Why Aditya Birla Group Is Big In Your Life?
I vaguely remember a childhood instance in early 2000’s when I was watching the news and there was a mention of the word “Tata-Birla”. I asked my father about who were these people and got to know the legacy of these brilliant Indian conglomerates who have shaped Indian economy for a long time. The fascination that started there only increased in nature, and the little me then started recognizing the logo of Birla group everywhere I could. Whether it was the construction of my new school building in the small town of Panipat or the construction of my house in the metro city of Delhi, the empty cement bags were only of Ultratech cement. The people who were going to live in those buildings looked happy and the architects, contractors, masons had trust in the quality. This showed the Integrity of the Company.
My Mom used to pack my food always in the Freshwrapp Aluminium Foil in school. It is said that kids build the nation, and if a company is credible enough to safely provide the nutrition to them, it shows the commitment of the company to build the future of India. I now shifted to college, wanted to learn car for the same. I picked up really fast and drove real fast too. People questioned my fast driving and I always had an answer that I trusted my tyres(makes no sense!). Researching at a later point of time that Birla Carbon constituted the tyres, I was glad to know that my answer was not entirely wrong. The Aditya Birla logo was still there, this time in the form of speed. I went to my undergrad and got my first phone and moved into a hostel. Being a single child and first time going away from my family and my parents wanted to trust a network that provided them with seamless connectivity. Vodafone was recommended by my seniors and once again customer expectations were met.
I now got admission in my MBA college. Due to some circumstances, my last day in office was Friday and I had to join the college on Sunday. The MBA college requires a lot of shopping and I had no time for it. So again, an Aditya Birla Group company came in for rescue and I got all my requirement at one place Pantaloons and executed everything in time. The passion that the group carries in every venture, can be seen by the services provided. So It’s really tough to point a single instance in my life where ABG affected me because the logo recognizing kid has still not discovered all of it.
How Have You Made An Impact?
In my opinion life is like a never ending TT series. You get to play a set and then you move on to the next set irrespective of the result and the series goes on. This was one of my first set. When I joined my first job 2 years ago, it was an exciting experience. As my training period got over, I started liking the new ecosystem and the freedom. I was given the training on ETL and python which was my interest area. I felt I was in alignment with my aspirations. But apparently in a job your work depends upon the projects the company has and not on what you wish for. After a lot of time without a project I felt that I was not doing justice to the company and to myself as this is my learning stage. So, I approached my reporting manager and asked him about the new prospects that are coming in the company. He informed me about a new reporting project for which there was a demo that was to be started from the next day in a different tool altogether of which I had no knowledge. He was initially reluctant, but I convinced him about giving the opportunity to me. I was trusted with an important dashboard on an entirely new tool. Although I took a little more time than what was allotted but was successfully able to deliver it before the client demo. The demo didn’t bring in the project but gave me the visibility that I needed and helped me bag an internal project where I was the only BI developer. I gave it my best shot which further helped me bag a client project where I was the core member and developed that project from scratch.
This was to be the project that would define my future. So this was the second set after winning the first round. The learning potential that was to be gained here was immense. I was supposed to be working under a senior associate and he was supposed to guide me along the way. However, this project was grabbed from a much bigger competitor firm by giving half the timelines and double the features, as ours being a smaller company so to compete with the big players, we often had to take this risk. So, in order to fulfill the promise, we 2 developers started working overtime a lot, averaging around 12-14 hours from the second week onwards. I was learning a lot, so I was enjoying this extra work. But sometimes as in life, like in a game you do have unexpected circumstances. This along with other activity took a toll on the other developer and he was diagnosed with dengue. Four more temporary resources were called in to complete the project on time. Now In lieu of all this and me being the only BI developer from the core team with the insights about the project, my responsibilities transformed to managing my own work, giving KT’s to these 4 extra resources as well as work assignment and tracking, fixing the bugs assigned by the testing team, requirement sharing with the ETL team, handling client request and changes and keeping the manager informed about all the activities. This was all in my first project as a core developer with just actually 2 months of experience on the reporting tool. The project ultimately was a success and we received loads of appreciation from client as well as senior management for the error free and quality output that we produced. The projects dashboards are still to date used for many other demos and have brought in a lot of revenue for the company. Looking back at that time, I wonder how I accomplished such a huge task by myself only. But as Steve Jobs rightfully said, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So, you must have the trust that the dots will somehow connect in the future.