PART A:

I have done my schooling from not so well-known school in Kolkata and I belong from a middle-class family. My mother used to pack my food (tiffin) with a piece of paper and after wrapping with it used to keep in the tiffin box. Everyday cooked oil used to spill out of the tiffin because the paper did not have soaking power like an “aluminium foil paper”. In my family hardly anybody knew about the existence of “Foil Paper” during that time. I was habituated with carrying my tiffin on regular basis like that to school.

After completing my school in 2013, I moved to college life, which is a big transition in itself. I got admission in St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata to study B. Com (Hons.). It was the second-best college in India then in the field of commerce. I got the opportunity to meet new people from different walks of life having gamut of immense knowledge.

Again, as earlier, my mother used to pack food with paper and then keep in tiffin during my college as well. In the starting days, I saw some people around me in the canteen, who used to carry food in some “shiny paper”, which I never saw before. It was amazing to see it, that something like that could stop oil from spilling out of tiffin after packing food with that paper without even soaking the oil. It was “magic” for me at that moment and I was taken aback after seeing that, the paper acted as a container and no oil was leaked. Later, I asked one of my friends about it, he then explained me what “Aluminium Foil Paper” is all about.

I was then introduced to “Hindalco Freshwrapp – Aluminium Foil”, the product and the brand. After reaching home that day, I told my mother about it and asked my father to bring it from shop. From next day I used to bring food (tiffin) to college in “Freshwrapp” aluminium foil paper and there was no oil spill at all. It was a cheaper, hassle-free to pack and an eco-friendly product. From that day in my college till my last day in my office I daily used “Freshwrapp” to pack my food. The product provided an innovative approach in enriching experience for packaging of food. It was a product from Aditya Birla Group (ABG) which I learnt later and still today I appreciate the effort made by ABG and thankful to the company for introducing “Hindalco Freshwrapp – Aluminium Foil” into my life.

PART B:

Coming from commerce background and working in an IT firm as a Software Testing Trainee does not go hand in hand, but it was my faith. After moving out of college, I was not getting enough opportunities based on my profile, I started working for a content writing firm. Working for around 5 months there, I got offer from Cognizant to work as Test Trainee. They were hiring mostly under-grad students from non-IT or non-engineering background in order to cut the cost by giving lesser salary to people like us instead of hiring people from IT or engineering background.

The brand “Cognizant”, which is an MNC attracted me towards it. My father is a teacher and has always been supportive throughout my life, told me that I should join there, although the salary was almost similar than the content writing job. Jumping to corporate world, was a challenge and I could never give more than 9 hours to the company of mine. I worked for 7 months there and then I joined PwC as a Tax Associate, which was related to my domain of expertise i.e., commerce. I was very much ambitious about working at PwC from my college days since many of my college mates were pursuing CA (Chartered Accountancy) and were CA Article at PwC. They were given a laptop to work for, which I thought I will get one day if I work here someday.

Working in a Big4 firm opens for you sea of opportunities to excel and a brand to boast for. But with all these boasting, working at PwC demanded for extra efforts and extra time, since they were giving me more than double the salary of what I was getting at Cognizant. On the day of discussion with HR of PwC, when I was offered the salary it was unbelievable to hear that. It was challenging for me since never in my life I worked or studied for 15 hours on daily basis.

My efforts required great transformation from me the day I hit the floor at PwC. A person, who has worked for 9 hours till then and demanding from him for 15 hours a day, was asking for an increase of 166% in effort. It was tax season and my work involved Preparation of US Individual Tax Returns, which was again a new profile for me. But I was happy that I got a job in Finance Domain, which I direly needed after I left my college.

The US tax season began in February and ends in April. These three months without thinking about anything, I worked diligently and effortlessly. Within 5 months of my joining at PwC, I was awarded with the “You Made A Difference” award for delivering quality work, highest utilization (in terms of hours) and quick turnaround time. I was among 10 people from around 250 people in my department to get the award. Today, still I cherish the moment when I was adjudged with the award, since it was a challenging task for me and never in my life, I thought I could have beaten pool of so many talented people. And yes, I got my first laptop from PwC.

#IIMRaipur #ABGLPWooMe #MBA #2019

UMANG PRASAD

Aditya Birla Group Leadership Program, IIM Raipur

Aditya Birla Group Leadership Program, IIM Raipur