PART A
Aditya Birla Group (ABG), headquartered in Worli, Mumbai, India, holds the rank of the world’s third-largest Indian private sector conglomerate with a whopping revenue of US$44.3 billion as recorder in the year 2018. Needless to say, the company has been a giant success in the industry.
In a personal context, ABG has had a huge impact on my life, in ways both big and small. For instance, Pantaloons has been my go-to fashion brand for all casual and comfort apparel needs for years, and it is not likely to change anytime soon. Moreover, I’m also brand loyal towards Forever 21 whenever I need to shop for jeans due to its unparalleled collection of sizes and variants.
ABG has also enabled me to stay connected with my family and friends over the years as I moved from place to place multiple times, all thanks to Idea Cellular’s undisturbed connectivity and seamless internet provisions. I have never had to feel the loss of connections or relationships because of this.
Additionally, my house back in Kolkata has also been built using Ultratech cement, and although I no longer reside there, it will always hold a special and sentimental value in my heart. The company’s insurance division, Birla Sun Life Insurance, also ensures that we are taken care of in times of hardships and distress, and it has been my father’s safety net for years.
In my opinion, therefore, ABG has not only touched lives through its physical products and services, but also by building experiences and emotional bonding.
PART B
No one has had it easy in life; I am no exception.
The only thing that makes me unique is how I handled my hurdles differently and emerged as a stronger, more confident version of myself.
Let us rewind time to three years ago. I was on the verge of graduating from school with an International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma, all set to finish my higher education abroad studying Biochemistry. That was when all my plans came crashing down, when my father informed me that due to a crunch on financial resources, it would not be possible for him to send me abroad.
This generally wouldn’t have been such a trial, except for the fact that no Indian universities were ready to accept IB graduated students without Physics for a science course. It was a truly tumultuous time for me. Everything I had worked towards for the past two years was crumbling down right before my eyes, and there was little I could do to keep the situation controlled.
I did all my research and still came up empty—there were only a handful of universities that were willing to take IB students, and I found only one college that would take me in for a science course.
This was the turning point in my life; I had to make the decision about my future. My high school graduation results proved that I had strong business management and communication skills, and it was then that I decided that I had to play on my strengths. After many deliberations with my parents and counselors, I decided to start applying for BBA courses in India as well.
As fate would have it, I finally cleared my interviews for both the science course and the business course. However, since my registration date for the science course collided with the dates of my final exams, that wasn’t a path I could follow.
It was at that point in time that I realized that perhaps everything that had transpired thus far was for the best. I knew which areas were my strong suits, and decided to follow my instincts and go ahead with the business course.
Now let’s return back to the present. Here I am, studying in one of the top B-Schools in the country with no regrets about my decisions or actions.
Hurdles in life really do teach you to bring out the best parts of yourself. I have learnt patience, planning, compromise and how to employ my strengths to the best of my abilities through such a situation, and I am grateful for it.