Exclusive: Peeyush, CTO, Flipkart on Technology, India and Big Billion Day Sale

After nearly a decade in Google and two decades in the United States, Peeyush Ranjan quit Google’s engineering team to join Flipkart as its Chief Technology Officer.

After an illustrious career as head of engineering for Google’s Android One and a part of Google-owned Value Devices division of Motorola, Ranjan has been there, done that.

This year Flipkart roped in 3 tech experts from Amazon, Google and Microsoft and Ranjan has his name on the list. He is among the first batch of world-class engineers to move from Silicon Valley to India to participate in Indian e-commerce.

Business Insider India chats up with this ex-Googler about life in India, technology and Flipkart.

How has life changed post Flipkart?
There are two sides to it – the personal side and the work environment. I’ve lived in the US for 20 years, but was born and brought up here of course, so not a stranger by any means. Things are different in both good and bad ways. You get to eat great mangoes, and get stuck in traffic. My stint in Bangalore with Google prepared my family for it.

On the professional side it doesn’t even cross my mind that it is about US or India. The desire and sense of entitlement is very high when you move from working in a place like Google. However, at Flipkart I’ve been positively surprised. As the company plans to invest more in product and technology, we’re playing to our strengths. The problems we’re trying to solve are second to none. As a segment leader we’ve to move fast as there is so much ground to cover. That results in long work days and it’s a pleasurable experience.

What are your current areas of focus in terms of technology?
We’re investing heavily in world-class infrastructure. We now have our own Data Center. The amount of insights that can be generated from data is incredible. Also, anything Mobile-related is of superior importance.

How’s Ping doing for Flipakart?
It’s doing well. This is just the beginning of what’s possible. Some are also using Ping to communicate with each other, which is also good. Overall, it’s a very solid footing.

The need we are trying to address is real, and the user experience is great. Stay tuned, you’ll see more come out of Ping. There have been technological advancements in here that companies like Google and Facebook can’t rival. The web socket we’ve used has resulted in 6x lesser battery consumption. We’ve been able to do this as we have world-class engineers who realize that battery life and data consumption are critical to the end user.

What should be the core areas of focus for Indian e-commerce companies to differentiate themselves?
Differentiation will definitely occur. However, the Indian consumer is very different. Thus, focusing on the needs of the Indian consumer is most important. That’ll allow companies to leverage their strengths and cause differentiation. The dog and the tail are set up that way.

In the US there are a lot more high-end smartphones. The capability of the network and devices are above a certain threshold. Trying to imitate their products here would not work. One has to take into account the second-hand phones, limited battery life and network bandwidth. When you keep these in mind you design a product for the Indian consumer that works seamlessly across smartphones, and now things are working.

Everybody would ultimately do what the consumer wants, but one has to focus on his strengths to build something better.

What’s the role of technology in a market as challenging as India? Is it still about customer acquisition?
There is a lot more to it. I strongly believe this is once in a lifetime opportunity given to Indian software engineers. We don’t have a legacy to carry forward. Products like WhatsApp were adopted in India and elsewhere much before it became popular in the US.

While there is a gap, technology gives us the opportunity to leapfrog and establish India as a thought leader. After all, we have some of the best software engineers in the world. To give you an idea, Flipkart was doing more Same-day delivery in India than Amazon in the US.

We can start pushing the limits to what the world can see us doing in terms of technology while applying technology to these gaps and leapfrogging.

Do you see policy restrictions as hurdles to India’s technological innovation?
I see it as policy, not policy restrictions. It’s hard to say it should be this or that way. There are several factors that go into balancing all aspects that go into creating a product.

The way see it is that as an Indian company we have to follow the law of the land. As an Engineer I have to work with these constraints or enablements. Sometimes they help you, sometimes they don’t. There’s a local context one has to work in.

In India we have OTP (One Time Password) to avoid fraud. Many countries in the West don’t have that concept. That affects everyone willing to do online payments. The country has also rolled out payment specifications for Aadhar using bio-metrics for authentication. It is the biggest bio metric database in the world. Building an authentication system on the backbone of this would allow us to integrate bio-metrics on the phone directly with payment authentication and bypass all other payment hurdles.

What are your plans for the Big Billion Day sale this year?
We’re preparing our systems to handle the traffic. A majority of our time is going into making sure our systems are ready to take that load.

Is it really that simple?
*Laughs* It’s not simple. If you’re building a jumbo jet you’re building it to take the load. After that, it will fly. It’s not simple, but simply said.

Why offer the Big Billion Day sale only to the app, and not the desktop site?
The Big Billion Day sale has its own construct, and we’re trying to offer the best experience on mobile. You can still buy things from the desktop site.

It’s in the news that your initiative to take select categories and products to the app only platform is the first logical step to going app only. Do you rubbish these reports?
We want to be the best place to shop on mobile. App only might not be the way to do it. Our approach is more holistic, and we experiment all the time. Offering app only offers or app only categories is a part of our effort to understand what works.