While being whetted on by a huge appetite for funds, the leading Indian etailer is also keen to set its house in order to make sure they make the best use of each and every penny flowing into the company.
At a time when the online retailer is vigorously on course to pursue its IPO plans, it has gone into a massive reorganization mode. Keen to turn over a new leaf and pinch away at the losses which have been eating away most of the funds being drawn into it, Flipkart will now intensify its focus on strategy.
As the first step in that direction, the company is being split onto three verticals and each of them placed under a unified command.
Three people who have been put at the helm of affairs, as per the new setup, are the two co-founder owners Sachin and Binny Bansal and the Myntra co-founder Mukesh Bansal.
The seven year old startup (YES- inspite of their valuation in excess of $10 billion, they are still, technically speaking, a ‘startup’) was founded as an online book store before it went on to diversify and expand.
The two Bansals from the IIT Delhi (no, they are not related) who co-founded a company from a garage and saw it evolve into the largest online selling entity in the country will now be joined in by a third Bansal, Mukesh Bansal from Myntra.
Sachin Bansal who is presently the CEO of the company will now take on the additional mantle of pushing through all the new initiatives forward besides carrying on his former capacity. Inside sources in the company who have been following the developments say that this might cut down on his involvement in the day to day affairs and operational involvement.
The other Chandigarh lad, Binny Bansal, who is currently the COO, will look after the logistics and supply chain side.
The third Bansal, the former co-founder of the fashion portal Myntra, became a part of the Flipkart team after the $330 million acquisition last year has been growing in influence ever since. Under the new setup, Mukesh will now take care of the commerce platform, marketing activities and the marketplace vertical.
The decision regarding the shakeup under which each of the three people at the top of the company will have clearly defined roles was taken at a board meeting and announced internally to the employees last week.
When contacted by the media about this huge makeover, the company spokesperson told ToI, “As a growing business, we are constantly reorganizing our teams to match the changing environment. Realigning roles and responsibilities helps us keep pace with our aggressive growth and the dynamic environment we operate in. We have done many such changes in the past and will continue to do the same in the future whenever the needs arise.”
Apart from the upheavals in the top brass, the engineering division of the company is also all set for a change and will now be headed by Sameer Nigam while the chief technology officer Amod Malviya will proceed forth to handle R&D and innovation.
