Aswin Sasidharan

SDA BOCCONI ASIA CENTER My inspiration from the Aditya Birla Group!!! It was only yesterday when I remember wearing a shirt purchased from Allen Solly to college and something strange happened. Fact remained that I had this shirt with me for more than a year, but it was only a month back that I came to the know that Allen Solly as a matter of fact belonged to the Aditya Birla Group. So why strange? It’s because all this while I thought that I wore a brand that is famous, well known and also made by somebody abroad(a common conception of where the good stuff comes from) , but the minute this realization struck me, I was more proud than ever before, that such big names belonged to a conglomerate from my “DESI” roots. Digging deep into the history of Aditya Birla Group, During the “British Raj” and despite with the obsession of the British to make monopolies from trading companies, BIRLA emerged victorious in making their first family fortune which further enabled them in acting as Mahatma Gandhi’s financial backing during independence. Aditya Birla Group had a huge hand in putting India on the world map by giving them visibility in international waters. Statistically, with over 120,000 employees from over 42 countries, with 50 percent of their revenue coming from overseas operations spanning 34 countries and with a total number of 38 companies under this conglomerate, Along with running 56 schools providing quality education to 46,500 students, establishing 20 million hospitals tending to more than a million villagers, providing mid-day meal schemes to 74,000 children , The Aditya Birla Group has stood the test of time by proving that it is the company that the country deserves for the betterment of humanity. Ambition mainly for me denoted in completing the next phase of my life successfully. For instance, studying in class 10th my ambition at that time was to clear my boards with flying colors and to look forward to the next phase of my life which was to do well in class 12th. Every time I completed one phase of my life and moved to the next, I encountered challenges which though might be as trivial as a walk in the park today, but at that instance of time were dire and consequential. The one thing that got me through my challenges was to believe in the fact that “I can find a solution to this problem” preceded by the thought that “every problem in life has a solution to it”. These two lines of wisdom got me through the tough times because they helped me clear out all signs of negativities within me and gave me a drive to search for answers. It was through constant efforts that I developed a keen sense of understanding and acknowledgment of the words “progress with time” rather than striving for perfection which the word in itself is ambiguous in nature since perfection in mathematical terms is pi (always coming close to this number but never accurate). What followed was a result of bringing out my fully capacity without the stress of wearing out and working towards being quality oriented, but my key takeaway lessons by doing this was I felt happy by actually developing a keen sense of individualism, uniqueness and dignity, while presenting an output for any work I took under my wings solely by allowing myself to believe in my abilities.