The role of Aditya Birla Group in my life:
It takes a huge amount of background effort to establish a new brand. What’s even more difficult is to make the brand sustain the multitude of challenges that come later in the pipeline like battling with the already established brands, implementing a perfect strategy to gain market share and leaving your own mark by making the people get associated with your brand. If you agree with me in the amount of effort in establishing one brand, let me introduce you to a conglomerate which has as many as 36 businesses spreading across 34 nationalities. It is obvious that we are talking about the much-acclaimed Aditya Birla Group, which touches millions of lives in their day to day life. I am also one among those millions whose life is impacted by the Aditya Birla Group.
My connection to the Aditya Birla Group dates back to the year 2004 when we were building a house when my father zeroed down to the 'UltraTech cement' because of its supreme quality. Needless to say, my father also chose the Hindalco Aluminium Roofing for the sheeted roof portion of the house. The brand ‘UltraTech Cement’ has grown to be the Engineer’s choice with time. During my 3 years of experience as an engineer, I was not surprised to see that UltraTech cement is the most preferred brand when it comes to construction across industries.
The apparel brands, Peter England, People, Allen Solly, Louis Philippe, and Van Heusen form most of my wardrobe. Even for the shopping before joining IIFT, I purchased all my formal clothing from Peter England. During the days of my stay at Mysore, we used to get most of our groceries from More store which had its roots in the Aditya Birla Group, though it is not a part of it anymore. For the last Financial year, 60 % of my tax saving investment went into Aditya Birla Sun life Tax relief 96 Fund which shows the connection I have with the Aditya Birla Group. Also for the past 10 years, our family stays connected with the help of the Idea (Now Vodafone-Idea) network.
Aditya Birla Group conglomerate has become a part and parcel of my life with the multitude of its products in the domains of Fashion and Retail, Financial Services, Telecom services, Metals, Cement industry, and carbon black Industry. In addition to these, the conglomerate is taking up excellent CSR activities in the fields of education, Health Care, etc., touching the lives of over 7 million to improve their standards of living. My association with this conglomerate is huge and I am certain it will continue in the years to come.
The challenges I faced in my journey and what I learned from them
"Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome."- Arthur Ashe.
As a part of any Journey, we face few challenges and overcome them ultimately. I had overcome my own share of challenges before getting into my dream B-school, IIFT. After completing my 12th, I had to move to Jharkhand from my hometown for pursuing my B.Tech from NIT Jamshedpur. Moving to a new place and getting accustomed to a new culture was a challenge at that time. I was able to overcome by learning the local language of Hindi and making some good friends. These skills helped me later in getting accustomed to the culture of Karnataka where I worked for 3 years. In a place like Mysore where people speak only Kannada, I had faced no major difficulty in learning this local language and I was able to communicate with the local workforce in a smooth manner.
As a part of my initial assignment I had to assist in the commissioning of a major pipeline project. Being fresh out of college, I lacked the practical knowledge to understand the criticalities of the industry issues. By keeping myself open for learning, I gained the requisite skills from colleagues which would help me in carrying out my job responsibilities in an efficient manner. The technical skills with a blend of practical knowledge I gained helped me in tackling the bigger challenge of stabilizing the operations and maintenance activities for the first LPG pipeline location of its kind.
The biggest challenge I faced in my job was handling the pilferage emergency of an underground LPG Pipeline. The pilferage resulted in the leakage of LPG which spread over the adjacent two villages posing danger to life. Being the shift officer, I have handled the situation effectively by alerting all my seniors, district disaster management and electricity board authorities, Police forces, medical teams in no time which helped in nil life and property damage. Later, I went to the site and stayed back there for 10 days to restore the situation to normalcy. The skills I have gained in the past months helped me in taking an appropriate call during the time of distress. I was lauded for my quick decision making in handling such an emergency and I received an appreciation letter from my Director- Marketing for the same.
Another major challenge I faced was balancing the preparation for MBA entrance exams by working for 12 hours a day. I kept myself focused and studied whenever I found the time. I was able to overcome the challenge by effective time management and managed to get into the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade which was one of my dream B-schools. As a part of this journey, I learned that many challenges come in the path of achieving our dreams but our attitude is what that makes you sail through.
