The Aditya Birla Group is doing something unique to ensure better revenues from its companies

To react faster in the marketplace, the Aditya Birla Group has come up with an idea of mentoring its young leaders. It has roped in transition coaches and internal chieftains to train its young managers who are being elevated as the metals-to-retail conglomerate transforms into a more consumer-facing organisation with expansion in telecom, retail and financial services.

In the past one year, the $41-billion, or about Rs 2,67,000-crore, group has shown confidence in young leaders by handing them several key roles with profit and loss (P&L) responsibility, reported the Economic Times.

Therefore these leaders, who are below 35 years of age, need coaching and mentoring that has become an integral part of transformation strategies of Indian conglomerates and business houses.

"Young talent in the system are being given larger responsibilities as first-time managers as the organisation transforms into a more learning and consumer focused entity which is more agile, proactive and empowered in the marketplace," said Santrupt Misra, global human resources director of the group and CEO of Carbon Black.

"It is about creating a culture of acting," he told ET at an exclusive meeting.

The group has two initiatives — 'Lead Leap' and 'Cutting Edge Program' — in place to create a pipeline of leaders to take up key roles in its more than 40 companies, including Hindalco Industries, Idea Cellular, Madura fashions and Ultratech Cements, with operations in over 40 countries.

"We are not disparate businesses anymore... and we need to create a consumer brand mind set among employees," Misra said.

The group portfolio includes a combination of both asset heavy global businesses such as metals and cement and asset light businesses such as retail, financial services, insurance and telecom.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recently given in-principle approval to Aditya Birla Nuvo to start a payment bank. The group is also reported to be eyeing a strong presence in the ecommerce space, either through acquiring existing players or building one from scratch.

Misra said having a strong team of young managers is important in consumer businesses that require quick decisions.

Young managers such as Suraj Bahirwani, COO, hyper market, at Aditya Birla Retail; Bijoy Chatterjee, head of Star Cement, Bahrain; Sunaina De Cunha, fund manager, fixed income, at Birla Sun Life Asset Management; Rakesh Pundir, functional head, network services, at Idea Cellular; and Munish Rathi, factory head at Aditya Birla Insulators, were elevated to their current roles under the Lead Leap initiative, which offers opportunities to work across the group's diverse businesses and meet and engage with its eminent business leaders.

"Senior management ages are becoming lower everyday across sectors, be it consumer, retail, FMCG, technology or any other. At the same, time business environment is changing faster than people are able to adapt," said Navnit Singh, chairman and MD of India for Korn/Ferry International.

"In such a scenario, a lot of Indian business houses are realising that in the end there is no better way to build talent than giving people from within the opportunity to grow by training or coaching them," he said.

The Aditya Birla Group had been working on a centralised employer brand strategy across its companies. Misra said the group HR has taken the ownership of the employer brand centrally to ensure appropriate alignments and investments between the companies.

(Image: Indiatimes)