Why Aditya Birla Group is big in your eyes and the work done by ABG in India and world?
A company that started as a cotton trading company in Pilani, Rajasthan has grown and diversified exponentially over the years. Grasim Industries Ltd, the textile manufacturing company of ABG, has seen the country grow and has itself evolved in a global leader in viscose staple fibre. The period when India was transitioning from agricultural economy to industrial economy its companies such as Ultratech Cement, Hindalco helped in smooth transition. Ultratech has also created value for other countries like Bangladesh, UAE, Sri Lanka and Bahrain. ABG is the unofficial “Fashion Stylist” of this country. It has not only catered to the premium segment through Allen Solly, Louis Philippe but also served the middle- and lower-income segment through brands like People. ABG has also diversified in the payment banking system. These examples show that ABG has affected the lives of every India through its different products and services.
ABG has affected my life in numerous ways. Being an alumni of BITS Pilani Hyderabad Campus, the college has shaped my personality. BITS University provided the best infrastructure and faculty and had an industry-oriented curriculum. The curriculum has 7 months of industry engagement which exposed me to the rigours of the corporate world. The BITS brand also helped me to get a full-time offer from Deloitte, one of the big four companies. One of the ABG brand that made my stay possible in the remote BITS campus in Hyderabad is More. As the campus was 20 km away from the main city, More was the only source of relief. The ABG brands like Louis Philippe, Van Heusen have been my partner in stressful B-School interviews.
How have you overcome challenges to achieve your ambitions in life?
The characteristics the ABGLP looks for in a candidate is an ability to overcome failures, perform under pressure and come out as a winner. My life ambitions are to perform well academically, to create value for the firm I am working in and to work for the betterment of the society. One of the instances where I experienced failure was in the first year of my engineering college. I have always been a person who was unorganized and because of that my academics suffered and I was not able to network effectively with my batchmates and professors. I decided to change my ways and tried to follow a more balanced approach. This helped me in improving my academics and my network also grew stronger.
Another incident happened to me during my internship at Deloitte USI, it was the Integrated Testing Phase and my manager rolled off most of the experienced members as he expected only minor bugs. But then the client came up with some major changes in outbound interfaces, I was the only technical resource left. Initially I felt the target was unachievable in the stipulated time. But then I decided to follow a more strategic way and tried to deliver those objects which were on client priority list. Finally, my efforts paid off and I was able to ship the updated objects.
One such incident which imbibed leadership quality in me, was during the Measles Rubella Campaign 2018 where I worked as a public mobilizer. A community was resisting the campaign, there resistance could have led to the failure of the campaign as their population constituted about 40 % of the total population of our area. I decided to motivate my disheartened team and planned that we will target each family of the community by house to house mobilization. Our efforts paid off and we achieved our specified target.