Winning through facing the challenges - Namit Chhatbar, IIM-Visakhapatnam

Aditya Birla Group – Influence on People of India and Me

Aditya Birla Group, a $44Bn conglomerate, is oldest Indian Multinational giant established in year 1857 serves business like Chemicals, Textiles, Mining ores, Insulator, Telecom, Financial Services and Cement (Ultra Tech as India largest cement brand) and making a presence in 14 industrial sectors and 35 countries through joint ventures and subsidiaries comprising nearly 1,20,000 employees. Aditya Birla Group is the part of growth story of India to improve the lives of 1.3Bn individual satisfying their needs with products in Clothing, Telecom, Cement, Chemicals, Financial Services and Metals. Taking a glimpse at the businesses of Aditya Birla Group, it makes us to realize that the company has touched upon lives of many individuals directly or indirectly with its products. Brands like Allen Solly, Van Heusen, Peter England, Louise Phillipe and People has greatly been part of many individual’s life and part of their joyous moments in festive occasions or daily life. Be it a Diwali celebration, party, get-to-gather, formal event or sports event, products from ABG fits perfectly in all events ranging from its products like Footwear, Casual wear, Formal wear, Cultural wear or Sports wear along with accessories making us feel confident and attractive. Idea-Vodafone has great importance to millions of people as they can get connected to their loved one’s residing miles away and helps them to communicate their feelings and emotions through voice communication keeping us all connected. The uninterrupted service of Idea-Vodafone has made our lives smooth and its fastest internet services gives us access to live streaming videos and continuous access to internet contents & social media. These services have influenced lives of students who now can access educational contents, housewives or women can now access cooking videos & informative videos from various groups, freelancers and job applicants who now has enhanced opportunities being connected to many people. This has also helped to increase job or business opportunities and have revolutionized many sectors. Ultra Tech, the largest cement brand of India, has touched upon millions lives with its cement which people do not consider it as just a product but much more than that which protects and keeps our life safe with its strongest and durable cement keeping the building structure crack proof and weather proof unaffected from extreme natural calamities. As I have pondered over the businesses of Aditya Birla group, I found Domsjö Fabriker, a subsidiary company of Aditya Birla based in Sweden, interest to my dream. The company manufactures renewable products from cellulosic pulp to manufacture Lignin, Bioethanol and Bio-Resin. During my years of Graduation, I have studied chemistry of lignin - a complex cross-linked polymer found in trees – and processing it to manufacture renewable value-added products like Vanillin, Binders and Dispersants. I wish to implement these projects in India to extract lignin from Wood pulp and convert it to produce Dispersants, Binders and other valuable products. This will be a great boon to sugarcane and wood pulp industry of India where most of the lignin from residual waste can be converted to value-added products mentioned above.

Sailing through the Challenges

I belong to a middle-class family where big or small purchase decision had to be given multiple thoughts to understand financial repercussions for decisions like buying a TV, painting the house, buying a mobile phone and even purchasing a shoe (buy the cheaper one to save every penny) I can recollect the situation when my father was trying to get my admission in Junior section school, but he didn’t have money to pay for the fees. He managed money by selling a household equipment and pay for my fee. I can still recollect the financial hardship my father had faced when I was 10. I requested my father to buy me firecrackers for Diwali as the same were being purchased by my friends and I was left out in celebration activity. My father used to quietly ignore my demand. I even used to demand dining in restaurant or fast food joints like Pizza Hut or McDonald to enjoy some delicious food, but my father would try to pacify me by making my mother cook delicacy in our home to avoid extravagant spending in restaurants. Problems remained same when I grew to age 12 and my school trip arranged a out-of-city picnic to Rajasthan with a fee of Rs 1500. I tried convincing my father to let me go for trip, but the financial problems still existed. My mother noticed these hardships and she would try to cater my and my sibling’s important demands by her savings. My mother used to raise money from other housewives through a system where each housewife would deposit some money and a person in urgent need can spend this money and return it back once they get back with their savings. My father had been able to build savings by these thrifty decisions and pay for my schooling. I realized this problem and deciding to opt for job after graduation instead of moving to US for Master studies (since it was costs more than Rs 30Lacs and required to mortgage house). Pursuing a job was also result of my father retiring from job during my graduation year. I understood the responsibility and importance of savings when I used to earn & spend money and realized difficulty in managing the expense & savings with my minimal salary. So, I decided to pursue higher studies to get a relatively good pay job and get rid of financial difficulties. So I decided to pursue MBA in IIM-Visakhapatnam in order to learn from great faculties & peers and later take up a job to reach financial stability.