We all thrive to do well in life and succeed but the bitter-sweet truth is that we all face failures and challenges. We make this worse by benchmarking our performance against the success of others. Success is something which we all take in a positive way but rather in a really general sense. This is the bitter part. This makes it necessary for one to understand that success is relative and everyone lives in his own timeline. But the sweet part is that failure doesn’t mean one is a loser and should only learn from them to achieve success on a much higher scale.
When Kumar Mangalam Birla was made the head of Aditya Birla Group in 1995 at the mere age of 28, many wrote him off for his lack of experience. It is necessary to understand how big a task that was considering the heritage of Aditya Birla Group where even the word “Big” is too small to describe its presence in Indian history. Aditya Birla Group has its presence since 1857 and it was since then growing out of Calcutta. Grasim Industries Ltd. was incorporated on 25th August 1947, just 10 days after India’s independence. It was in a Birla house in Delhi in 1948 that the great Mahatma was assassinated. Aditya Birla Group has since then been the leaders in the Indian market since India was majorly a closed economy. ABG was one of those companies which was able to survive the competition from liberalization in 1991.
Kumar Birla made sure that he had his own idea of making things big. In 2001, ABG was keen to take over Larsen & Toubro’s cement business but their gutsy management led by A M Naik made it very difficult for them. Finally, in the year 2003, Larsen & Toubro took off their cement business and gave it to ABG as a peace measure. The grit and determination of Aditya Birla Group made it possible for them let this success take its place now. Today we all know what UltraTech cement means in our lives. It gives the care taker of the family that peace of mind that the investment that they made with their lifetime earnings will provide a secure shelter for their family.
While looking to overcome failures in our lives, we tend to become weak and do things just for the sake of getting ourselves out of our own misery. But there is something that we need to keep to ourselves which sets apart leaders from the crowd – we need to learn to stand our ground and do what we feel is right. Being the visionary that he is, Kumar Mangalam Birla realized the importance of wireless telephony industry in India. ABG went into a collaboration along with AT&T and TATA to make the most of things. TATA at the same time was running its own cellular phone business and this was hurting the Joint Venture. Birla took cognizance of the fact and decided that it was time to stand for good. By 2006, AT&T had sold its stake to Birla and TATA while TATA sold its stake to Birla for a heavy premium. This was the birth of Idea Cellular. Idea Cellular has always made it big in everyone’s life. There can be hardly any person who hasn’t heard of or seen the “What an Idea SirJi!”, “Walk and Talk”, “An Idea can Change your Life” or “No idea? Get Idea!” ad campaigns. For me, Idea has always stood apart from any other cellular operators’ ad campaigns and taught me how sticky certain catch phrases can be and how one can master the art of brand recall.
There have been many instances in my life where I have felt high and dry and that success is not my cup of tea. While at the early stages of my school life, I was one of those kids who could not make sense of things and would fail, whatever he may try to do. After multiple failures, I was given an ultimatum to leave the school if I could not clear the next final examination. It was the success stories that I had learned of such as the likes of Kumar Birla that made me realize the importance of grit and determination and how to learn from your failures and still keep going. Since then I have never looked back. When you face tough times and work hard to get through that stage, that part of your life becomes a happy memory and that memory gets attached to things. For me, that thing is Pantaloons. It is one of the most nostalgic brands that I associate with.
When I was finally able to top my class after failing for years, my parents took me to Pantaloons to shop which is located very near to my house. I felt that I had finally succeeded in doing something which was big for me and I wanted to associate myself to success and so I purchased t-shirts of Van Heusen from Pantaloons. Till date, Louise Philippe and Allen Solly remain my favourite brands for shirts. I still own those t-shirts of Van Heusen and whenever I cross a Pantaloons outlet, I remember how I was able to overcome my fear of failure and go on to make it big in my life.
After my graduation, I was faced with a dilemma of deciding whether to join my family business or try and make the most out of myself on my own. Again, at this stage, I recalled about Aditya Birla and how after his studies, he decided to venture on his own in the textile industry even after facing pressure from his grandfather to join the Aluminum industry.
I decided to pursue MBA with the simple learning that even if I fail, I can use my failures as a ladder to my success and keep in mind that the sun only sets to rise.
