From starting a cotton trading operation in the small town of Pilani to being one of the largest private sector conglomerates in India, along with a worldwide presence in 34 countries spread out across 5 continents, Aditya Birla Group has been touching our lives since 1857. By entering and acquiring certain industries majorly dominated by Britishers in pre-independence period and launching their flagship company Grasim just 10 days after India’s independence, Aditya Birla Group has made significant contributions in building India’s economic history.
Aditya Birla Group has a vast product portfolio because of which it has been able to tap into a large number of industries such as Cement, Aluminium, Chemical, IT, Insurance, Asset Management, Telecom, Retail, Financial Services etc thus giving it immense brand power. While ABG has successfully targeted large number of customers by tapping into a broad spectrum of industries, its major achievement in my opinion lies in targeting and catering to the varied needs of different sections of the society.
ABG’s retail and fashion brands like Pantaloons, People, Van Heusen, Allen Solly, Peter England, Louie Philippe and forever 21 hold a special place in my life. Right from finding the perfect dress for a day out with friends, to casual and sporty tees, to finding elegant and chic ethnic wear and sporting the most confident and perfectly tailored formal wear, these brands have got it covered all under one hat. Whether I’m shopping on a shoe string budget or want to splurge a wholesome amount of my budget on a shopping extravaganza, ABG’s fashion and retail brands always have something comfortable and stylish to offer which satisfy all the wishes in my bucket list.
Not only in my life, but ABG has also been impacting the lives of many people in the weaker sections of the society through their corporate social responsibility activities in fields like education, family welfare and health, girl child and women empowerment, rural infrastructure development etc. Their efforts, which are targeted towards the upliftment of the people in the environment in which they operate are not only limited to India, but have also had far reaching effects in countries like Egypt, Philippines and Thailand, thus truly showcasing their efforts towards building a sustainable environment.
Challenges are an integral part of any individual’s life. Challenges are what keep us motivated, grounded and in touch with the reality of the world and are absolutely essential to help us push our limits and perform better. I came across one such challenge in my life during my final semester of engineering. For my final year engineering project, I had secured an internship at a firm through my college placements. The project which I was assigned at the firm had to do with core concepts of software testing and development while I hailed from the electronics and instrumentation engineering background. With a huge weightage being set aside for the final year project, I was in a dilemma as the project assigned to me was not acceptable to the college authorities due to it not involving concepts of electronics. Also, my full-time internship commitments wouldn’t allow me to take up a parallel project. With absolutely no clear sense of direction, submission dates closing in and no progress being made on the project front, panic started to set in. But in the current world, engineering is so varied and multidisciplinary that every application has components from every domain of engineering. So, with the guidance and support from my parents and my teachers and colleagues at my college and my firm, I decided to extend the scope of the project which was initially assigned to me to showcase concepts from my domain of expertise.
Though the new path on which I set out on wasn’t all rosy and nice, it gave a fixed direction using which I streamlined my work and thoughts. Putting in an additional 4-5 hrs after my internship, juggling between college assignments and firm commitments and most importantly completing a 4-month project within an extremely rigid time schedule of a month, all my efforts paid off. My project garnered a lot of praise from everyone and I topped the final semester of engineering in my department. Challenges in life only mold you to be a better person and what I learned through this experience is that clarity of thoughts and a clear sense of direction are absolutely essential to add value to the hard work we put in. Also, the guidance that I received from my parents, teachers, my manager and my friends were invaluable in helping me emerge victorious from a bad situation. Though the journey through this experience wasn’t all fun and merry, but it has given learnings which I will cherish for a lifetime.