“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

Aditya Birla has touched a lot of souls positively on its journey to success and has brought upon a change across the world. The vision and mission to focus on each business, regardless of the size of operation, with the same level of effort and the passion to deliver the best is commendable. Their vision and mission are to focus on each business, big or small with the same effort and passion and to deliver the best product and add value to society at large. Due to its wide spread presence in the Agribusiness, Cement, Chemicals, Finance, Retail, Telecommunications to Textiles and many more businesses, there isn’t any chance that anyone has never witnessed or associated with the Aditya Birla group. One of them was Pantaloons. As a person born in a middle class family, we are used to opting for retail markets for shopping apparels. Pantaloons became one of the breakthrough retail stores, custom made to cater to the middle class segment. It was a new transition into our buying experience from traditional brick and mortar retail to modern fashion retail store. Aditya Birla Group has made our life simpler. Now that we are learning management in detail, we see how efficiently Aditya Birla group has managed to penetrate the retail market by understanding the lives of middle class people and touching billions of life.

Every good story has a premise that indicates what the protagonist has overcome. My story is no different. Being a BIG time introvert and had an issue with talking in public, never let me talk to people upfront let alone take up presentations and speeches at the first place. I was always the quiet small kid in school and the reserved and silent girl in my undergraduate. With more instances wherein I backed out opportunities that could’ve helped me add value to my career. One of the many instances was as basic as getting mute in a simulation round at IIT Bombay Techfest. Our group was supposed to present our task in front of 250 odd people. I had worked too hard for the competition, had been part of the task from the ideation part to the execution part. Yet, when it was our turn to present I couldn’t articulate my words well. I was mum when my name was taken. I zoned out when I was supposed to speak. This made me realise that my introvert nature had ignited the under-confidence and stage fear that I never had. I realised this was something that I really need to work on. Eventually, my dad took me to Toastmasters. Something that started changing my life. One of the coaches, Mr. Vijay Sethi, asked me to bring out the creative Me which is far more powerful than my introvert-ism. Thus, my creative side dominated the shy side. I started talking to people more at the Toastmasters center. I started taking up the challenge of presenting at my under-grad college. I started making more friends and started networking. I ended up have more confidence by the end of B.Tech which helped me ace my B-school interviews and gave me the biggest opportunity of my life i.e. International Management Institute, New Delhi.

The moral of this story is never accept flaws instead take the problems head on.

Vaishali Iyengar

Accept the change and turn the tables around in your favour_IMI New Delhi