Why is Aditya Birla Group big in my life?
Yes!! We are talking about the Aditya Birla Group (ABG) which has its fingers in 14 industry sectors from textiles, aluminium, yarn, cement, telecom, retail and so on. And surely the group has mastered in every field as most of these companies are among the top ten companies in their respective sectors and the growth is impeccable as the brand pushes the appetite of progress to the next level. The number crunching in economics is a no brainer and with revenue of $44.3 billion, ABG is the 3rd largest Indian private sector conglomerate.
On any given day while walking down the streets across a metropolitan or a developing city, one may wonder after looking at a mall, “how many brands might be there in total in the world! Or how many different products are available!” Then comes the group of conglomerates of different business entities. Aditya Birla is one such group which has taken over a major portion of the market worldwide.
With one of the visionary leadership, Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla, who is subtle and follows a low profile yet powerful and magnanimous personality as an aspiration, sets his vision as a reflection of the ethics that the group follows. But the group in itself is known for building proficient and powerful leaders and managers who spearhead various arms of the group as each individual is given a free hand to work to their full potential and take decisions to empower the growth of the company.
Aditya Birla Group, founded in the year 1857 by Seth Shiv Narayan Birla, has been able to expand itself in 35 countries of the world. With a healthy and ever-growing market, ABG has grown heaps and bound as many brands of the group are known to every 4 people in a group of 5. Moreover, the company has the grit to acquire and merge with various other groups to grow further and have a strong domain. A few such examples are UltraTech cement, pantaloons (acquired from the future group), Novelis, etc.
Well, it’s surprising to see into our daily lives and imagine a single day without using any product from ABG. From aluminium rolled products for the beverage can (Novelis Inc.) to UltraTech cement to give the concrete strength to our dream houses; from telecom services to always keep our dear ones in a distance of a minute (Vodafone Idea) to the formal suit to wear in the most important client meeting (Allen Solly, Louis Philippe, Van Heusen etc.), ABG has been part of our daily lives.
ABG is not only engaged in acquiring business entities and expanding further but also in various leadership programs under CSR activities. Late Mr. Aditya Bikram Birla once said,
“Unprecedented and unbelievable events have torn through the fabrics of recent future, and the one invincible power now grapples with the task of making the transition to a market economy and developing the society along with it.”
ABG has always followed the motto that globalization is not just a number but it also means a profound change on our psyche and in our planning. With such a saying one could surely say sustainability programs and different projects for empowering the diverse group of people has been a focus along with the core values of the company.
Some of the profound examples which give a context to this psyche show the continuous and generous efforts that the company focuses as part of its sustainability programs. Be it providing solar lamps for more than 450,000 school children or immunizing 70 million children against polio, the group has never fallen down to hold its aim to actively contribute to the social and economic development of the communities in which the group operates.
Health care has been a primary focus of the group with more than a million patients treated at 5,000 medical camps and in 20 hospitals built by the group. 50 deaf and mute children below 5 years of age underwent cochlear implant surgery. Over 5,000 physically challenged persons have been provided with artificial limbs making them self reliant to live a better life.
Even providing safe drinking water by setting up RO plants or making villages open defecation free the company has addressed the sheer and necessary problems of the society.
Even in the field of education the group follows top-notch programs, say it about building schools across India or providing quality education to 46,000 students and providing scholarships to meritorious and needy children.
Even the company has built sustainable infrastructure through the years with more than 1000 biogas plants built across PAN India, the group has closely been working for building a better habitat for humanity.
Sometimes mere words are not enough to delineate the way a group or organization can have a substantial impact on the lives of people. But one can definitely relate to the concept of driving India’s vision to become a cleaner, smarter and beautiful place to live on. ABG has proved this vision become a milestone as it touches millions of lives.
Challenges I overcame to achieve my ambitions in life so far!
Well, it’s hard to believe that there may exist any successful person who has never gone through any challenges. I do believe that success never comes to our comfort zones. If we want to be successful, we have to come out of our comfort zone and tackle all the obstacles and overcome each and every challenge that comes in our way.
I do remember the days when people used to laugh at me on my Hindi speaking ability. Being from a non-Hindi background and acquiring my primary education from the state board, it was an arduous task for me to understand and be fluent enough to communicate in the dialect. As I always believed that language is not a barrier to the learning process, I excelled in the academics and used my skills and strong grit to participate in different inter-school competitions both in the district as well as in state level just to increase my proficiency and break the shackles to the language barrier. But this one problem always used to stand there between my confidence and my goal. Whenever I started a conversation, people started teasing me and it really just pulled my confidence down to the ground and I couldn’t give my 100%. After several such incidents, I finally thought that it’s not going to be like this anymore. I started speaking in Hindi with my good friends. I didn’t care if I was wrong or right. I even appeared in exams conducted by “Assam Rashtrabhasha Prachar Samiti” just to improve my Hindi speaking and writing skill. I started reading each and every article in Hindi that I came across. Gradually I started boosting up my confidence. During this process, I got to learn a lot of things and I made sure with each effort I become a stronger person. Post that, whenever someone teased me with my Hindi speaking skills, I started to take it positively and started working on it with more enthusiasm. And now after 3-4 years of this journey, I can say that I can confidently write an article in Hindi with utmost proficiency and can speak in Hindi without hesitation as I proved if the language is a barrier I definitely made a way to break it!
“Success is just the destination. It’s always the efforts that count.”