Flipkart restructures core unit, shuffles senior staff
Flipkart restructured its core retail and marketplace business and moved many of the firm's senior executives into new roles, a day after it named co-founder Binny Bansal as its new CEO
Bengaluru: Flipkart Ltd has restructured the company’s core retail and marketplace business and moved many of the firm’s senior executives into new roles, a day after it named co-founder Binny Bansal as its new chief executive officer (CEO), said two persons familiar with the matter.
Flipkart’s retail and marketplace business, called the commerce platform, which is led by Mukesh Bansal, will now be organized into three large product-oriented groups and an engineering division, said the people cited above on condition of anonymity. The aim of the move is to speed up decision-making and improve customer service at India’s largest e-commerce firm, the people said.
Flipkart’s other units—advertising and supply chain—are likely to remain untouched by the proposed restructuring.
A Flipkart spokesperson confirmed the firm was restructuring its commerce platform.
The three product groups within the commerce platform will be: marketplace product group, consumer product group and service product group.
While the company has split its product function, the engineering division will continue to be led by chief technology officer Peeyush Ranjan, the people said.
All these product teams were earlier reporting to chief product officer Punit Soni, who will give up his role and work with Binny Bansal on company-wide initiatives in an unspecified role, the two persons said.
Chief business officer Ankit Nagori will head the marketplace product group in charge of Flipkart’s third-party sellers.
The consumer product group will be led by senior vice-president (product) Surojit Chatterjee, who has been tasked with improving customer experience. His responsibilities include Flipkart’s mobile app and search.
The service product group will be headed by Saikiran Krishnamurthy, the former chief operating officer of the commerce division. This team is responsible for fulfilment, post-delivery and seller services.
These four new divisions, or groups, will work closely with finance, human resources and marketing functions of the commerce platform.
Flipkart is still searching for a chief people officer after its previous human resources chief Mekin Maheshwari resigned in September.
The massive restructuring, expected to be enforced this month, is the first move by Binny Bansal to put his stamp on the company.
On Monday, Flipkart named co-founder Binny Bansal as its new chief executive, replacing Sachin Bansal, in a move that it claimed would strengthen its management bandwidth as it seeks to combat archrival Amazon India and kick off preparations for an expected initial public offering (IPO) over the next few years.
Flipkart on Monday said that Sachin Bansal will now become executive chairman with immediate effect.
Mukesh Bansal will continue to be head of the commerce platform at Flipkart and will now additionally run Flipkart’s advertising business, which was previously handled by Sachin Bansal. He will report to Binny Bansal.
In the wake of the sudden change in guard, co-founders Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal tried to ease anxiety of employees and clarified their plans for the company at an open house on Tuesday.
“Binny, Mukesh and I started this discussion post Big Billion Day (Flipkart’s big sales week in mid-October). We are a $15 billion company (in terms of valuation) and we want to move to $100 billion in two years. Chairman and chief executives have become two large roles in itself,” said Sachin Bansal, according to two people at the meeting.
Sachin Bansal added the company had started the hunt for a new chief executive for ekart, the crucial logistics arm of Flipkart earlier headed by Binny Bansal. Till it finds one, Binny Bansal will continue to head the logistics business as the interim chief executive.
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First Published:13 Jan 2016, 01:03 PM IST
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