My tryst with the Aditya Birla Group
Aditya Birla Group is one of the largest conglomerates of India having interests in businesses across various sectors. This makes its presence very dominant in the life of every Indian, and I’m no exception to this. My first tryst with the Group happened when I moved to India in 2004, and was taken to a pantaloons store for shopping by my cousins. Having just entered my teens, I was shifting from buying clothes at traditional kids’ stores in Dubai to a store for adults. I was overwhelmed with the magnificence of the store and the setup of the various sections of clothing. The reason again being my familiarity with only small marketplace stores for shopping in Dubai. As I grew up, Pantaloons became my go-to store for reasonably priced clothes either for gifting purpose as well as daily wear college clothes. I also vividly remember buying smart ethnic wear from Pantaloons as I was preparing to leave to Manipal for my undergraduate course. The best memory that I remember from here is me buying the same apparel for my brother in law as well as for myself.
Over the years I lost the connect with the store but was attached to the group as I have been using the Idea Cellular sim card for many years now. I was initially on another network and was facing connectivity issues when a very dear friend suggested me to port to Idea as he was impressed by the mobile data speeds of Idea.
My connection with the group was not just limited to shopping or connectivity. As luck would have it, I got placed in the financial arm of the group, Aditya Birla Capital for my MBA summer internship. The experience and the learning that I got during my stint have left a deep impact on me. I was given an extensive project that required me to work hard and, in the process, helped me get the required exposure to the world of finance, for which I will always be indebted to the company and my mentors.
I think this briefly describes the importance that the Aditya Birla Group has in my life.
Ambitions without challenges? Can it happen?
Challenges always help people grow in life, both personally and professionally. Despite this understanding, we hate to be in situations that are taxing and want to run away. But soon we realise that the only way to overcome challenges is to face them and come out of them. I have also been faced by various challenges, but my ambitions have always driven me to put up a brave face and move forward in life. My uncle worked as a Civil engineer for 35 years and always shared his experiences, made me visit the projects he worked on and these always impressed me at a very young age. My interest in the field grew further, and whenever I was asked by parents and friends as to what would I want to do when I grew up, I would say I wanted to be a businessman. The immediate question would always be, what kind of business. The impact that was created on the empty canvas of my mind as a kid, started taking shape and I wanted to get into the field of construction. This led to me opting for a BTech course in Civil. However, I failed to secure a good score in all the competitive exams and felt that the plan was only a daydream. But after a few days of feeling helpless, I decided to put in double the effort. The efforts paid off and I secured a rank of 240 up from 6000 the previous. This was a massive improvement, from not having any college to almost securing a merit free ship seat, I had come a long way.
I finished my engineering and was on the path of becoming a civil engineer with dreams of starting a company of his own. But as fate would have it, I did not get placed in any civil engineering job. I started working at an IT services company with all my efforts and then went on to pursue MBA course after working for 2.5 years. At the end of the first year, I was placed at Aditya Birla Capital’s Infrastructure division. My dream of working in this sector was restored and I got first-hand experience of understanding the business.
I continue to work hard with a focus on my ambitions and will overcome all that I have to achieve my targets.
#NMIMSMumbai #ABGLPWooMe
