Why Aditya Birla Group is big in my life?
Since its inception in 19th century by trading cotton, Aditya Birla Group has come a long way to join the league of Fortune 500 and created their presence in almost every sector. The US $ 44.3 billion conglomerate has made sure that we as a consumer has either directly or indirectly get impacted by their product.
Idea Cellular Network, India’s largest cellular network, is one such brand under the umbrella of Aditya Birla Group. It provides connectivity in the urban as well as rural India equally. 'What an idea, sir ji' is what comes in every Indian’s mind whenever they hear the word ‘idea’ even today. And they justified their tag line when they launched mini packs and service specific packs like SMS packs which gave us 100 SMS/day & 3G mini packs for a day which provided 200 – 300 MB of data for day at a cost lesser than Rs. 10/- by keeping every strata of the Indian society in mind. All these plans combined with teenage helped me build memories by connecting seamlessly with my friends. Idea reminds me of the days with no WhatsApp where we had to concise our long stories within the limit of our SMS plan and managing the limited plans.
Not only in the cellular network but also in fashion sector the conglomerate giant has greatly influenced my choices. Right from my childhood I heard the name Peter England at my home as it was the preferred brand for my father’s needs of formal wear. As I grew up I also developed an affinity towards the brand. Looking at the brand Peter England reminds me of the days long gone when I used to go out on a shopping with my parents. There were series of arguments between my mom and me on the colour and my dad simply keeping himself out of those discussions. Till this day due to the attachment of my childhood to the brand and trust that it gained in my parents’ mind, I head first towards the Peter England section whenever I am out for shopping.
Talking about the indirect influence, the way Aditya Birla Group has grown their outreach is so innovative that an individual can even relate themselves to the way a product is promoted on television. UltraTech cement is one among them. Barely a few of us might have used the product but their advertisement which started with the line ‘Mujhe banane ka shauq tha, aur bade bhaiya ko girane ka’ was relatable to every family. Being the elder brother I acted in the same way as it was shown in the promotion. And, in those days whenever that advertisement came on the Television my brother used to point towards the television and said that this is you.
Apart from the examples from my experiences and entangled memories with the products of Aditya Birla Group, their value led, customer centric and performance driven approach has helped them to top the Nielsen’s Corporate Image Monitor 2014-15, for the third time in a row. They have also taken firm steps towards giving back to the society. Transforming 300 villages in rural India into model village, immunizing 70 million children against polio, providing midday meals to 63,000 children in 268 schools across the country and running 5000 medical camps are few of their contribution towards the society.
The brands, products, promotions and activities under the umbrella of the group are so value driven and well targeted to our real life experiences that for us not only as a consumer but also as a common man it is impossible to remain untouched by the Aditya Birla Group.
How I overcame challenges to achieve my ambitions in life so far.
‘Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful’
Challenges are part and parcel of our life. Aditya Birla Group has been an epitome of success in corporate world. Current position of the group is the result of its innovative vision that steered them through the various challenges like globalization, loss in grocery retail etc. Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla himself was in a challenging position when he took over the business at a young age of 28 years due to untimely demise of his father Mr. Aditya Vikram Birla. Mr K. M. Birla took the bull by the horn and grew the business to US $ 44 billion from US $ 2 Billion in 1995.
A challenge is not small if it is giving you a sleepless night. Same was the situation with me after one and half year into the job in IT service. I was not able to find that spark in the role I was into and my learning became stagnant. It was then when I decided to go for the higher education. With intense research and influenced by on the job trainings, I decided to do Masters of Business Administration.
The biggest challenge came when I decided to prepare for the entrance exams along with the job. As an employee of IT service industry my work hours and shifts were not fixed which was not allowing me to follow a stable time table for my studies. I had to be highly adaptable and efficient in time management in that situation. I decided to work upon the basics after my work hour is over and giving a mock exam before starting my work hour. I daily used to go to my office 3 hours earlier to give a mock exam as offices are usually peaceful place and run back to my room as soon as my deliverables for the day ended to work upon the basics. This was the situation where I had to be fair with my commitments towards my organisation and towards my preparation schedule. I broke my deliverables at my workplace into small task and assigned limited time to them it helped me worked within my team seamlessly with complete integrity as dividing a bigger problem in small tasks and working on them parallelly reduces the effort and time. And, I applied similar approach to complete my syllabus by dividing the chapters in sub topics. Along with time management I remained completely focused. Due to lack of time I had to sacrifice outings with friends, visit to my home town. Reducing my social circle was taking a toll on my stress level. In order to cope up with the stress and divert my mind I started learning guitar from my flatmate every day for 30 minutes and it helped.
My consistency, commitment and focused approach bore its fruit and I was rated as Commendable Employee at the end of 2018 rating cycle and four months later I secured my place in one of the prestigious B-schools of the country. That was the time when all the sacrifices and efforts seemed worth.
This entire journey to reach my short term ambition taught me that Integrity, commitment, adaptability, passion and time management can help us achieve our goals in any condition.
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