Aditya Birla Groups’ product are literally omnipresent. ABG has the largest cement manufacturer of India, the largest carbon black manufacturer in the world, some major fashion and lifestyle brands, the largest telecom operator, one of the top 5 fund managers in India under its wings. The brands’ presence is so vast and impactful that no one in our country could avoid getting involved with the brand even if one intends to do so.
I have been a customer of the fashion and retail brands of Aditya Birla Group for the last 7-8 years. With the four major brands of Aditya Birla Group – Louis Phillipe, Van Heusen, Peter England, Allen Solly offering quite unique value propositions, they invariably seem to satisfy all my needs. How the value propositions of different brands have been conveyed quite effectively is something that every other brand in the fashion and retail industry must look up to. With Indians traditionally preferring stitched clothes for formal occasions, these brands have been able to create a significant change in the way consumers behave over the last 2 decades. A very interesting thing about these 4 brands is the selection of locations for the retail outlets. Invariably you end up finding the 4 stores very close to each other, very often in the same complex, next to each other, and yet there would be significant differences in the purchase experiences offered and the products offered. The store layout, the lighting, the sales people, the range of products and other such minute details which have a significant say in the brand personality are quite well differentiated and it is something that intrigues me. Right from the first proper formal shirt I wore way back in 2012, which made me feel like a man, to the suit I wore for my brother’s wedding reception recently, I have managed to develop a connect with these brands, which I believe would last for many more years to come.
Aditya Birla Capital is another brand that is quite close to my heart as my dad, has been doing most of investments through Aditya Birla Capital, since 2009. I believe the returns he has earned through his investments has made him a regular investor these days in many more mutual funds. Just like my father, I believe there would be many more working-class people, with limited financial literacy and lack of knowledge on how to and where to invest, have trusted Aditya Birla Capital with their hard-earned money. Aditya Birla Capital is one of those names in India, that many working-class people would be thankful to.
How a ‘Not-So-Easy’ decision turned out to be the best 5 months of my life:
Life throws its own challenges at different people in different forms. Luckily when compared to most people’s lives I have got to know, I have had the luxury of leading a quite a comfortable life till now, thanks to my parents.
There was a slightly turbulent phase in my life when I was in my final year of my UG (Engineering). I was someone who maintained a very clean or rather an enviable academic record right from my childhood, being in the top 10% percentile right through my school. During my engineering tenure I still managed to maintain grades above average. In my final year, during the placement season, I ended up with 3 backlogs in my 7
th semester, which made me non-eligible for all the placement processes that happened subsequently. At this point in time, all I had was an offer from an IT MNC which could be cancelled anytime.
For a person with who had maintained a very good academic record till what could be the final year of my 18 years of formal education (I had no clues I would be doing an MBA then), it was quite heartening. With the threat of the offer being revoked, it turned out to be a very dark period. My parents were quite shaken, and my friends did not know what to talk to me. The IT MNC offer was indefinitely postponed with no assurance of a call in the future, while my batchmates were all called to join the company immediately after the end of the final semester. The results of my examinations were declared by around the end of August 2016 and I managed to clear all my backlogs and I felt a 100 kgs lighter.
I began a job search on my own and the process was quite tedious, and I wanted to get started somewhere, but I did not know where. I got this opportunity to work as a verbal and soft skills trainer in a small organization which would involve me giving verbal and soft skills training to college students. This job meant I had to get out of my comfort zone, I had to stand in front of people who are almost of the same age as me, earn their respect, make them listen to me, and I had no clues about anything about tutoring. I had two options, the easy option – to ignore this opportunity and look for other proper engineering jobs, the not-so-easy option – to take this opportunity, do something I am not comfortable doing, learn things that could be helpful through throughout my life, and simultaneously look for other job opportunities.
I took the not-so-easy option. The first few days were difficult, I was ridiculed by students during my training sessions. I sweated during the lectures, blabbered, embarrassed myself, the magnitude of which could be understood by this incident – a student was sitting inside the class waiting for the trainer to arrive, the moment I entered the classroom, he had a look at me, packed his bags and left the room. 1 month into the job, I managed to get an offer from another leading IT MNC, which provided me a joining date 4 months later. But over the next 2-3 months, I strived to improve, I made it a point to make my classes interesting, to give my best, to give some valuable takeaways to the students who attend my sessions, and I surprised a lot of people including myself, by becoming a good trainer, so good a trainer that, a couple of students shed tears during my last session, when I informed that, I had quit and was switching over to career in software industry. This 5-month tenure as a trainer is perhaps the greatest learning curve that I could ever have in my life and it was one of the best and most important decisions I have ever made in my life.