Good day, Dr. P. Subhashree Natarajan. I'm Arjun. I've had a look through your background and your professional record. I'm interested in hearing more about your work and how you see yourself fitting in here with our faculty. Ready to start?

Hi, uh, I'm Subhashrin at Rajan. As you rightly said, I have over 30 years of experience or at which 25 years in teaching.

I have been in VIT for over 9 years and five months.

I have have I have got good experience in handling projects, especially the research projects. I was funded by the UK government for research on social enterprises. It is on leveraging lean thinking and digital technologies.

For. Serving these social enterprises both in India and in and in.

South Wales in order to attain the UN Sustainable Development Goals. So having worked as a professor and Dean for years, I think I'm a good fit and VIT has been my my home.

I love the values of VIT and I think I best fit there. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing that, Professor.

OK.

Can I go ahead?

Yes, please go ahead.

I have been teaching marketing analytics for over 8 years.

I can teach it in using excel, using Python, Power BI have also used Rattle of our programming. In fact I have thought about four patches in VIT Business School Belur itself.

Having said that, I have also published.

A case in European case analysis on retail analytics, which is one small portion of.

Marketing Analytics.

My PhD is in marketing.

I've done my business analytics course from I am Bangalore twice and I'm also a certified analytics professor.

Now having said that, I've also got.

Recently I have earned A certification from Coursera on Python basics so.

I have also thought multiple other courses in marketing which includes the core marketing management, business analytics, economics and in marketing in particular the consumer behavior services marketing.

I've also written a lot of paper which is related to analytics, so marketing analytics, marketing metrics.

Is my expert area.

Thank you.

Thank you.

To begin, could you describe a specific undergraduate marketing course that you've found particularly fulfilling to teach? What about that course resonates with you as an educator?

Keep Marketing Management Theories and Concepts is 1 course which is taught at the undergraduate level whereby we give a lot of projects for the students to understand the four PS and help them to be more customer centric.

The other course which is very close to my heart for the undergrads are the integrated communication.

Or advertising and sales promotion, whereby the creative streak of those students are actually kindled.

So that they develop an interest in the area of marketing.

Postgraduates, can I go ahead with the postgraduation courses also?

OK.

Please go ahead.

Professor, could you describe the key focus and contributions of your doctoral research in Business Administration? Specifically, I'm interested in how your research findings could influence or enhance your approach to teaching marketing or business analytics.

OK, currently I'm doing a research on agentic AI.

For understanding the customer's journey, how it could be remapped.

Without much disruption on the brand.

So here I'm using two important theories. 1 is called as a service dominant logic model, the other one is an autonomy theory.

I'll start with the autonomy theory. The autonomy theory actually has three important competence, which ultimately helps us a student or or helps a researcher to find out how committed.

Customer is when they adopt A particular technology.

When it comes to the service dominant logic, which is a value creation model, we try to understand all the elements which play a role in building a brand in suggesting the options that are available for the customers through Agentic AI so that.

The the customer does not feel or does not move out of the brand. There are multiple objectives that are embedded in this. The first objective is to understand the actual pattern of purchase and then understand whether we can make the AI agent or the AI is assistant of the consumer or the customer. Collaborate with the agency Ki of the organization.

So that they both can talk and then help the customer take up informed decision. So in the process, we also want to find out what are the guardrails, what are the ethical.

Concerns that we need to address and how this can help a company.

Which is hiring an agentic AI service provider and the service provider himself. Ultimately, both of them need to be customer centric. So this is the current research that I'm in and I think as it is an integration of core marketing concepts and the new age technology, this research will help students. Get prepared for.

The upcoming jobs in the market.

I've answered you.

Thank you, Professor. Your research on agentic AI, particularly in remapping the customer journey using service-dominant logic and autonomy theory, is both timely and impactful. I appreciate the focus on ethical considerations and customer-centricity. How do you plan to translate these complex research concepts into accessible and practical teaching approaches for students in the classroom? Specifically, how would you align these insights to enhance their understanding of marketing or business analytics?

OK, see the core concept or the core focus in marketing is one of the core focus in marketing is to make the custom to make the students understand how customer centric company need to be.

What are the What are the different touch points in a customer's purchase journey?

#2 where the technology plays a very vital role in translating a customer's intention into a behaviour.

So these when you have a practical exposure or the research knowledge on this, it becomes easy for us to give them the live cases.

It helps us to tell them what kind of you know.

Cautions that the company need to take and what are the learnings that I've got from this particular research which could be very useful for the students to take it forward #2 the technology that we use, the analytical, the analytical or the statistical tools that we use. Can be well thought to the students.

Once you have or once a once a professor has hands on experience in doing that #3 live cases.

Are very important for the students.

To love a particular subject.

And to gain in-depth knowledge in that particular subject. So I feel any research for that matter, not only my research when it is done with the utmost, you know, commitment.

And when it is taken properly to the classroom, will benefit the student and will create a kind of an interest in that subject.

Finally, I would also like to tell the students that how important it is for them to be more research oriented, more data-driven rather than being conceptualized. I mean, rather than focusing only on the concept or just handling a Python program with a dead data. So the real time data, the real time problems, the live cases, hands on experience. In handling a particular situation.

Will help the students gain not only the knowledge but the confidence in that particular subject.

And then so do you.

Go ahead.

Considering the rapidly evolving nature of marketing and technology, how do you ensure your students stay adaptable and prepared to navigate future trends in these fields?

OK. The recent development in in the market is marketing automation, where it is end to end. It can't be taught in the class. Students need to be exposed to it. So in order to do that, it is important for a professor to give them live projects.

They don't have to in case the live projects so that they gain that exposure. When we are giving them the live projects. It is also important that we create a scenario whereby they work with international communities. For example, in my previous job, I have, I have, I have worked with X Culture. I have created opportunities for my students to work with a company called this X Culture which gives them the live.

Thank

Helps multiple teams across the globe to work together.

Company problems.

At their time zone, so beyond the classroom, learning is very important for them to stay attuned to the market requirements, especially when it comes to the new age tick.

Thank you.

Thank you, Professor, for elaborating on your methodology. Your approach of emphasizing hands-on experience, live projects, and international collaborations clearly supports preparing students for the dynamic demands in marketing and technology. I have what I need from this section. Let us proceed.

What is the last statement that you made?

Sorry I didn't get you.

Go ahead.

I likely responded to your previous input or question within the context of the interview. Could you clarify what you're referring to, Professor? Let’s continue with the next question.

Let's discuss your 3-year research roadmap. Could you outline your major research objectives during this period and highlight how they align with the institution's goals?

OK.

I have been I have been into academic administration for quite some time, and my immediate goal is to publish at least two papers in a category.

I have got multiple papers in B&C categories of ABBC, Scopus.

So my focus would be on digital transformation.

Analytics, specially the behavioral analytics.

And.

OK.

Can you elaborate on how you plan to scale this research, particularly in mentoring junior students or collaborators, to ensure a consistent pipeline of high-quality publications?

In 2015, I I helped the students of VIT to write 2 papers.

On financial inclusion, because of which they were placed in, they could get a higher education thing in Kellogg's. So that has motivated me a lot. What I do usually for the students is we identify the students who are keen about the research. It could be at the undergraduate level or at the postgraduate.

At the doctoral level.

So for these students, we give them.

There should be a kind of a connection between my interest area and theirs. Once we know that our interests sink in, then we identify the niche topics which are not explode to a greater extent but has a scope to be explored.

We systematically plan the activities with the timeline, saying that for the first two months the real time problem would be identified. The next two months they have to do an extensive review of literature, every weekly reviews, mentoring will be done. We help them to write the papers presented to the conference initially and then take the papers so that to the next level of collecting the data setting up.

Scale, measuring the data and then writing a full term paper. If you look at all the papers that I have written, I have made my scholars. Is the first authors me as a second or third author.

That way I am a person who believe that it is important for the students to build a career which is backed by the research. Every research that they do need to be backed by a theory or a proven model. Without a proven theory or a model the the research that they do.

May not be valid. May not be acceptable by.

The communities which are reliant on this particular research, so.

Theory or a model based research is something that I do.

And this is what I have been doing so long and I would continue to do the same.

MMM.

Thank you for the detailed explanation, Professor. One last follow-up—how do you plan to leverage international collaborations to enhance the

Please take your time, Professor. How would you utilize international collaborations to boost the visibility and citation metrics of your research?

OK.

See my research, International research, the funded research by Government of South Wales.

Is one example to tell you how we can leverage on the international collaborations before getting this particular project.

I was collaborating. I was actually mailing the counterpart.

About my research interest.

And about the my about my team's research interest. And then we sat in for a a seminar whereby we exchanged our thoughts. We understood where there is an opportunity for us to collaborate and took it forward. When it comes to internationalisation, it is very important that we that we be that we have a co-author from an International University of repute.

In an area where we are researching #1 #2 it is important that we publish in very, very renowned journals so that there is visibility and there is also credibility #3.

When we go for conferences, when we go in for, uh, collaborative meetings, we just don't sign an MOU and walk away. We also talk about how we can do research together, how we can exchange our scholars and the students.

For a mobility program, and we also explore their economical situations so that we can create opportunities to do research.

Which is, which is acceptable in different areas with different countries. For example, in Vietnam when we went in for a for a collaborative meeting, we sat in with the government officials and we thought we explored what is the major problem. They grow coffee up hills and they have a lot of logistics problem. And we identified that yes, this is an area where my professors could work with.

Professors who would be giving consulting work.

Who will be taking up the consulting work for the government this week? We can internationalize it, just not for paper writing, but even for consulting.

Hope I have answered you.

Yes, Professor, you have answered comprehensively. Thank you. This completes the key objectives for this section. Please hold for a moment.

Professor, can you outline in detail how you would implement an active learning model, such as a flipped classroom, for a large-enrollment Marketing course? Assume no presentation slides are allowed.

OK, this is for a flipped classroom. It is very important that we prepare the students well ahead. We need to tell them what is the topic that we are going to cover or what is the case that we are going to discuss and then engage in a dialogue, a deep discussion between different groups within the class, anchored well by a professor.

You don't need to have a slide presentations, but then it is very important that we note down every point that is being told by.

Every member in the class, I believe in listening to the last member in the classroom. Inclusivity is very important and that lies with the moderator or with the professor. So flipped classrooms can be well conducted when the professor is prepared #1 which is the prime importance when the topics are given to the students well in advance.

When the group expectations are very clearly spelled out to the students, and when the class happens, it should be well anchored.

I have got a rich experience in doing this and I conducted a lot of programs for BHEL executives.

And also in RV University when we did it for the undergrad students.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

As VIT University emphasizes innovation in academic leadership, how would you contribute to the creation or redesign of a Marketing program or curriculum to ensure it remains relevant to modern industry demands? Please share specific strategies or components you would include.

OK.

Yeah. Thank you.

OK, I had a.

As a as a as a former Dean of VIT Business School.

I know the curriculum strength and weakness.

It is very important that we bring in concentrated cores.

Concentrated core. CORE course.

For the people who would like to specialize in a particular domain, for example.

I have had the students who did not know anything about Excel specializing in marketing analytics.

So as a prerequisite it is important that we bring in Excel basics of programming in Python.

And basics of Power BI for the students who would like to specialize in marketing analytics #1 #2.

It is important that we build in courses which are very relevant, which are very unique.

And which has got value in the industry? Example price and revenue management is a course that requires the students to understand what is economics in pricing.

What is marketing?

A little bit of finance. So it is more of a strategy course. So for such courses, it is important that we that we integrate all these courses together and develop a curriculum so that.

The syllabus and the course is actually adding a lot of value for the students.

That answers my question your question.

Thank you for your thoughtful response, Professor. Now, moving forward to assessments—how do you design evaluation tools to measure actual competency in such specialized courses beyond traditional standardized testing methods?

Do you want me to answer the question on the assessments?

Our scheduled time for the interview is now up. Before we conclude, do you have any questions related to the role or the company?

Ipsil, I would like to tell you that.

Hots higher order thinking is something that we want our students to be focused, I mean capable of answering.

And.

Open book test, which we it does is 1 good methodology that they have. In addition to that, we can also have presentations or we call it as seminars, which can be a part of the assessment by itself. So that and that brings us to the close of this interview. Thanks for your time. I don't have any questions.

Yes, we can formally conclude the interview. Thank you so much for the time.

Thank you for sharing, Professor. If you're certain you have no further input or queries, may I confirm that you're ready to formally conclude the interview?