Since I was a little girl, I've been a big fan of dressing up and looking presentable on all the occasions. I remember going to the local shops with my mother to buy clothes, as a child. As I grew older, the idea of holding shopping bags of big brands fascinated me and this was when I had my first branded shopping experience. We had a new Pantaloons store in our city and I still remember how excited I was to visit it. I rushed to the store on its opening day and was just mesmerized and was very impressed by the collection that the store had. Pantaloons is a multi-branded fashion retail chain of Aditya Birla Group, a premium global conglomerate. Since that day there was no looking back. The fashion brick and mortar store under Aditya Birla has become my go-to shopping hub.
Now, as I begin my journey towards the completion of MBA, my first ever business formals attire has been purchased from Allen Solly (an Aditya Birla group's in-house brand). A lot of brands that today's women love shopping from (for example, Forever 21) comes under the umbrella of ABFRL.
The roots of ABG goes back to almost 150 years from now. It has been around even before India's independence. It has 18 charitable hospitals in India, all serving the villagers of our country. It is the largest Indian multi-national company, with manufacturing operations in the US. It's all over the place. There are high chances that the foundation of the building you are staying in right now has been made with Aditya Birla Ultratech Cement, the money that you spent on your luxury shopping has gone to a subsidiary of ABFRL ( brands- Ralph Lauren, Ted Baker London), even the foil paper that you used to pack your lunch in the morning is from this house (Freshwrapp).
Today, the ABG's worth is $40 billion and many of its conglomerate come under the league of the Fortune 500 companies.
How did you overcome the challenges to achieve your ambitions in life so far?
I'm the kind of person who keeps learning from her past mistakes and makes it a point to never repeat the same in the future. There were quite a few challenges that came in my way in these past 22 years, but I made it a point to not get underestimated by them. According to me, the way to handle the challenges is to be patient and work on the solutions rather than panicking and reacting to the problem. Be a problem solver and not a problem creator.
One recent challenge that I faced was during my summer internship in a market research company. I was interning as a market research intern there and was responsible for carrying on field customer surveys for client companies. I was given a target of the number of customers who I was supposed to interview for each of my assignment. The major hurdle that came between me and the targets that I was supposed to accomplish was that customers were not willing to talk. This was a huge setback for me during the initial days because this was my first on field experience and obviously I had no clue how I was supposed to talk to the customers so that they are willing to give out the necessary information to me. Just in a few days I adapted to the scenario and realized that the key to effective communication was maintaining patience and empathizing with the problems that the customers have been facing. This way the customers developed a reasonable amount of trust in me and were willing to give information easily.
The challenges have taught me to be proactive and reasonable with the solutions. They have also taught me to be adaptive and be ready to face any problem with a smile on my face.