Being born as the daughter of Mr. Balakrishnan P. N., the sole proprietor of Kamath Associates (a construction management firm in Kerala), I have seen many products of Aditya Birla Group (ABG) since my childhood. Initially, my father had a modest office and I used to see construction material being stored there at times. UltraTech cement and Birla wall care putty were names I got familiar with since a very young age. I used to see cement bags stacked at the construction sites whenever my father took me along during his supervision visits. Being a civil engineer, he wanted to inculcate in me an interest for learning building concepts and various construction practices. I used to look on with enthusiasm to see how concrete is made by mixing cement, aggregate and water; how bricks are placed in a particular pattern to build a wall and cement is pasted on the edges to hold it strong. These processes used to fascinate me as a child and even today I remember my experiences clearly. As I grew up, I read about Ultratech’s journey and it is nothing short of extraordinary.
UltraTech began its journey around the late 80’s in Madhya Pradesh and ever since it has constantly focussed on providing customers with the best products and services. It has been adept at understanding changing market trends and adapted quickly to meet demands. The company introduced Ready Mix Concrete (RMC) plants as there was an increasing demand to move away from site mixed concrete.
It was declared the 3rd largest cement company globally (excluding China) and this success has only reaffirmed UltraTech's desire to be the best in the world. It has crossed several milestones that include: becoming India’s largest cement manufacturer, winning the 'SUPERBRAND' and 'POWERBRAND' accolades and being recognised as a truly global organization with operations spanning across India, UAE, Bahrain, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
ABG has also flourished in the industry by introducing its flagship companies such as Hindalco Industries Ltd, which is into the business of aluminium and copper manufacturing. In a state like Kerala, where we are blessed with bountiful rains, most buildings have their rooftops covered with truss work and Hindalco Aluminium roofing sheets are most sought after for this purpose.
As my father tells me, ABG’s major victory has been in customers explicitly asking for these brands when they set out to build a home for themselves. He correctly points out that without customers, no business can spell success.
A challenge overcome, took me miles #IIM Trichy
In my two years of work at Amadeus software labs, I have learnt quite a lot. Joining a corporate straight out of college was in itself filled with uncertainties. Being clueless about industry culture, professional working atmosphere, a new city in a new state, living by myself away from family and friends, cooking for myself etc were experiences I was totally new to. Two or three months into the job in a quality assurance role, I started performing well and received good feedback for my work. In about a year’s time I was assigned to a new project which dealt with the cloud migration of a mission critical application. It demanded me to learn and familiarise myself with end to end aspects of the application which itself had several branches – a combination of desktop and web applications. Moreover, my team had members from London, Sydney and India (I, being the only one from India). This was a huge responsibility as I had to tackle multiple issues – technical obstacles I came across, functional details that I sought, different time zones I had to work with and the accents I initially didn’t comprehend.
However, I was sure that I could manage to do whatever I really wanted to and I continued working on the project. My dedication and perseverance did allow me to pull off a good job. I received a Highflyer award for my performance in the first quarter of 2019 at the sub-divisional level. These two years taught me that no matter how uncertain a situation looks, there is always a way out if I am willing to put in efforts and work towards my goal.