Why Aditya Birla Group is big in my life.
In a country prevalent with poverty and underdevelopment, where a massive chunk of the population lives without basic amenities, the presence of a multi-national conglomerate is like a ray of hope for those who dare to dream despite their humble roots. The inception of the giant is a similar story. It started as a business trading in cotton in a small village in Pilani, in the early 1900s, by the Late Seth Shiv Narayan Birla-who himself came from modest means. The Birlas have always been people of excellent business acumen, they always took the right decisions at the right time. Shiv Narayan Birla was among the first Indians to venture into the profitable cotton trade at the start of the 19th century. In the 1860s, they profited from trading opium with China, even eliminating British middlemen. During the First World War, the Birlas managed to increase their worth by 300% from their jute business, due to the increasing demand for gunny bags during the war. From its humble inception to its incredible journey towards becoming a global conglomerate, is an inspiration to millions of ambitious young people in India.
Today, the Aditya Birla Group (ABG) has a presence in 35 countries and is a global leader in half of the 14 industries it has ventured into viz., aluminum rolling, viscose staple fiber, carbon black, insulators, acrylic fiber, and cement production. Besides, it is a major stakeholder in the largest telecom service provider in India. Despite these achievements, it has kept its stone-clad ideals and strived to be accountable for those. It has shown diligent importance to sustainability and aspired to be a world leader in sustainable management. I especially admire its social activities like its hospitals, schools, medical camps, skill training programs and so much more. There is a lot more to appreciate such as its women empowerment initiative by the fashion & retail segment. They have many such initiatives but philanthropy has been in the blood and veins of the Birlas far before CSR laws came around. They began with such charitable initiatives in the 19th century. They have supported educational charities along with Jamnalal Bajaj in Mumbai and Kolkata, established a high school in Pilani (now, BITSPilani), opened a library in Kolkata and a Sanskrit library in Benarus. Not to mention, their financial support towards India’s freedom struggle and towards building temples in major Indian cities. The ideals of the Birlas are evident from the instructions GD Birla gave to his son Basant Kumar- “never utilize wealth only for fun and frolic”; “spend the bare minimum on yourself” and “deride worldly pleasures”. The reason I admire the Aditya Birla Group so is because it started at a humble scale and grew so exponentially, to be recognized worldwide. At the same time, it kept its values, employed its responsibility towards the society it came from and took up new initiatives of its own.
How I overcame challenges to achieve my ambitions in life so far.
I strongly believe that the first step to overcoming hurdles in life is accepting your shortcomings. No one is perfect; some may be further along than others in certain aspects of life but they probably lag behind somewhere else. At the end of the day, we are all works in progress and personal growth is only possible when you accept this, identify your weaknesses and resolve to work on them. These are your stepping stones to achieving success in life.
For me, for most of my life, one of my strongest weaknesses was being an introvert. For all those raised eyebrows, let me assure you, my weakness isn’t my introversion, I am still an introvert but I no longer see it as a weakness. I have gone through the process of realization, acceptance, and the need to improve. Like any other MBA student, I see myself in a managerial post in the future. That would require interacting with many individuals in many ways as a critical part of my life. Not just that, socializing is an inherent part of human existence and to skimp out on it is, in my opinion, to lead an incomplete life. Of course, I didn’t always believe so and a major part of overcoming this obstacle was changing my attitude towards it. Once I had the desire to change, to grow as a person, I started taking active initiatives. I took a personality development course, started reading up on articles that helped me change my way of life in subtle ways, started genuinely being interested in getting to know people and connecting with them. And then when I was sufficiently out of my regressive state of mind, I took a plunge-I chose to take up a market research role where I had to interact with different kinds of people as an integral part of my job. I took this opportunity to better understand the things where I lagged behind-understanding body language, non-verbal cues, observation skills and much more. This has made me much more confident and prepared me for competing in a B-school environment. I realize that I have come a long way but I also realize that I have a long way to go.
#ABGLP #ABGLPWooMeCompetition
