Few days back my batch (PGP 19-21, IIM Raipur) received a mail from our professor regarding our first assignment. The theme revolved around the big conglomerates of India. The major hurdle with such a broad topic is the beginning, how to keep the content brief and crisp so as to keep your audience captivated with your presentation. After contemplating on the same, aided by some initial research, I decided to go with the brands of any big multinational conglomerate. But the question still lingered, which conglomerate would be the most appropriate. The answer was already around me.
I looked across my room and could see the cover of my Louis Philippe business formal hanging by the hook in my wardrobe, jet black in color. At the bottom shelf, I could see my black Allen Solly formal shoes, slightly covered in dirt, bringing memories of our orientation program. The spotless PowerPoint slide had been staring right at me for quite some time now. But before I could start organizing my train of thoughts, the sound of the WhatsApp notification pulled the emergency brakes. It was my girlfriend, who had gone shopping at Pantaloons. My chat-box was flooded with images of her, in new outfits, demanding my opinion. After discharging my duties, I went to the nearby shop with my batch-mates for our evening ritual of tea. The shop was being renovated by the owner, a middle-aged man. Near the semi-demolished but still operational shop, we could see a dozen of Ultratech cement sacks piled one upon another. I started feeling that the assignment had improved my attention to detail and I was more cognitive of brands all around me, making a mental note of each one I came across. Before I reached my hostel room and back to the blank slide, I had encountered 13 brands, 6 of which were under the umbrella of Aditya Birla Group. I guess there’s a bit of ABG in every Indian’s life.
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How you overcame challenges to achieve your ambitions in life so far?
During my graduation, I was fortunate to work with the best minds of my college for organizing our cultural fest. Although the fest was a huge success regionally, it failed to attract large monetary support from the sponsors. It was a perfect Catch-22 situation. The sponsors wouldn't support us because we were not big enough to bring famous celebrity.
The responsibility of a famous celebrity performing at our cultural fest was on the sponsorship and marketing team. I joined the team in my sophomore and was made the head of the team during my final year. Analyzing the documents of the various sub-committees of the fest, I realized that a huge amount of the fund was not utilized efficiently as the private firms bidding for the contract bid below the amount allotted for to the sub-committee.
Upon my request, the faculty in-charge made a formal request to the director and the standing committee. It was approved and the monetary support for the celebrity performance grew 400%. We got the one boost we needed. The sponsorship has improved and since then every year a famous celebrity performed at my alma mater.
#ABG #IIMRaipur #ABGLPWooMe #ABGroup