The Aditya Birla Group-Social responsibility

With the vision to be premium global conglomerate with a clear focus on each business
& a mission to deliver superior value to customers, shareholders, employees and society at
large. The Aditya Birla Group is Indias truly multinational corporation. The group Values of
Integrity, commitment, passion, seamlessness, & speedhave support the Global vision,
rooted in Indian values. The Group is driven by a performance ethic pegged on value
creation for its multiple stakeholders. A US$ 6.5 billion conglomerate, with a market
captilisation of US$ 6.33 billion, it is anchored by an extraordinary force of 72,000
employees belonging to over 20 different nationalities. Over 30 percent of its revenues flow
from its operations across the world. The Groups products and services offer distinctive
customer solutions. Its 66 state-of-art manufacturing units and sectoral services span India,
Thailand, Indonasia, Malaysia, Philippines, Egypt, Canada, Australia and China.
A premium conglomerate, the Aditya Birla Group is a dominant player in all of the
sectors in which it operates. Such as viscose staple fiber, non-ferrous meals, cement, viscose
filament yarn, branded apparel, carbon black, chemicals, fertilizers, sponge iron, insulators
and financial services. It is:
:: The worlds no. 1 in viscose staple fibre.
:: The worlds largest single location palm oil producer.
:: Asias largest single integrated aluminium producer.
:: A globally competitive, fast- growing copper producer.
:: The worlds third largest producer of insulators.
:: Globally, the fifth largest producer of carbon black.
:: The worlds eight largest producer of cement, and the largest in a single geography.
:: Indias premier branded garments player.
:: Among Indias most energy efficient privet sector fertilizer plants.
:: Indias second largest producer of viscous filament yarn.
:: The no. 2 privet sector insurance company, and the fourth largest asset management
company in India.
The group has also made successful forays into the IT and BPO sectors.
Beyond business
A value based, caring corporate citizen, the Aditya Birla Group inherently believes in the
trusteeship concept of management. Part of the Groups value systems. As early as he
1940s, the founding father Shri G.D. Birla espoused the trusteeship concept of
management. Simply stated, this entails that the wealth that one generates and holds is to be
held as in a trust for our multiple stakeholders. With regard to CSR, this means investing
part of the profits beyond businss, for the larger good of society.
While carrying forward this philosophy, his grandson, Aditya Birla weaved in the concept of
sustainable livelihood, which transcended cheque book philanthropy. In his view, it was
unwise to keep on giving endlessly. Instead, felt that channelising resources to ensure that
people have the wherewithal to make both ends meet would be more productive. He would
say, Give a hungry man fish for a day, he will eat it and the next day, he will be hungry

again. Instead if you tought him how to fish, he would be able to feed himself and his family
for a life time.
Taking these practices forward, the chairman Mr. Kumar Mangalam Birla
instutionalised the concept of bottom line accountability represented by economic success,
environmental responsibility and social commitment. In holistic way thus, the interest of all
the stakeholders have been textured into our Groups fabric.
The footprint of their social work today straddles over 3,700 villages, reaching out more
than 2 million people annually. Their community work is a way of telling the people among
whom we operate that We Care.
The strategy
The projects are carried out under the aegis of the Aditya Birla Centre for Community
Initiative and Rural Development, led by Mrs. Rajashre Birla. The Centre provides the
strategic direction, and the thrust areas for the work ensuring performance management as
well.
The focus is on the all-round development of the communities around our plants located
mostly in distant rural areas and tribal belts. All the Group companies-Grasim, Indian
Rayon, Indo gulf and Ultra tech have Rural Development Cells which are the
implementation bodies.
Projects are planned after a participatory need assessment of the communities around the
plants. Each project has a one-year and a three-year rolling plan, with milestones and
measurable targets. The objective is to phase out their presence over a period of time and
hand over the reins of further development to the people. This also enables to widen the
reach. Along with internal performance assessment mechanism, the projects are audited by
reputed external agencies, who measures it on quantitative parameters, helping the company
gauge the effectiveness and providing excellent inputs.
The company says that our partners in development are government bodies, district
authorities, village panchayats and the end beneficiariesthe villagers. The Government has,
in their 5-year plans, special funds earmarked for human development and we recourse to
many of these. At the same time, we network and collaborated with like-minded bilateral
and unilateral agencies to share ideas, draw from each others experiences, and ensure that
efforts are not duplicated. At another level, this provides a platform for advocacy. Some of
the agencies we have collaborated with are UNFPA, SIFSA, CARE India, Habitat for
Humanity International, Unicef and the world Bank.
Questions:
Q.Discuss various aspects of RESOURCE Allocation, Leadership style, corporate
culture, Values, Social Responsibilities & Ethics highlighted in the case.