Chennai's Great Lake Institute of Management and the North American Society for Marketing Education in India (NASMEI) concluded the two days International Conference on the overall theme of 'Creating, Communicating, and Delivering Value' in growing markets on 21 and 22 December 2007 in Chennai. This conference was sponsored by the Kotler-Srinivasan Center for research in Marketing at Great Lakes.

The theoretical, methodological, and empirical research papers in marketing were presented from participants from various corporate and Indian and foreign B-Schools. Research papers were based on some selected topics such as market research, competitive analysis, product, branding, advertising, personal selling, promotion, channels management, web-based marketing, etc.

The event witnessed marketing researchers and academicians from across the globe. To name a few, some of the speakers represented universities such as Harvard University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Wisconsin Madison, IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore, etc. A couple of industry practitioners from Capgemini and SAIL-DSP also stimulated the thoughts of the audience with their research papers.

Prof. V. Seenu Srinivasan, Stanford University, co-chair NASMEI, in his concluding speech said that the role of research was to combat the growing complexity to design marketing strategy for the products and services and understanding the consumer preferences.

This conference was followed by 2nd International Research Seminar that Great Lakes conducted with Yale University. In 2006, the conference was inaugurated by Indra Nooyi, CEO, PepsiCo. The theme of the current conference was 'Brand India' . Illustrious scholars from leading institutions in India and abroad participated in the conference. Also students from different management institutes across the country participated to present their research papers in the event. "The event highlighted the relevance of research in understanding the underlying factors in current and future management trends. Great Lakes through YALE and NASMEI have successfully provided a platform to research scholars and students to exchange their ideas," says Ashutosh Chaudhary, student of Great Lakes.

Yale-Great Lakes Center for Management Research aims to promote, facilitate, and advance India-centric management related research that contributes to the development of basic and applied knowledge in the field of management. The centre will be a bridge that links scholars around the globe with India as a common interest

Papers were invited on the theme 'Brand India' from academia and industry. Overall, 50 research papers were received out of which 30 papers were selected for presentation. Apart from paper presenters, distinguished scholars were also invited from institutions of global repute for delivering keynote speeches.