ABG: The conglomerate that shapes the Future of the Country

PART A

Aditya Birla Group is an Indian Conglomerate founded by Seth Shiv Narayan Birla in the year 1857 headquartered in Worli, Mumbai. The company has been competing in and ruling the market for more than 160 years. GD Birla was a very close associate of Mahatma Gandhi. He was the founder of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). G.D Birla had found the prestigious Birla Institute of Technology and Sciences (BITS) in his hometown, Pilani, which is now one of the leading engineering institutions in India. The Aditya Birla Group is also the largest producer of Viscose staple fiber in the world. It operates from India, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, and China. It owns the brand called ‘Birla Cellulose’. Birla group is also into the textile business. Their two companies – Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd and Grasim Bhiwani Textiles Ltd, a subsidiary of Grasim Industries are well-known names in the textile industry. The Group had purchased the Columbian Chemicals Company, thus becoming the largest manufacturer of Carbon black in the world. Hindalco Industries, owned by Aditya Birla group, they became the world’s largest rolled-aluminum producer, after they acquired the Canadian company Novelis for US$6 billion. Ultratech Cement, India’s largest cement company is also a subsidiary of Aditya Birla Group. Birla group of companies own many big brands such as Peter England, Louis Philippe, Pantaloons, Idea and much more. To develop future generation, education is the most important thing. In this aspect, ABG is leading and operates 56 schools which educate over 46,500 students. ABG also provide mid-day meals to 63000 students from 256 schools and 4, 50,000 solar lamps to school students. ABG is also involved in immunizing children from polio. Currently, they have immunized around 7 crore children. If you pick a product or service from the market, the probability that product or service being a part of ABG is very high. As a customer product quality is the most important criteria along with reasonable prices to buy a product and that’s where ABG group stands out. Pantaloons is one such retail store where I buy all my informal clothing’s. From simple T-shirts to funky jeans everything in latest fashion is available at affordable prices. And when I want to have formal clothing’s and a professional suit I visit Peter England and never get disappointed. The suit that I bought from Peter England is my lucky one as I gave my interview of NITIE, Mumbai wearing that and got admission in my dream college.

PART B

I appeared for CAT 2016 examination in a bid to get admission in Top B-school. After some coaching and preparation of the course, I gave the exam on D-Day. As a student, I was quite confident of scoring good percentile but that was not to be. I scored a meager 49 percentile overall and everything came crashing down. I was distraught and lost. I didn’t know what to do and what not to. At that time my parents played a big role in consoling me and bring me back to my senses. They said it was my first attempt and you never judge a person’s ability on the first go. Make a list of your pros and cons and understand the area of concerns and work on them. I didn’t apply for CAT 2017 examination and instead started to prepare myself for CAT 2018 examinations. I took up a job after finishing my engineering and started my preparations along with the job. We enrolled for English newspaper instead of a Gujarati one at home to hone my reading skills and verbal analysis skills. Reading books was never one of my hobbies or I was never interested in them, but I started to read books at my own pace to understand grammar and framing of sentences and paragraphs. To improve my data interpretation and quant skills I enrolled in coaching classes and test series. At last, to focus solely on the exam I even quit the job and made sure no effort from my end was missing. After all the hard work, finally, the day came for the CAT 2018 examination. Everything was roaming in my mind, the job quitting, the 49 percentile I scored and what not. But as they say “What does not kill you, makes you strong”. The proverb was true for the situation and I was much stronger in both quotient departments, intelligent and emotional. I gave the exam with full confidence in my ability and cracked CAT examination with 98.8 percentile which helped me to get admission in my dream college NITIE, Mumbai. This is how I overcame the challenge of CAT with proper planning and execution.