Part A :
A US $44.3 billion corporation, the Aditya Birla Group is in the League of Fortune 500. Anchored by an extraordinary force of over 120,000 employees belonging to 42 nationalities, the Group is built on a strong foundation of stakeholder value creation. With over seven decades of responsible business practices, our businesses have grown into global powerhouses in a wide range of sectors – metals, textiles, carbon black, telecom and cement. Today, over 50% of Group revenues flow from overseas operations that span 34 countries in North and South America, Africa and Asia.
Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail of the Aditya Birla Group is an integral part of my lifestyle. All of my clothing be it formal clothing, semi-formal or casual clothing belongs to either one of the brands under Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail. My blazer and my pants are of Van Heusen and I have a special connect with this formal clothing of mine. In my school days, on the occasion of Teacher's Day the senior most students in the school, i.e., class XIIth students had to be dressed in a formal attire. This was the very first formal attire my parents had bought for me and now, even though it doesn't fit me anymore, the suit is still with me as it holds a special memory. Adding on to what I had mentioned earlier, my semi-formal and casual attire is mostly that of Louis Philippe and Allen Solly. I, being an MBA student, have to dress appropriately to attend the classes. This is where these brands come to my rescue. The comfort and the style that both of the brands are not match able. People just can't help but ask me where did I buy my T-Shirts from and thus the title, Aditya Birla Group, you just cannot look away.
Part B:
When life knocks you down, you do not give up. Instead you learn and strive to do better so that whenever you face the challenge again, you ace it.
Last year when I attempted CAT, I scored a miserable 78.2 percentile. I had scored the least among the friends in my study group. I felt extremely down and depressed. Thoughts began to creep into my mind that whether this was the end of the journey of me getting into one of the best B-Schools in the country. Would I ever be able to make a career in Sales and Marketing?
Fast forward one year, and I made it into one of the best B-Schools in the country by scoring 96.46 percentile. This time around, I had scored the highest among the friends in my study group.
How did this happen?
Just a few words of motivation from my mother put me right onto the track for preparation for CAT. She said, irrespective of what everyone thought and said, I was meant to succeed in my life. I was constantly told by people around me, even by my mentors, who said that I should focus on scoring around 90 percentile and take admission in whatever decent college I get. But this isn’t what I wanted. I started by formulating a strategy for cracking that exam and stuck to that strategy through the entire course of my preparation.
The result of this was that not only did I defy all the odds stacked against me, but I also exceeded my own expectations.
