Why Aditya Birla Group is big in your life?
Coming from a small town in Andhra Pradesh, I have a very limited branded retail store experience till 2012. Later, during time, e-commerce giants like Flipkart, Amazon have provided exposure to brands which are affordable and the premium ones. But the first-hand experience which we get by visiting an offline store and experiencing the products is entirely different which the online retails stores failed to provide in those days before the discovery of exchange policy. Pantaloons, a fashion retail store owned by Aditya Birla Group was one of the first among its competitors to enter Andhra-Pradesh. I still remember the first time I visited the store in my 8th grade. It was a beautiful experience going through the products neatly arranged according to their varieties unlike the local clothing stores. That was the first time I developed interest towards fashion. In other words, the experience I had that day instigated a new thirst of awareness towards various fashion labels and their own unique specialities. And then came Forever 21 which makes every young lady feel like forever 21. Though I have developed enough awareness about various giants in the fashion world later, pantaloons is still the dearest one among all. There are many reasons which added to that. Few things are that they have the affordable ranges for every college- going girl and the accessories that can be paired with the clothes. It creates an experience of having everything that is needed for a girl to step out of the house in just one store. Pantaloons is successfully maintaining its market share amidst the involvement of Swedish brands like H&M. Go Go Pantaloons.
How you overcame challenges to achieve your ambitions in life so far?
Getting into an IIM was a dream developed during under graduation. Though I used to work hard to crack the CAT there were many unavoidable distractions during the preparation time. In my fourth year of under graduation, just before few months of the D-Day, in the month of august my mother met with a serious accident and was hospitalized for the same. Ours being a nuclear family was collapsed due to her condition. Though my parents were very supportive of my dreams, it was difficult for them to provide consistent encouragement and support which was highly needed during that time. Initially it was so hard for me to focus on the mock tests which are extremely important for the CAT preparation. During time I realized how important it is to me and to my career to prepare well for the examination and get into one of the prestigious B-Schools of the world. It was difficult to focus on that in the initial days, but the discipline instilled in me by my parents in upbringing helped a lot to achieve this goal. In those days I realized how important is one’s self-determination in achieving one’s goals in their lives by overcoming all the hindrances that we confront in the process of achieving our ambitions. Even now, when I come across situation like those, I reminisces those days where I was able to control myself successfully and meet the targets I assigned for myself.
#IIM RAIPUR #ABGLPWooMe
