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The Indian e-commerce giant <keyword id="541988" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="SnapDeal">Snapdeal</keyword> has issued a notice to its consumer service department, asking 200 members to either shape up or ship out. 
 
Owing to the almost impossible demands of the company's performance improvement plan, most employees are opting for the second option, said several people aware of the matter. 
 
"The process is still on and nearly 70 have been called in till now (Wednesday)," one of the 100 employees summoned by the HR department told ET. 
 
In December last year, 150 employees were asked to quit the company. 
 
"Last trimester, which ended in November, employees were asked to leave in December. This time, before the end of this trimester, which is March, they are asking us to leave," said one person. "In April 2015, we had close to 1,000 employees. Now we have around 500, of which 200 employees are being asked to leave." 
 
The options given to employees are choosing between resigning or going on the performance plan, for which they would be given a month's time to meet targets, failing which they will be terminated. 
 
However, the company denied that it was sacking majority of its teams. 
 
"There have been no firings or layoffs at Snapdeal," a spokesperson said in response to ET’s query. "Some employees at our Contact Centre, who were not meeting the required performance parameters have been offered a Performance Improvement Plan, which offers such employees 30 days to improve their performance. Some of the employees have chosen not to go through the Performance Improvement Plan and have instead opted to exit. In deference to their wishes, Snapdeal has accepted their resignations. The PIP process is expected to 
cover about 200 team members." 
 
<a href="http://cdn2.thegrindstone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/shutterstock_66384196.jpg">Image source</a>

Snapdeal asks 200 employees to shape up or ship out; employees choosing latter over ‘impossible’ targets

<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Jasper+Infotech&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Jasper Infotech</a> -owned digital payments platform <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=FreeCharge&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">FreeCharge</a>’s chief executive, <keyword id="259717" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Govind-Rajan">Govind Rajan</keyword>, has resigned from the company. However, the reasons behind his resignation are still unclear. 
 "Govind has brought incredible energy and focus in growing <keyword id="6377963" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Freecharge">FreeCharge</keyword>. The pace of progress will continue with the strong team he has built . I am sure he will bring the same level of passion and resolve to whatever he chooses next. I wish him the very best,” <keyword id="219793" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kunal-Bahl">Kunal Bahl</keyword>, chief executive, <keyword id="6481662" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Jasper-Infotech">Jasper Infotech</keyword> told ET. 
 
Rajan said that he has enjoyed his time in FreeCharge and wished the company for success. 
 
"It has been a unique privilege to helm FreeCharge in these exciting times of rapid growth and user focused innovation. I am confident that FreeCharge will achieve still greater heights under its incredibly talented team, and I look forward to facilitating the transition over the next few weeks,” 
 
Rajan had joined Jasper Infotech in July 2015 and initially held the role of chief strategy officer at <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Snapdeal&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Snapdeal</a>. 
 The last few months have seen the departure of Abhishek Kumar, Jasper's head of corporate development and mergers and acquisitions, <keyword id="1164852" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sandeep-Komaravelly">Sandeep Komaravelly</keyword>, who headed Shopo, the consumer-to-consumer online platform for small sellers and Tony Navin, who led <keyword id="541988" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="SnapDeal">Snapdeal</keyword>'s partnerships and strategic initiatives, among others.

FreeCharge CEO Govind Rajan resigns; reason still not known

The e-commerce giant <keyword id="541988" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="SnapDeal">Snapdeal</keyword>, which raised $200 million in funds in early 2016, is not looking to raise more funding any time in the near future. "At present, we are comfortably funded. In fact, we haven't even utilized the last funding received," <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Snapdeal-ups-its-game-AppointsJayant-Sood-as-Chief-of-customer-experience/articleshow/47108207.cms">Jayant Sood</a>, Chief Customer Experience Officer of Snapdeal, told <a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/money/no-need-for-fresh-funding-transition-in-softbank-wont-have-an-impact-on-us-snapdeal/articleshow/53148531.cms">ET</a>. 
 
As per Sood, there is no need for fresh funding even as <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Im-going-to-help-all-these-guys-Nikesh-Arora-on-SoftBanks-India-investments/articleshow/53001587.cms">Nikesh Arora</a> has <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Nikesh-Arora-explains-why-he-quit-his-Softbank-job/articleshow/52935433.cms">resigned </a>from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/SoftBank-Ken-Miyauchi/articleshow/52866992.cms">SoftBank</a>, the Japanese investor that is the largest shareholder in Snapdeal. 
 
"Nikesh has been a great supporter and mentor to our business and we look forward to the same in the future. SoftBank will continue to provide financial and strategic support to our company and the transition in the company will have no impact on our business," adds Sood. 
 
The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Indian-e-commerce-market-is-slowing-down/articleshow/52940196.cms">Indian e-commerce space </a>has seen a lot of ups and downs in the recent past, ranging from protests from offline retailers against heavy online discounting to the government introducing new FDI policies for selling food products online. All these changes have definitely had their impact on Snapdeal, which has enjoyed a healthy run in the five years that it has existed in the market. 
 
"E-commerce in India has gone through a clear cycle of growth with consumer perception of what constitutes 'value' evolving beyond mere discounts, Today the parameter by which success can be measured in this sector is the delivery experience and frictionless engagement a customer gets," Sood said. To make sure this happens, Snapdeal has been moving its focus to these areas. 
 
Future Investment 
To be in line with what the industry demands, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Snapdeal-may-be-trying-to-become-Indias-Dianping/articleshow/53057001.cms">Snapdeal </a>has invested worth about $300 million in its supply chain management alone over the past two years. 
 
"We have also invested heavily in infrastructure including building a two million sq ft warehousing space across 63 fulfilment centres in 25 cities," he says. In fact, a majority of orders are shipped through these centres. "This number has grown from just 7% in January 2015 to 80% today," adds Sood. 
 
"We are giving people products and brands that brick-and-mortar retail has failed to provide in all these years. Going by that logic, it won't be incorrect to say that e-commerce closes the gap between aspiration and access," says Sood. This statement is proven when one observes shopping patterns over a period of time. 
 
Cashless modes of payment are also adding a lot to the increasing fondness for online shopping. "This has been developing on the back of more seamless payment options as well as evolving consumption habits as people get more comfortable with online purchasing. In fact, e-payments have significantly increased since Freecharge wallet was integrated with our platform as it allows check-out processes to be completed in less than 10 seconds," said Sood. 
 
<a href="http://www.pitchonnet.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Jayant.jpg">Image source</a>

Snapdeal has enough money for now, doesn’t need fresh funding, says Jayant Sood

A performance improvement plan for 200 employees in February this year followed by <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Anand-Chandrasekaran-looking-to-launch-own-startup-quits-Snapdeal/articleshow/52419666.cms">a string of resignations by top executives</a> recently - the sudden unrest brewing inside <keyword id="541988" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="SnapDeal">Snapdeal</keyword> certainly shows not all is well within the company. 
 
Further validating this, credible sources from within Snapdeal have now confirmed to Business Insider that it is likely to show the door to several of its employees soon. The news has spread within the nooks and corners inside the company, and several employees who we got in touch with, say they are not happy with the way things have been unfolding in the past few months. 
 
Sources tell us that a layoff plan is certain, but it's still not clear as to how many employees could be asked to leave and by when. 
 
However, unlike February when <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/5-things-that-went-wrong-with-Flipkart-and-Snapdeal/articleshow/52122723.cms">Snapdeal</a> put 200 employees on a performance improvement plan which forced several to quit, but the company washed its hands off saying they didn't sack anyone, sources say, this time around there will be no cover for them to take shield under because Snapdeal is looking at undertaking massive layoffs any time this year. 
 Even as several reasons are being speculated for mulling to take this extreme step, as per sources, the Gurgaon-based company reportedly is wanting to cut costs, and therefore cracking the whip on its poor performers. It’s also being said that it is finding itself under tremendous pressure to keep its lead in the online marketplace segment where it's facing stiff competition from its rivals <keyword id="18635" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Amazon">Amazon</keyword> and Flipkart India. 
 
Meanwhile a spokesperson from Snapdeal said:“There have been no layoffs. Snapdeal believes in capital efficient, impactful growth and is engaged in building long term capabilities that create substantial differentiation. With this focus, Snapdeal has built a vibrant and meritocratic organization run by highly committed teams aligned with its objective to build India’s most reliable and frictionless commerce ecosystem. We continue to hire across levels and functions as per our talent requirements and we are currently in the process of adding 350 members to our engineering and product teams.” 
 
(Image: Thinkstock)

Snapdeal to lay-off employees
soon, confirms company sources

<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=snapdeal&amp;sortorder=effectivedate" data-type="tilCustomLink">Snapdeal’s</a> three major investors- <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=softbank&amp;sortorder=effectivedate" data-type="tilCustomLink">SoftBank</a>, Nexus Venture Partners and Kalaari Capital- have already agreed for e-commerce’s sale out to<a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=flipkart&amp;sortorder=effectivedate" data-type="tilCustomLink"> Flipkart</a>. But, apart from these, a nod from <keyword id="6419840" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Azim-Premji">Azim Premji</keyword> and <keyword id="6360722" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="ratan-tata">Ratan Tata</keyword> is also required as they too have stakes in <keyword id="541988" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="SnapDeal">Snapdeal</keyword>. <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-16/flipkart-pact-for-snapdeal-said-to-need-premji-tata-approvals">Bloomberg</a> reported, as per the contract, Snapdeal needs backing from the two of India's most powerful businessmen. Nod from Premji, Tata and other several important investors is still awaited. “If due diligence goes smoothly, a term sheet specifying cash and stock for each shareholder will follow and a final agreement could be signed by mid- to late June,” Bloomberg quoted sources as saying. When the sale happens, Snapdeal's Kunal Bahl and <keyword id="396598" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Rohit-Bansal">Rohit Bansal</keyword> will together receive about $30 million with a similar sum to be set aside for Snapdeal's nearly 2,000 employees. <keyword id="1397792" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kalaari-Capital">Kalaari Capital</keyword>, one of the two early investors in the startup, is to get $30 million, while Nexus will receive twice that amount for its larger stake, they said. Kalaari's managing director <keyword id="1397790" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vani-Kola">Vani Kola</keyword>, an early investor in Snapdeal, told Bloomberg that she has resigned from the startup's board. "I was done with what I needed to do,” Kola said, adding that she saw no conflict of interest. Meanwhile, this merger will give a boost to <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword>’s battle against <keyword id="18635" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Amazon">Amazon</keyword>, which is pumping in money in its Indian arm to grab a significant share in the market. Flipkart raised $1.4 billion from Tencent Holdings Ltd., Microsoft Corp. and EBay Inc, taking its valuation at $11.6 billion. "This is a landmark deal for Flipkart and for India,” the company's co-founders <keyword id="225032" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sachin-Bansal">Sachin Bansal</keyword> and <keyword id="6364080" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Binny-Bansal">Binny Bansal</keyword> said in a statement. "This deal reaffirms our resolve to hasten the transformation of commerce in India through technology.

Azim Premji, Ratan Tata’s nod also important for Flipkart-Snapdeal merger

India’s largest online marketplace <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=flipkart&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Flipkart</a> is acting tough on its underperforming employees and has asked them to put in their papers, else they will be terminated and given severance pay. 
 This decision by <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword>, which has nearly 30,000 <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=employees&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">employees</a>, is likely to affect 700 to 1,000 staff. 
 
"The cleanup is a part of the process of making Flipkart a lean organisation," ET quoted one of the sources as saying. 
 
Apparently, this is not the first time Flipkart has come down heavily on its non-performing employees. 
 
Flipkart, in a statement, said “In situations where employees do not make progress despite being put on a performance improvement plan, they are encouraged to seek opportunities outside the company where their skills can be better utilised. This is a fairly common practice across various industries- especially in high performing internet organisations.” 
 
Not only Flipkart, even <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=snapdeal&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Snapdeal</a> is looking to do away with non-performing employees and recently as many as 200 people were asked to buckle up or move out. 
 
ET quoted a former Flipkart employee saying how roles and expectations kept changing. 
 
"I chose to resign and sent a formal mail to my manager, which was immediately accepted. While the company has been patient with its employees over the last four years, this time it was not," this person told ET. He had worked for three years in the company in several roles, with the last one in the marketplace division. 
 
"Managers should have good facts and data substantiating why a particular person is a non-performer, and base his decision on factual data. There is also a lot of referencing that happens in this space and an organisation should be helping them in that regard as well," Harish Kumar, Managing Partner at Wenger &amp; Watson, told ET. 
 
(Image: Thinkstock)

Flipkart may handover pink slips to nearly 700 employees

A mere two years after he left <keyword id="6355629" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Google">Google</keyword> for <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=SoftBank&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">SoftBank</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Nikesh+Arora&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Nikesh Arora</a> has stepped down as the COO of the company. Handpicked by <keyword id="163404" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Softbank">SoftBank</keyword> CEO <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Masayoshi+Son&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Masayoshi Son</a> himself, this <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Silicon+Valley&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Silicon Valley</a> was widely regarded as Son’s successor, and was one of the highest paid man on earth. 
 
Arora's resignation comes a day after SoftBank gave him the clean chit after a special committee reviewed allegations against him, and found no merit. Son is expected to continue as the CEO for the next 5-10 years. 
 
Mr. Arora’s departure comes after a volley of criticism about his lackluster investments, and shareholders campaigning to see him gone, claiming conflict of interest as a major reason, thanks to his role as an adviser to private-equity firm Silver Lake. 
 
Allegations against him: 
In its allegations, New York-based law firm Boies Schiller &amp; Flexner representing SoftBank shareholders claimed he was guilty of a "series of questionable transactions, poor investment performance and conflict of interest." 
 
With SoftBank struggling with slow growth in profit and a huge debt of $80 billion, no wonder Mr. Arora’s appointment as a board member to Sprint soon after joining SoftBank would face criticism. 
 
“Large corporate investments are not based on individuals. SoftBank’s investments would be guided by their idea of the size of the Indian market rather than an individual’s decisions”, Arvind Singhal, Chairman and Managing Director of Technopak says. 
 
His investments: 
Arora has been a strong supporter of the Indian startup ecosystem. Under him, SoftBank pumped over a billion dollars into the country’s startups. Its India investments include the likes of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Snapdeal&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Snapdeal</a>, Ola, Grofers, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=OYO+rooms&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">OYO rooms</a> and the troubled <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=Housing.com&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Housing.com</a>. 
 
“With him in place, SoftBank may have looked at India much more aggressively”, Singhal muses. 
 
Mr. Arora’s $208 million paycheck over the last two years made him one of the highest-paid executives in the world. His decision to purchase SoftBank stocks worth over $483 million last year also caused an outcry, calling it an attempt by the company to quieted murmurs about his performance. 
 
“I won’t be looking to invest in this space anymore, but not because of what transpired with the SoftBank portfolio. That space was looking like one with a very large market opportunity and, that ventures operating in it could scale quickly. However, now the consumer internet space is fairly congested. There is no value in investing in a space where every startup has several well funded competitors”, Angad Singh Rikhy, Manager, Dealflow and Partnerships, Unitus Seed Fund says. 
 
When asked if Arora’s investment decisions could be stamped as ‘bad choices’, Rikhy says, “I wouldn’t’ go as far to say that. Every fund and/or angel makes investments that go south, at an average 2 out of 10 funded startups make positive returns. Looking at his portfolio, it was not a complete blunder as people are positioning it. The reality is a lot of the time early-stage investors are not positioned well enough, whether its due to the lack of historical information when dealing with innovative products/services or the fact that most of the data available are projections. We bet on an entrepreneur’s capabilities to pull off certain strategic maneuvers.” 
 Several of Mr. Arora’s investments have been burning cash and losing money. Ola is still up against Uber in an expensive price war, <keyword id="541988" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="SnapDeal">Snapdeal</keyword> is struggling to raise new funds and OYO’s business model is being questioned. 
 
<a href="http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/photo/48539924.cms">Image Source</a>

Nikesh Arora will leave SoftBank - what next?

Several top executives of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=startups&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Indian startups</a> are calling it quits to launch their own companies and the focus of the many of them is one-making profit in short time. 
 
Over 15 top executives resigned from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=flipkart&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Flipkart</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=snapdeal&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Snapdeal</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=ola&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Ola</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=zomato&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Zomato</a> and Paytm within almost one year and launched their own startups and their success story is quite impressive too. 
 
Many of them either grew by leaps or bounds or sold off their businesses, raking in money. 
 
Experts say the top line now wants to make more moolah and thereby are building more cash making models. 
 Bhuvan Gupta, who was with <keyword id="541988" type="COMPANY" weightage="40" keywordseo="SnapDeal">Snapdeal</keyword> as VP engineering, cofounded an online marketplace-OfBusiness. 
 
Now, his startup has over 100 employees and is doing business across 10 states currently. 
 
"People may call ecommerce 'a cash burn business', but we're already cash positive. I always wanted to do a startup and there's always an age and time when you can take such risk," Gupta told ET. 
 
Meanwhile, the risk taking appetite has also gone up owing to greater aspirations of individuals, ideological differences with the unicorns, more money-oriented approach and a well-connected network. 
 Even Mukesh Bansal and Ankit Nagori of <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="40" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword> had left the e-commerce player to launch a healthcare and fitness startup with $5 million of their own cash. 
 <keyword id="6354720" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ola">Ola</keyword>’s former heads Rushil Goel and Sunit Singh quit coming up with their own design startup. 
 "I wanted to start a business that is economically viable and has a social objective. Priced at around Rs 10,000 apiece, the product is being lapped up by schools, hotels and hospitals. The market is very big. Around 13 Indian cities feature in the list of most polluted places in the world. There are states (in India) with just one air quality monitor," Namita Gupta, who left <keyword id="830092" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Zomato">Zomato</keyword> to launch Airveda, told ET. 
 
(Image: Thinkstock)

These top executives quit Flipkart, Snapdeal, Ola with only one aim in mind

Nikesh Arora stepped down as SoftBank President after shareholders questioned his track record. 
 
However, an internal probe had cleared Arora, who will remain as an advisor to SoftBank. 
 
As per reports, Arora faced flak from shareholders over some deals, his compensation, and few investors even questioned his qualifications. 
 <keyword id="2914119" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="SoftBank-CEO-Masayoshi-Son">SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son</keyword> had chosen Arora and had, reportedly, plans to announce him as his successor. 
 
Arora, a former Google executive, had joined Softbank two years back. 
 
During his stint in Softbank, Arora spent around $4 billion investing in startups around the world. 
 
Arora is also one of the highest-paid corporate executives in the world, receiving $135 million in 2014 and another $73 million last year. 
 
As per news reports, Arora’s resignation was announced a day after SoftBank stated a special committee investigating allegations raised by one group of investors found that the group’s claims were “without merit.” 
 
Arora tweeted he got a clean chit during the review meeting. 
 
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
	
		Masa 2 continue 2 be CEO for 5-10 years, respect that. Learnt a lot. Clean chit from board after through review. Time for me to move on.
	— Nikesh Arora (@nikesharora) <a href="https://twitter.com/nikesharora/status/745211712970756097">June 21, 2016</a></blockquote>
 
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
	
		:). Life doesn't need to be orderly my friend. It's about having fun everyday. <a href="https://t.co/sskfQyYJCf">https://t.co/sskfQyYJCf</a>
	— Nikesh Arora (@nikesharora) <a href="https://twitter.com/nikesharora/status/745212458550255616">June 21, 2016</a></blockquote>
 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
	
		Going to continue to support the Indian startup ecosystem....can't change faith if you change jobs :)! <a href="https://t.co/ILIlS6qdcp">https://t.co/ILIlS6qdcp</a>
	— Nikesh Arora (@nikesharora) <a href="https://twitter.com/nikesharora/status/745214449951268864">June 21, 2016</a></blockquote>
 
Meanwhile, Son said the allegations had nothing to do with Arora’s resignation. 
 
Before joining SoftBank, Arora was an executive at Google Inc and prior to that he was chief marketing officer at T-Mobile Europe. 
 
In SoftBank, Arora sealed a $1 billion bet on Coupang, a South Korean mobile commerce startup, in a deal that was billed at the time as the largest internet investment in South Korea’s history. 
 
It was larger than SoftBank’s deal with Snapdeal and GrabTaxi. 
 
Also, SoftBank had huge India plans and Son had stated the company would invest around $10 billion in 5-10 years. 
 
SoftBank was expected to make first $350 million investment in a solar project in India. 
 
Apart from this, SoftBank also has a joint venture with the Bharti Group, Bharti SoftBank, the investments of which include the mobile application Hike Messenger. Its other investments cover real estate website Housing.com, hotel-booking app Oyo Rooms and Grofers. 
 
SoftBank, Bharti and Foxconn plan to invest in the joint venture called SBG Cleantech.

As Nikesh Arora quits, SoftBank will continue its focus
on Indian startups

In 2006, two freshmen from IIT-Delhi gathered enough spunk to knock at the door of Kalyanaraman Srinivasan, Amazon’s <keyword id="2463621" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="global-technology-head">global technology head</keyword> for retail, who was in India to set up a development center at Chennai and a regular at the Bangalore office of the global ecommerce biggie. The duo requested fifteen minutes of ‘we-time’ as they bubbled over a few ideas they considered path-breaking. They wanted to know which one they should focus on. “I took 1.5 seconds and said if they really wanted to be entrepreneurs, they must replicate Amazon in India and be patient about it,” says Srinivasan, in a southern accent cradling a Midwestern twang. The duo turned out to be Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal who founded Indian ecommerce giant Flipkart the very next year, recently raising a billion dollars from investors to take on Amazon’s Indian foray. 
 Srinivasan’s advice bode well for the youngsters and made them very rich indeed but the operative word was “patient”. Despite zero signs of profitability in the ecommerce eddies, Srinivasan remains positive. After all, more than 20% of the GDP of the world comes from emerging markets with barely 3% of capital investment therein. In other words, there are not many tradable liquid securities out here, he reasons, adding that companies like Flipkart, Snapdeal and <keyword id="761157" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Infibeam">Infibeam</keyword>, where he has personally invested, will raise the tide. 
 
“The rising tide will raise all the boats first and every company will get irrational valuations but those who focus on customer experience in the long term, will stay there and go higher, and those who don’t, will fall off,” says Srinivasan. As a precursor, he points to the dotcom boom in the US in 1999-2000. “Trillions of dollars went into valuations there but the customer experience only got better…so the irrationality of valuations is relative,” he points out, observing the Indian ecommerce market potential to be in the $100-200 range and with only $6 billion active market, excluding train and flight tickets, Flipkart’s valuation of $5 billion makes perfect sense. 
 Today, the 44-year-old Kalyanaraman Srinivasan is Chief Operating Officer, <keyword id="384914" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Groupon">Groupon</keyword>, a portmanteau for group coupon, and at one time, the fastest growing company in the world that grew from $1 million in seed money to $1 billion in two years. On a whistlestop tour covering Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and India, he met up with CD in the Delhi office of Groupon, housed in a rundown commercial complex in the southern part of the capital city. That’s where, over cuppa and crackers, he deconstructs the journey of a 15-year-old from poverty to power, politics at the workplace, lessons from Sam Walton, problem-solving from Amazon to startups, and how somewhere in between, he came to be known as Kal Raman. 
 
Education is salvation 
 
Born and raised in Mannarkoil in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district, down south of Chennai, Raman’s father, a tehsildar, passed away when he was all of 15. The family of four siblings struggled through the odds on his mother’s monthly pension of Rs 420. She was, however, uncompromising on her children’s education. That explains how liberally Raman uses this phrase—“Education is salvation.” 
 
After high school, Raman got through both medical and engineering college. While the medical college stood in his district, he opted for engineering in Chennai where he knew nobody. “I wanted to see how far I can fly,” he reminisces. Till today, Raman has a knack of making the tougher choice. It’s as if he’s conditioned that way. “The longer it takes to get something, the longer it stays with you….most of the things that look easy, are not good in the long term,” he says. 
 
<div style="page-break-after: always;">
	&#xa0;</div>
Not quite okay, Tata 
 
Raman’s first job was in Mumbai with Tata Consulting Engineers, where he landed up in slippers on his first day at work, sending his boss into a fit of rage. Upon hearing his story, he was not only given money to buy shoes but also fixed up at his friend’s Mumbai residence. Within a month, his boss sent him to Bangalore where he computerized the entire office administration. Thus started Raman’s steady rise in the world of information technology, and he did a lot of learning on his own, including ‘C’ programming. Just as he was about to get confirmed, he gave in his resignation since he signed up with TCS at Chennai. As a code jock, he ended up in Edinburgh servicing the Scottish Equitable Insurance Company and that’s where the first signs of friction with his boss became evident. 
 
As Raman deep-dove into the world of insurance, he figured the mathematical model of the company was completely flawed—if the company had more than 15% reimbursement, the resultant number would be a big negative, while the marketing documents of the company said that people would get 23% redemption. He tried explaining it to his boss but got cold shouldered. 
 
Raman would come in late and work well into the night. Being the last to leave, he was noticed by someone by the name Chris, who asked him why he stayed up so late despite being a programmer from an outsourced company. Upon being told of a questionable business model, Chris got curious and stayed up with Raman till 2 am one morning. A few days later, as Raman came in to work, his boss was pacing up anddown the room and glanced at him menacingly. He said that the European general manager of TCS had been called by the company and they were all going to see the management and that it concerned him. “If I were you, I would have packed my bags for India,” the boss said. Eventually, the trio entered a room with suits and at the head of the table, Chris sat in bespoke CEO attire. Before a word was uttered, Raman’s boss started making excuses and virtually disowned him, labeling him as a rotten apple in the TCS pantheon of “good and loyal workers”. That’s when Chris got up and silenced him, explaining why TCS needed to hire more people like Raman. “What my CPO and CIO couldn’t solve, a 22-yearold has done, and I thought it to be pertinent to acknowledge it in front of his bosses,” he said. 
 
The American Dream 
 For Raman, there was no looking back. With the help of Chris, he applied to companies in the US and got through <keyword id="46675" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Wal-Mart">Wal-Mart</keyword>, where he rose to become the giant retailer’s technology director within a year. In fact, he admittedly got promoted 18 times that year from the lowest employee to the top rung, catching the eye of Wal-Mart promoters Sam and Rob Walton. He also picked up the invaluable lessons of long-term planning and customer-centricity from Sam Walton, the father of modern retail. That’s where Raman learnt business execution under his mentor, Doyle Graham, who again passed away at 45, exactly the age his father had died. Orphaned twice, Raman had no will to forge on. He hung around for six months before signing up with Blockbuster, the biggest DVD rental company then and as he predicted its doom, which eventually paved the way for newbies like Netflix, he started out afresh as CEO of drugstore.com. At Drugstore, he had an enviable board of directors, which included among others, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Bill Gates’ wife and philanthropist Melissa Gates, Starbucks’ Howard Schultz and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. 
 
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He ran Drugstore through the tumultuous 9/11 years as corporate America took a beating and share prices tumbled. When his recovery plan was rejected by the board, Raman knew it was time. However, Bezos sought him out and wanted him to go to Seattle to take a shot at some of the problems at Amazon. Raman, of course, chose the toughest one to crack—the non-media businesses were growing faster than media and Amazon was losing $200 million worth of free cash flow back then. He identified the problem and automated the entire retail infrastructure to solve it at one go. At that juncture, there were 6,000 people working at Amazon and he had 3,000 under him. Mission accomplished, Raman moved on to start his own venture Global Scholar with venture capitalist Michael Milken until selling out in 2010 and signing up as COO of Groupon in May 2012. “Now I joined Groupon when everyone wrote the company off and I love being the underdog,” he says. 
 
Galvanizing Groupon 
 
In 2012, Groupon’s international business was crumbling and it was left to Raman to steady the ship. Today, along with the domestic US business, the international division is in the black. “We are building a category, we are not building a company…. what Groupon is now, Amazon was in 2001,” he says. 
 
As he pumps in adrenaline to the business, Raman has a roadmap. He’s applying all that he learnt at Wal-Mart, keeping the merchant community engaged and customers happy by offering the lowest prices and an efficient delivery mechanism. Will he be able to pull it off? “We’re more worried about the long term and so we’re trying to get more efficient by passing off the savings to our merchants and customers so that they become more loyal to Groupon and check our website first before they go for any other transactions….we have about 1,600 people in technology to do that out of 12,000 worldwide,” he says. At $2.5 billion revenue and with zero debt, Raman’s optimism is well-founded. And while valuations like $8 billion scorch the terrace, he maintains a straight face and waits for the tide to raise the boats. What then, after he steers Groupon to the safe shores of supra-growth and profitability? “I’ll do something very big in education in India, with or without Groupon,” he says.

Meet Kal Raman, Groupon COO & Mentor To Flipkart’s Bansals

Upping the ante, fintech unicorn <keyword id="7349800" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="bharatpe" source="Orion">BharatPe</keyword> has filed an arbitration for clawing back it's former MD and co-founder Ashneer <keyword id="3433" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="grover" source="Orion">Grover</keyword>'s restricted shareholding and founder title, sources said. The arbitration was filed on Thursday under Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) rules, sources with direct knowledge of the matter said. If relief is granted, Grover may lose his unvested shares and right to use the founder title. Grover, who BharatPe has accused of cheating and embezzlement of funds, holds about 8.5 per cent of the company. Of this, 1.4 per cent is not vested. The company did not immediately offer any comment. The action follows a detailed corporate governance review by the company's board into allegations of lapses and misdoings during the tenure of Grover as managing director. The arbitration proceedings were initiated after Grover refused to comply with the shareholders' agreement, sources said without elaborating. This is BharatPe's third legal action against Grover after a civil suit at the Delhi High Court and criminal complaint with the Economic Offences Wing. BharatPe, in the suit running into 2,800 pages, alleged that Grover, his wife <keyword id="10739150" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="madhuri-jain" source="Orion">Madhuri Jain</keyword> and other family members created fake bills, enlisted fictitious vendors to provide services to the company, and overcharged the firm for recruitment. It is seeking up to Rs 88.67 crore in damages. The corporate governance review by Alvarez and Marsal, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas and PwC led to the ouster of Jain, and Grover resigning from the company and its board in March. Sources said the company had earlier sent a legal notice for clawback and has now initiated arbitration proceedings. Under the shareholder's agreement, clawback of unvested shares can be triggered. Grover holds roughly 8.5 per cent stake in BharatPe, of which 1.4 per cent was not vested and released on the date of his resignation. In February, Grover's plea at SIAC on the investigation against him was rejected on all five grounds. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/corporates/news/two-adani-group-companies-rule-as-the-top-all-round-wealth-creators/articleshow/96109684.cms">Two Adani Group companies rule as the top all-round wealth creators – here are a few other unexpected entries</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/business/auto/news/november-2022-registers-best-ever-auto-sales-except-march-2020-fada/articleshow/96103887.cms">Festive baton shifts to Great Indian Wedding Season, November registers best-ever auto sales, except March 2020: FADA</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/snapdeal-drops-1250-crore-ipo-plan-citing-prevailing-market-conditions/articleshow/96104961.cms">Snapdeal drops ₹1,250 crore IPO plan citing 'prevailing market conditions'</a>

BharatPe files arbitration to claw back co-founder Ashneer Grover's unvested 1.4% shares

Acquiring financial solutions firm <keyword id="2982350" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="YTS-Solutions">YTS Solutions</keyword> for an undisclosed amount, <keyword id="6354287" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Bharti-Airtel">Bharti Airtel</keyword> announced appointment of YTS Solutions’ co-founder <keyword id="250701" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Manish-Khera">Manish Khera</keyword> as CEO of Airtel M Commerce Services, which offers Airtel's flagship semi-closed wallet under the brand name 'Airtel Money'. 

	Both Airtel and YTS Solutions in separate statements said that business of YTS Solutions will be integrated with AMSL. 
 "The acquired business will be integrated with the operations of <keyword id="2982464" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Airtel-Money-Services-Ltd">Airtel Money Services Ltd</keyword>," YTS Solutions said. 

	Based out of Mumbai, YTS has been developing financial products focused on mass market and micro-transactions. 
 

	"This acquisition will expand Airtel's portfolio in the mobile commerce segment and bring in a host of new product capabilities targeted at migrants in urban cities and their families in rural towns and villages," Airtel said in a statement. 
 

	Khera succeeds Govind Rajan who resigned from the firm to join e-commerce company Snapdeal as its Chief Strategy Officer. 
 

	After appointment, Khera will be a part of the Airtel Management Board and report to Bharti Airtel, India and South Asia, MD and CEO Gopal Vittal. 
 

	Prior to founding YTS, Khera was MD and CEO of FINO Pay Tech Ltd, and earlier worked in ICICI Bank. 
 

	"I am delighted to announce that Manish Khera will join AMSL as Chief Executive Officer. A trend-setter in the domain areas of financial inclusion, payments and banking, Manish combines the spirit of entrepreneurship with a passion for technology and commitment to serve millions," Vittal said. 
 

	In 2011, AMSL announced the launch of Airtel Money and in January 2015, it applied for a Payments' Bank Licence. 
 

	Airtel, India's largest mobile operator with a customer base of over 230 million, covers 4,30,000 towns and villages backed by 1.5 million distribution outlets.

	 
	 
	(Image credits: Indiatimes)

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