Why Aditya Birla Group Is Big in My Life:
Being the third largest Indian multinational conglomerates in the world and spanning across a wide range of industries, diversified across metals, cement (largest in India), chemicals, fertilizers, telecom, branded apparels, and what not. It’s almost paradoxical for Aditya Birla group to not have an impact on literally every Indian’s life. My case is no different.
What constitutes BIG in our lives? It isn’t just the bigger achievements that we accomplish in life but also a multitude of the many little joys that enrichen our days. I would hereby like to take the opportunity to acknowledge some of the ABG brands that have provided me with such cherishing moments and hence contributed to the BIG in my life.
Pantaloons is one such brand. It entails such a huge variety of branded clothes under one roof that the shoppers literally don’t have to think much about going anywhere else. And the cherry on the top is the amazing round of offers and deals the stores provide. It is one of the most preferred places to shop from for myself and my family. There have been so many such instances where my family visited the store with some specific list of clothes to buy but due to the collection and deals, ending up buying so much more.
When it comes to buying formal attires, Van Heusen and Allen Solly are my go-to brands. These are some of the premium brands under ABG. I just love the quality of the clothes I have bought from these brands. Moreover, the variety and pricing of products is lucrative for most of the consumers.
It would be unfair on my part to not talk about Vodafone and Idea to become the largest and most reliable network across the country. I have been a customer of the telecom company for almost 10 years now and have no plans to make a shift. It offers great network coverage, reliable network access, uninterrupted data speeds, etc. Hence, there is kind of an emotional attachment that I have built over this long time.
How have I made an impact:
“It’s not a good idea to always look for new frontiers, especially when you have opportunities in your own existing businesses, in your own backyard.” - Kumar Mangalam Birla
Almost everyone has some form of expectations from self during his/her formative years of life. In this rapidly evolving fast paced life that we live, this process of realizing and working on your aspirations and dreams gets started right from the school days. Else, why would there be kids who start preparing for the prestigious IITJEE examinations right from their sixth/seventh grade. I am not kidding, its true! But it doesn’t really work out for everyone in the same way. Some people take time to understand what’s best for them. And I firmly believe it to be absolutely fine. Its good to have a plan, but when it comes to our life decisions, its not easy to have a hard and fast plan ready all the time.
I passed out of school with a very firm mindset to crack the AIEEE exam (now called JEE Mains) and take up Computer Science and Engineering in any of the top-notch colleges. But the plan didn’t work that way; I ended up graduating in the Computer Science background but not from the college(s) I had always desired to be in. Then in the final year of college, I got into what mostly engineers get into in India: preparing for the CAT exam, without ever thinking through about what was my reason to go for an MBA degree now. And now I feel kind of glad that I didn’t get through at that time. So, without much thinking, I decided to take up my job offer in one of the IT giants and shifted to Bangalore for the new job.
Your first job is always exciting! A new phase, new avenues, new goals and so much new to learn. I went through the same phase initially. I was working under the guidance of a senior software developer as my lead, learning something new from her almost every day at work and so things were going well. But then something happened which led me to witness one of the most challenging phases of my life. My lead came across an urgent family related emergency which forced her to go on a leave of absence for about 3 months. This happened suddenly when we were working for an application release due in a few days. Under such circumstances, my senior manager showed faith in me and asked me to take ownership of all the responsibilities of being a subject matter expert in the offshore team. I had just been in the project for about 6 months and that too as a fresher. And here I was now as the key point of contact for the application our team was working on.
I supported the requirement analysis, development and release management tasks all by myself for a brief period, which enhanced my knowledge and got me remarkable practical experience in terms of taking ownership and delivering. I also got the opportunity to train some of the new senior developers and a testing team, who all joined the project at a later stage. I realized the importance of having a pro-active approach in life. One should be positive in his/her approach and be ready for new avenues in life, even if they meet you in some worse situations/circumstances.
I had forgotten about my plan to do an MBA after college, until last year when I finally realized as to why should I go for an MBA. And it can actually work out well for you if you have a strong answer to the “Why” question. If you have a clearer vision of the end goal, it becomes a bit easier to work hard for it. And that is what I did, worked hard for some months and got the opportunity to join one of my dream B-schools. I feel proud to have made it till here now, but the best part is that life never stops. It’s a whole new set of goals and aspirations which makes me and others like me going.
Hence, I would like to reiterate that its good to have a plan, but not everything in life works according to a plan. It is completely okay if you need time to figure yourself out in life. Just work hard and stay positive.