I come from a humble background and my father is a small retail shop owner in our locality. From my childhood, I had to support our business and help my father regularly. Nothing came easy to my family and it was very normal to fight for everything be it electricity or drinking water. But nothing could stop me from achieving what I wanted from life.

Much before I was introduced to the word Entrepreneurship, I decided to design, print and monetize it by selling Tshirts in college. With support from two other friends all Tshirts were sold out fast and we made profits. Next, I started my hand at my own startup along with three other friends and my idea was selected among top 15 from Bengal Government for a reality show ‘Egiye Bangla’ but couldn't get into top 10 as we were still in prototype stage. Soon my friends left after getting good jobs. I decided not to give up. Hence I decided to become a solopreneur and got an opportunity to attend the Startup Launchpad programme organised by IIT Kharagpur and Department of Science & Technology, Govt of India. I went there with my ecommerce startup Mybabyshop.in and thereafter worked on it for close to a year. I failed and faced loss in business. But the learnings will stay with me forever.

Again I was facing a lot of problems bootstrapping the business as almost all of my money was exhausted. I decided to take up a job at TATA Consultancy Services. Almost after a year and a half with my job, I decided to build a parallel source of income with job.

I started SAHA's an offline retail store after getting inspiration from MORE. In past 10 months I have done a transaction of more 40 lakhs with the help of my father and employed three people till now & all these while having a full time job at TCS Kolkata. From my colleges I have attended numerous startup events as I was passionate about startups and I was also a volunteer at Headstart Kolkata, Startup Saturday chapter where I look after Marketing and PR. We connect, validate and provide networking through events during every second saturday of the month. The learnings from there were crucial to have my own setup however small it might be. I have applied my entrepreneurial bent of mind in corporate life at TATA Consultancy Services and honed my team management skills when I successfully led a team of six people in a short project where I worked with associate consultants with more than 7 years of experience. My proactiveness was rewarded when I was given an opportunity to attend BSI training of ISO 13485:2016 in spite of having only a year of experience.

I also decided to pursue MBA and started preparation for the same alongside my business and job. It became increasingly difficult to manage all these things simultaneously but I soon realised that what is expected to do from a manager. Thereafter I have learnt to manage my time well & I have converted all my failures into stepping stones and currently I am part of a coveted BSchool of India, IMI New Delhi where I am pursuing PGDM. Hopefully I will be able to take India to the world and shine its name just like ABG did while doing justice to their tagline 'Taking India to the world'

Why Aditya Birla Group is big in my life?

From being the every second can in the world to shaping automobiles (world leader in Aluminium), from securing futures to empowering over 7 Billion customers (through Aditya Birla Capital), from connecting the world to enabling over a billion conversations a day (thorough Vodafone Idea Limited), from building homes to highways thereby building our prosperous country (though Ultratech cement), from styling our wardrobe to introducing us to global fashion (Pantaloons Fashion and brands like Forever 21, Allen Solly, Peter England, Van Heusen etc.) Aditya Birla Group is everywhere and touching our lives every day. And these are only few examples how big Aditya Birla group is as a conglomerate.

But one brand of ABG which touched my life like no other is MORE (from Aditya Birla Retail Limited). MORE is the fourth largest supermarket chain in the country.

I was so much inspired by their style of supermarket that it led me to start my own retail store SAHA’s in my locality. Though it is small now, I wish to grow SAHA’s in a chain of supermarket just like MORE did and is a household brand now. The trust that they’ve grown among consumers is something which I look up to.

Another instance where ABG group had a huge influence on me was when I visited one of their many industries as a part of my internship program. Being a mechanical engineer, I still remember doing my industrial training at Texmaco Rail & Engineering Ltd. (TEXMACO), Kolkata. The Company founded in 1939 by the renowned industrialist, Late Dr. K.K.Birla. Texmaco is the leading and most reliable freight car maker over the past 7 (seven) decades.

Most of the theoretical knowledge gained in college through books came to life after I visited the industry and saw them through my own eyes. Casting, forging, metal forming and steel formation at different temperatures for bogies of Indian Railway is something I will cherish for the rest of my life. The impact that it had left on me in the first year of my B.Tech made me a much better engineer.

PRIYABRATA SAHA

Oh! The sweet pains of a beautiful JOURNEY - IMI New Delhi