ABG comprises a multitude of business activities which vary from fashion to cement to chemicals, with a lot of other services and goods scattered throughout the spectrum. The wide reach of ABG is difficult to escape and hence impacts one or the other facet of our lives on a daily basis. A wider perspective of the company shows the extensive use of ABG products in construction work such as Bandra-Worli Sealink in Mumbai, then in the financial sector which includes product offerings such as life insurance companies, asset management companies, banking and many more.
The conglomerate is involved extensively in our day to day life, from the start to the end. It hosts a variety of popular clothing brands such as Pantaloons, Van Heusen, Allen Solly, Ralph Lauren, and many more. These brands have most assuredly been visited by people of the corporate world, I know I have. I have recently joined an MBA college, and on the first day, I realised that my outfit was not at all what was expected from us. This spurred me into action, and my first stop was Van Heusen as I was sure that I would definitely get the required outfit. I was so not disappointed. Our need to have seamless access to 4G was also met by ABG, via Vodafone. In their effort, to provide a bigger and better service network to the users, they merged with IDEA. This resonates with the company’s mission statement of delivering superior value to the users.
One of Mr. Birla’s key mantra is
“If your first instinct is to run away from failures, then perhaps you’re doing it the wrong way!”
- Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla
At one point or the other, this has been an underlying guideline for me too.
I have always had a keen interest in being a part of the corporate world, whether it would be running my own firm or someone else’s was the only uncertainty. I had decided at a young age that I would like to pursue accounting as I believed that to be able to run a business, one needed to know how to manage the funds. This led me to apply for a degree in accounting. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, I wasn’t able to join the university. This left with me with two choices, either to drop a year which wasn’t an option for me or to change my course and go for a professional degree in accounts, which I eventually went for. While pursuing my degree, I faced some personal issues, due to which I decided to start working to support myself so that I could complete my education on my own merit. Rather than getting demotivated, I took this challenge head-on and found myself a part-time job, which allowed me to study during the day and work during the night. In the start, I was worried about my capability to manage this, however, once I learned how to organise my time, I got along just fine. In addition to this, I completed my BSc in Applied Accounting, for which I had to write a research paper. I am proud to say that I came out a winner, having passed all my papers in the first attempt. I was also awarded the highest scorer in three out of the fourteen papers of the qualification in London. I never gave up even when times got hard and kept surging through to the end.