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Flipkart – Lessons for “Make in India”

Disclaimer : This article is entirely based on my reflection on what I read in the media

It was exciting and encouraging to experience the marketing campaigns of Flipkart’s billion dollar day and painful and demoralizing to witness pitfalls. I completely empathize with Sachin and Binny who had to write an unconditional apology letter to angry consumers while “celebrating” the victory in round #1 over Amazon, to keep their troops motivated.

Lessons for “Make in India"

The biggest question for me about the big billion day was : Is it a flop-show for Flipkart or is it a success ? Is complete acceptance of failure a sign off greatnes ? I felt apologizing and celebrating success at the same time is a concrete evidence of mediocrity

In any case, there are significant lessons to be learnt from this which is a classic case of gaps between intent and experience, plan and delivery.

We all know the investment and effort that goes into building such a market / consumer momentum for a day like this. We also know the lost image, lost investment, lost opportunity and above all the lost pride due to a result like flopkart. Why did this happen ? Here are my takeaways on the top reasons behind the gap between intent and experience, plan and delivery

  • Inadequate / incomplete anticipation / visualization of what is going to happen on the Big Billion Day. From the load on server to the demand for different products were mis-judged including the peak load at the time of start.
  • Poor coordination in the cross functional team in executing the project: Basically, the left hand was not aligned to what the right hand was doing. The eyes and feet were not coordinated with the brain etc.
  •  Poor workmanship / quality of delivery: from merchandiser to product manager, from project manager to developer, every person fell short in delivering what was expected. Every single gap in delivery contributed their share to the poor experience result.

Basically, every single person who worked on the project would have felt they did their job perfectly well but the end result was a not a success.

The lessons we should learn are very simple : Each one of us must visualize, simulate and experience the customer engagement in our mind while we create a product or service. Each one in the team including suppliers and vendors must collaborate deeply and engage passionately to ensure  the customer engagement visualized can be delivered 100%. When so much is at stake, the load and stress test must be done to ensure systems can withstand the load. Finally, when it comes to each of our own deliverable, we must ensure we deliver 110% and leave nothing to chance

Few other questions I was asking myself repeatedly but could not get an answer. Some of them are, If such thing has happened in a well funded US company, would heads roll ? Are heads not rolling in India because we do not have depth in leadership in the ecosystem ? Is stringent accountability a necessity for Make in India to succeed ?

Only if each person in the team is 100% committed to deliver customer delight, experience vision for customer engagement, execute and deliver on the plans – greatness is guaranteed. Every slip between the cup and the lip gets exposed. I strongly feel, these all are essential for Make in India to become a reality.

Cheers
CEO & Founder
GoFrugal Technologies

 

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Make in India – A Social and Cultural Revolution starting at Home

Delighted and enthusiastic to hear and read about the “Make in India” initiative by PM Modi. I came back to India after a short stay in Qualcomm, USA in 1995 to start a software company, to ship software that is made in India to USA. Along with my brothers Sridhar and Sekar, we started our journey with Vembu Systems. The passion and drive then was to create a software product like the Honda brand, from India.

I spent my first month in 1995 trying to get a telephone connection on Tatkal. I succeeded in getting it by paying Rs. 30,000/- and spent about 10 full days in various BSNL offices including Chrompet and Tambaram telephone exchanges. We used dial-up modem to connect Internet few times a day to download mails and upload software.

We could not afford to invest more that time. We were hiring from our friend circle and from those who walked into our office to drop in their resume. Each one of us were working minimum 12 hours a day and almost for first 5 years most of us only knew work. There was no life outside office. I really enjoyed working with almost every single person we hired. Every person had the eagerness and desire to succeed, were totally committed, were willing to put in as much time as it takes to deliver and were all willing to follow me. I remember myself as a cocky and an impatient manager.

We succeeded in figuring our way out, finding our feet to establish a business and grow it.

Looking back at India then and now, a lot has changed.

Today, most of the things any entrepreneur wants or needs are available. There are lots of money, best infrastructure, lots of guidance by people who have been there and have already done that. The world’s best practices are also available at finger tips/search.

I honestly feel we have all the resources to deliver on “Make in India” dream and convert it into a reality. But, do we have the resourcefulness?

We have the demographic dividend. Everyone from farms to factories and from campuses to companies are struggling to recruit even semi-skilled people who are capable enough to be trained on the job. PM Modi’s 3S mantra of Skill, Speed, and Scale is very apt for making things in India but the fundamental need is the professional ethics and hard work. Do we have the ethics, passion, apptite, aspiration, commitment and the willingness to work hard work to make things in India or are we just consumers?

#MakeInIndiaI feel “Make in India” must start in every home and in every primary school. Only if parents instill values, ethics, responsibility, respect for efforts, invest in developing comprehensive skills, environment awareness, and problem solving at a young age – the “Make in India” dream can become a reality. Parents and grandparents should go back to tell the stories that teach ethics and values in addition to kids growing up only watching Barbie’s, Ninja Hattori, and Harry Potter.

The post-liberalization growth had a negative impact on Indian middle class and it is showing up in the youth joining the workforce now. The middle class then had American ethics and values and the middle class now wants to live a western life, as they see it on TV.

We have started believing that success is all about contacts, recommendations, pulling strings, money, and merit does not matter. Only when we believe ethics, talent, skill, merit, and hard work matters, we can make things in India that we will be all proud of.

Till then, succeeding in “Make in India” is an accident against all odds. To make things in India that are relevant to the world, we must first make things that we are proud of consuming. Only if we build products and offer services in India that can compete against the best products in the world, we can take them to the world. Without a vibrant local market, any success will be short-lived.

Let each one of us be a good parent, develop good primary school teachers, and create a vibrant, healthy, competitive local market, so that we can deliver world class products and services, locally from India. Only then, we can have a sustained and repeatable success globally.