using experiential marketing. According to Ms. Chaudhuri with such massive competition in a largely cluttered market, the person who possesses such skill set can only sustain for a longer period of time.

INLEAD conducted an Industry Expert Session for its HCA students of April’12 batch. The session was conducted by Dr. Gaurav Aggarwal, Director – Pushpanjali Crosslay Hospital. From 16th July all the HCA students will start their Quarter 2 internships in various hospitals, so the major purpose of the session was to familiarize them with the effective working atmosphere of hospitals and also to give them an introduction about Disaster Management which is an essential aspect of an administrator’s job profile. Dr. Gaurav had made the session pretty much interactive and shared his practical experience with the students. Dr. Aggarwal also shared the growth story of the booming healthcare sector and according to him the major contributing factor for this is the increase in the competition in the current market scenario. The session also helped students to get exposed to the practicalities of the healthcare industry, what sort of challenges they may face in the real world (while working) and how to overcome them by applying the skills that they had learned in their theoretical sessions. 
During the session Dr. Gaurav also briefed the students on Disaster Management concepts . It helped students to understand about the triage cycle, type of disasters, creating the specific zones to reduce the overall response time and how communication (through different ways) plays a very important role in any emergency. Dr. Aggarwal also shared a format of Hospital Disaster plan with the students and laid emphasis on the fact that all the processes are need to be followed to perfection(an administrator’s primary role) so that the situation may not get  chaotic.

As a part of LEAD module INLEAD conducted an activity for its April 2012 Batch – War of Words. It was a debate competition where students from all the programs of April 2012 batch participated and they were given topics related to their industry domain. During the debate, students (from both For the Motion and Against the Motion) have come up with some strong points and each & every point was backed up with some concrete facts and figures, which was also one of the parameters for testing them. Students were majorly tested on Language proficiency, presence of mind, communication skills, Question Handling and Audience Connect.

Winners of the competition:-

• Syed Imran Ali (HCA Batch) – Winner
• Anjul Garg (Marketing Batch) – 1st Runner up
• Abhishek Bhandari (HCA Batch) – 2nd Runner up