It was a burning hot summer afternoon in the coastal city of Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh. A son on his bike and his mother were going to all the retail cement shops to order for around 500 cement bags which would take care of the requirement of the cement required for the 1stslab and the steps landing for their new house being built. He is a young teenager didn’t know anything about the quality or anything it is about. She is a normal Indian middle-class housewife and is concerned about the loan which she made her husband agree upon for building the house. The teenager always followed her mother’s ideology, they need to get a good deal for the cement which they are going to buy. They really don’t know the difference between OPC and PPC cement. But all they know is OPC is the regular variant which is used regularly in that area. PPC comes for some cheap cost. The retailer explained that PPC is made from fly ash or something of that sort. Even the retailer himself doesn’t seem to know more about it. The son tried to figure out something out of this. Mother doesn’t even have a clue, as her mind is clouded that she can save some money if she opts for PPC. At last, they both landed buying PPC cement of 500 bags of the Ultratech Cement.
After some days the day of laying the slab came and out of no-where in the afternoon when the son and mother were busy coordinating the activities and managing the workforce of around 50 daily wage laborers an Ultratech Cement branded van came and an engineer walked out talked to the masons etc., the mother and the son and explained the proper mixing ratios etc. he also provided them with the small concrete blocks which will be used during the slab. This gave them some insights about how things will be done during the building of a house.
I think now it is pretty much clear, the above story is my story, the story of a proud son and a happy mother and my loving family. We used a total of 2100 PPC Cement bags all from the same retailer and the same Ultratech cement. I know nothing about building a house when we started it. By the time we finished it, I made myself considerably knowledgeable enough for the construction business and at the end, I successfully completed a responsible task and felt good myself for choosing to do it.
Now after 6 years coming to a prestigious B-School in India, after getting the feel of how a business operates and how as a future manager or leader I should look at a firm or company, I can see how amazing Aditya Birla Group constructed their strategy, etc. I really have no clue about it when I was experiencing it first hand, but when I was listening to my professor teaching marketing basics, etc., the only thing I was able to relate it was the Ultratech cement experience I had while I was there. The way the customer was valued and how the customer experience was enhanced.
The experience I had during the building of my family’s dream home is enthralling and changed me as a responsible man from being a college boy. This responsibility eventually made me make choices and dream high and made me success-hungry. Now after learning more things in my career, I feel dreaming high and wanted to achieve it doesn’t just include an individual dream, the environment surrounding is a major part of it for making it a true reality. I am an aspirational and responsible individual because I was brought up in a family which ingrained these in my blood. Similarly, I want to be a part of an organization which aligns with my ideology and as I was explaining above, being a customer value driven company which aims at easing the lives of people at each and every step. Aditya Birla Group giving me an opportunity to be a part of them would always be my dream and as in my experience above, I hope it would change me as an individual again.
