The 8th Oxford India Business Forum was hosted on Tuesday, December 9 in Mumbai on the theme of Responsible Business. Panellists debated the Indian business community’s responsibility to Indian society. Representatives from Oxford University, Indian business, civil society and government jointly explored what responsibility means; the role of business in economies and society and how that role will be defined under the new government and under recent legislation.
U K Sinha, chairman of SEBI was the keynote speaker at the event and participants included Professor Peter Tufano, dean, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford; Alan Yarrow, The Lord Mayor of the City of London; Prof. Colin Mayer, Saïd Business School; Subir Gokarn, Brookings India; S Ramadorai, vice chairman, Tata Consultancy Services; Zia Mody, founder & managing partner, AZB & Partners and Ajay G Piramal, chairman, Piramal Group. Senior journalist and former Bloomberg India editor Vivek Law moderated a panel discussion on responsible business which was streamed live.

Reflecting on the forum, Peter Tufano, dean of Saïd Business School said, “We’ve heard that ‘responsibility’ matters but it is extraordinarily difficult to define what it means until we see it up close and personal. It is important to note that responsibility is not about one solution, it is about many solutions. Our speakers today talked about governance, but at the same time we heard about supply chains, we heard rules about investor protection but we also heard about volunteerism. At both the top and the bottom of the activities that we do, the solution to responsibility doesn’t have a simple answer. We have also heard about scale, especially in India. The issues that need to be dealt with in the world are huge and therefore it’s going to take a great deal of effort and probable crossing of hands across the public and private divides to get things done. We can’t just talk about responsibility; we have to go and do it. I take heart from this because what we’re trying to do at Said Business School relates to all these things and we think of these issues in our programmes.”

The event was sponsored and co-hosted by Tata Consultancy Services and organised in partnership with the Brookings Institution India Centre.

Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford blends the best of new and old. It is a vibrant and innovative business school deeply embedded in an 800 year old world-class university. For more information, see http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/.