Brands. They are everywhere aren't they. Some affect our lives deeply. Others not so much. It still is somewhat of a gospel truth of the century that you can't escape them. They are prevalent your personal, professional and social lives. Millennials and the generations that follow have never known a world without them. Many such brand were a big part of my life too growing up and more so as I made my way into adulthood.
And I write here in an attempt to tell you about a few such brands, which contributed largely to who I am today. Incidentally though, a few of them were brands and companies belonging to this one enterprise - the Aditya Birla Group(ABG). Growing up and transitioning from this oddly teenager towards womanhood, some of the ABG brands helped me greatly along the way.
Early on, in my twenties when I was looking for a job and finding my footing, I discovered one of the loves of my life. My love for clothes. It was a time when I started earning on my own and could make choices that suit me. It was a time where I could experiment and get to know myself better. And this was the time when a brand that absolutely adore walked into my life - Pantaloons. Its the place where I had my first ever shopping alone experience and found out how liberating it could be. It helped me know how independence tastes like for the first time in my life and therefore holds a very special place in my heart.
Pantaloons was the place where I realised clothes give me confidence and that dressing up is a form of therapy. It gave me power to walk into the first day at my work with so much faith in myself. From then on, shopping became an integral part of my life, it was my armour against all bad days I had and Pantaloons was my feel good destination - a place I visited on days I was down and on days when I was looking to reward myself for all the hard work I put in at work. Pantaloons was affordable and put all the brands that I had heard of as a teenager within my reach.
I have always believed that a good dress on a bad day is the armour a woman needs and Pantaloons enabled me to get through most of my bad days. A lot of people underestimate the power of clothes, in my case however, ABG helped me to become the person I am today. I discovered my sense of fashion in the Pantaloon stores and became known with what goes best for me. The amount of confidence it gave me helped me sail through my life - professional and personal. From a child who didnt know what fits her to a confident woman able to maker her own choices, a lot of my personal growth happened in those stores with those brands, behind those mirrors and doing shopping hauls and then not being able to wear what I bought on my hauls. The excitement of wearing a new garment to an important business meeting just made it seem all correct and smooth. I still think I am to grow much more and I really think that some of the ABG brands especially Pantaloons would be a big part of my life going forward.
My second, a very crucial, though a very brief encounter with ABG was when I was working in my penultimate months at Vodafone. There was the mega merger coming up and Vodafone was soon to be merged with ABG's Idea, forming a mammoth of a telecom operator. Although I had decided to pursue an MBA, those last few months of integration and preparation of the merger at Vodafone-Idea taught me a lot. Also in my later research projects where I studied this merger as a part of my MBA curriculum I learnt the specifics of the merger. I will say I have seen up close and personal the integration of an MNC and a very Indian company and saw how they integrated their culture. Idea as I saw has a huge element of care for its employees and that along with Vodafone's safety values was combined and an integrated culture was formed. With all of my varied experiences that I had at Vodafone, seeing up close how Vodafone became Vodafone-Idea an ABG coming was sure a cherry on the top to consummate my career at the telco
ABG thus affected a lot of the facets of my life and contributed largely to my personal and professional growth. I am still a woman in progress, but it helped me in becoming the person I am today.
#ABGWooMe #SJMSOM #IITBombay #ShaileshJMehtaSchoolOfManagement