- Founded in 1857: Seth Shiv Narayan Birla started cotton business in Pilani, Rajasthan, which is the foundation of Birla Group of Companies. The group achieved top position in Nielsen's corporate image monitor 2014-15 and has emerged as the number one corporate 'Best In Class' for the third consecutive year. AON Best Employer's Name in India for 2018 - The third time in the last 7 years. An extraordinary force of more than 120000 employees is related to 42 nationalities.
Companies listed on BSE and NSE:
- Grasim Industries Limited
- Hindalco Industries Limited
- UltraTech Cement Limited
- Vodafone Idea Limited
- Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail Limited
- Aditya Birla Capital Limited
How I overcame challenges to achieve your ambitions in life so far?
- My biggest achievement is clearing IIT Joint Entrance Examination which is an engineering entrance exam.
- I consider this to be my biggest achievement because it is one of the toughest examinations in India. Approximately 6 lakh students take this examination. Only 10000 students get selected with only about top 2000 getting into the older IITs which are well known. The exam tests in-depth knowledge of Physics, Chemistry and Maths. Not just because of the toughness of the exam or the improbability of getting into an IIT, it is my biggest achievement because people respect me much more simply due to the fact that I have qualified this exam.
- It was very tough for me to qualify this examination. I do not have a very high IQ like some of my other batchmates at IIT. In fact, even though I tried very hard during classes 11th and 12th (I studied day and night) but could not qualify the examination in my first attempt. My situation after my first attempt was so bad that I did not even recognize what was being asked in the question paper.
- However, deep down I realized that I had it in me to qualify this examination. The failure in my first attempt somehow strengthened the desire to qualify this examination even more. Right after coming out of the examination hall, even when I knew I was failing that year, I promised myself that I will qualify this exam. This meant a lot of hard work, patience and perseverance had to come from my end to qualify the examination.
- Right after the first attempt, I took a break of about three months. I realized the importance of relaxation and this three-month period helped me a lot when I began to study again. It is during this period that I was able to look back at my preparation that I had done during the past two years. During this time, I realized the mistakes that I had committed and resolved to rectify them. Also, I figured out a good strategy to qualify the exam. This was important as not a lot people realize that competitive examinations are also about having the right strategy and not just brute hard work.
- After relaxing for three months, I started with my preparation again. I was so pumped up that even on my first day after a three - month break, I felt I had not left studying at all. I managed to study over 12 hours that day. I kept this momentum going for the next four months as well.
- However, it is not as if I did not commit any mistakes during this attempt. After four months of studying over 12 hours a day, my intensity reduced to about 7 hours a day. This happened partly because I was already on the top of my class at my coaching and I got complacent. The other reason is that one cannot sustain such high levels of work for a long period of time.
- Still, on average I managed to work at a rate of about 9 to 10 hours a day which was sufficient to qualify the exam.
- On the day of my result my parents were the happiest people.