Celebrating the champions

The annual Aditya Birla Awards for Outstanding Achievement honour the peak achievements and best performances at the individual, business and unit levels across the Group

At the Aditya Birla Group, recognition is an important aspect of honouring excellence and achievement.  

The Aditya Birla Awards were launched in 1996 as a Groupwide celebration of achievements by individuals as well as organisations.

The awards function for the 2013 cycle was held on February 25 and 26 at Goa. The awards theme for the year — Action Beyond Boundaries — was an exhortation to the participants to think and act beyond their role, to seize the opportunities that come from being part of a global, diversified conglomerate.

And that was the message that went out from Chairman Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla in his personal interaction with all the individuals who had been nominated for an award, in an exclusive session called ''Face-to-Face''. Mr. Birla advised the group of achievers to take advantage of the Group’s many strengths — its presence in high-growth businesses across geographies, its slew of high quality products and services, its well established processes and governance systems, the support of its customers and partners — and seize the opportunities these present to excel and achieve.  

The fact that huge opportunities come from being part of a diversified and global company such as Aditya Birla Group was not lost on those who had gathered in Goa. Ms. Tanvi Sondhi, Head of Young Talent, GHR, who won a Chairman’s Individual Award for Distinguished Achiever, says: “The Group is a place where people feel empowered to do their best, and it is wonderful when there is recognition of the effort and initiative of the employees.”

“There are always challenges and when these result in successes, it is doubly rewarding to get recognition from the peer group and the senior leaders,” says Mr. Suraj Bahirwani, COO — Hypermarket, at Aditya Birla Retail, who won a Living the Values — Role Model Award this year.

The 2013 awards were given in three broad categories — Chairman’s Individual Award, Corporate World Class Manufacturing Award, Groupwide WCM Competition Award and Living the Values Award. The Chairman’s Individual Awards 2013 comprised five subcategories in which Emerging Professionals, Distinguished Achievers, Exceptional Contributors, Outstanding Leaders and Leader of Leaders were recognised. The rechristened Living the Values 2013 acknowledged employees in the two sub categories of Values Role Model and Values Torch Bearer.

The Chairman’s WCM awards celebrated the efforts businesses, units and teams made in adopting the WCM model and Business Excellence frameworks to achieve superior business performance, while awards for the Groupwide WCM Team Competition were given to teams which competed with each other to demonstrate excellent performance in implementing Business Excellence tools.

The other highlights of the Awards event were the Leadership Engagement Series. Renowned achievers and leaders are invited to engage with the top and senior management. This year three highly accomplished women graced the podium — management guru Lynda Gratton, tennis ace Martina Navratilova and actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan — who shared with the audience their success mantras and approach to facing challenges in life.

Every year, the Aditya Birla Awards is a time for employees to celebrate — revel in the recognition, get food for thought, draw inspiration from the leaders and torchbearers, and enjoy the entertainment on offer. Awards 2013, with its action and insight packed events, was no different!