Bhubaneswar, January 12, 2010: The Bhubaneswar based Krupajal Business School (KBS) held the years first Leadership talk on January 9, 2010 in their sprawling, pristine campus having state-of-the-art infrastructure and modern facilities. The leadership talk was delivered by Mr.Pradipta Kumar Sahoo, General Manager (Marketing) at Paradeep Phosphates Ltd., Bhubaneswar. Mr.Sahoo, an IIM Ahmedabad business graduate, provided rich insights to the large audience at KBS comprising of the PGDM students along with the vice-chairman, senior advisors, Director and faculty members of KBS. Drawing on this rich experience of 17 years, Mr.Sahoo encouraged the students to think beyond the present and build their minds on a visionary model. He interacted with the students on their management specializations and articulated the scope and challenges of each specialization domain ranging from marketing, finance, etc.  He described extensively about the rural environment for marketing and the changing market scenario in the rural areas. He appraised the students about the present challenges in the rural sector especially due to inferior awareness, inadequate distribution channels, absence of strong after-sales service support and lack of implementation in agronomic technology and applications. He pointed out to the KBS students and faculty members that how the gaps in farm production and the features of agribusiness impact the overall economy of the nation. He highlighted the aspect about sub-optimization of yield and productivity on farmlands and the socio-economic inequity among the farming community. He described the opportunities and challenges faced by the agribusiness sector and the immense potential that the sector holds for a country like India. Mr.Sahoo delved into the areas of branding and cited several examples of blue chip companies who have been able to build a strong brand equity based on their proper brand management philosophy. The talk with wide-ranging insights was for a period of two and half hours and provided the KBS students with a tremendous industry exposure which is bound to develop their young minds and knowledge base in areas of agribusiness, rural markets and the branding sector. Speaking to the Press and Media, Mr.Sahoo said, -I find the students at KBS are extremely bright and intelligent. They are proactive and involved in the process and I am sure that KBS provides strong value based management education to these students which would go a long way in nurturing their talent and turning them into dynamic managers of tomorrow. Mr.Sahoo felt that KBS is probably amongst the best business schools in eastern India and hoped that it would continue to nurture and develop young managers as it is doing now. The Leadership Talks 2010 at KBS would be held at regular intervals and would be an effective platform for providing the students with a unique industry-academic exposure and facilitating enriched learning.