I remember seeing the ABG logo between the soap opera commercials and the creativity of the ads catching my attention. When I was about 15 years old, I was least informed about the conglomerate and my sole source of interaction happened through those ads. About 10 years hence, I realise how back then and now, ABG touches almost all the aspects of my and my family’s life.
Now that I am more aware about the company and its offering, I can see the legacy of ABG being an active part of my daily life. Before writing this article, I went online to see if I could find any exhaustive list of products offered by ABG. Although the huge list of offerings came as a surprise, what was even more surprising was how extensively I had knowingly/unknowingly used them and they were an integral part of my daily life.
Earliest memories of ABG remind of UltraTech cements with the catchy tagline “The Engineers Choice” printed over the cement bags. Innumerable bags were unloaded everyday in my school when it was expanding and was under construction. It creates nostalgia even today seeing the branding; reminds me of school days.
Being from a small town in Bihar where fashion reached very late. The elders of the house always trusted Grasim as the fabric of their choice for getting their Suits stitched.
My first proper interaction to ABG as a customer would have happened with Pantaloons and Idea Cellular. I came to a metro city (Kolkata) in the year 2012 when I started by B.Tech. college. The presence of Pantaloons stores in malls eye catching and persuaded me to enter the store every time I visited any mall with a Pantaloons outlet. My first cellular service provider was Idea. The ad campaign “Get an Idea!” was so prevalent those days and Idea provided very good services in terms of call quality and pocket friendly user plans.
All that happened in the past. But I still go to Pantaloons, still use Idea SIM cards, have become a loyal customer to Allen Solly and Peter England in the past few years and aspire to maybe someday join ABG and work for this ginormous company with a big-big legacy.
How Have I Made An Impact
It would be wrong to state that people from small, backward places and towns don’t see success. But it would be just right to say that they need to beat the odds much more to shine out of the mediocrity. I am from a small town in Bihar called Begusarai. My school imparted decent level of education but lacked the ability to develop soft skills that are needed going ahead in life and career. I studied till 10th standard in Begusarai (where I scored 90.2% in my CBSE 10th Board examinations) before moving to the capital city of Patna. I prepared for engineering entrance examinations there and got into a college in Kolkata. Although my college had good studying environment and excellent faculties, the culture of vocation lacked there. I was in dire need of help since I could not get much of the vocational exposure during my formative years at my home town as well in terms of soft-skills. I prepared hard and landed a job in our country’s biggest IT firm. I was the first one from my college to get a job and it was big deal for me considering my skills only 6 months ago.
Having worked in the IT industry for about a year and a half, my hunger to get better just did not stop. I appeared in CAT and got into one of the best MBA colleges of our country.
When I look back at my life journey, I see only an upward trajectory- from a small town to a city to a metro to country’s capital, from a shy unprepared guy to being the first one from the college to get a job to someone who beat some brilliant minds of the country in the tough and unpredictable process of MBA admissions. I am happy that the efforts put by me and my parent have lead me to path of constant progress. But, there is no denying that I cannot stop growing and learning and becoming better version of me every day. I believe in Kaizen and it is what keeps me going everyday of my life. I hope exciting things are coming my way, or I am on my way getting to them!