Mr. Stefano Pelle visits IIFT

19th January, 2007: Mr. Stefano Pelle, VP and COO of the business unit of South Asia and Russia, Perfetti Van Melle group, visited IIFT Delhi to interact with the students of the MBA (IB) program, on the invitation of the Corporate Relations Committee (CRC) of the institute.

Mr. Pelle took over the charge of the company in 1998, a difficult year after a period of strong initial growth, and increased its turnover five folds, bringing it to 600 crores, besides other enviable records in Sales, Marketing, Manufacturing and Supply Chain.

He spoke about the emerging countries while focusing on Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC countries). He shared his ideas and experiences about the reasons for the emergence of these economies, and shed light on market opportunities and issues relevant to doing business in such economies.

He discussed the current state of the emerging markets, their operative environment and pointed out some of the common difficulties and mistakes that multinational companies make when entering these markets. He described the key elements of a successful and profitable business model in these countries and in doing so, focusing on some issues like:
– Cultural Gaps in the home and target markets
– External factors influencing business
– Red tape and corruption
– Sustainability of economic development

An MBA with his masters in Marketing from the Luiss University of Rome, Mr. Pelle's incisive thoughts interlaced with humor encouraged participation from the students and made the interaction highly engaging. The students gained an industry perspective, fresh insights and a broader outlook into managing global opportunities and how organizations and governments can partner in each others progress.

Special Thanks to: Saikat Sarkar