SUMMARY
Flipkart Group CEO Binny Bansal resigned last week over a personal misconduct issue raised by Walmart
Following it, Myntra CEO and CFO is also expected to have resigned
Potential lay-offs are further expected at Myntra-Jabong
Post the resignation of Flipkart Group CEO Binny Bansal over a ‘personal misconduct’ issue raised by Walmart, the company has entered into the restructuring mode. While the leads from several departments have already resigned, many senior executives at Flipkart are now looking for a shift.
Also, the employees of Flipkart subsidiaries including Myntra and Jabong are now uncertain of their status and are expecting a potential lay-off.
At present, Kalyan Krishnamurthy is leading Flipkart Group as the new CEO.
Myntra-Jabong
As per media reports, Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan is speculated to put in his papers. He was followed by CFO Dipanjan Basu.
Chief marketing officer of Myntra and head of Jabong, Gunjan Soni, and Myntra’s chief strategy officer and head of categories, Ananya Tripathi, also quit the company earlier this year.
An ETRetail report further quoted sources stating that Myntra could lay-off around 100 to 400 employees as part of the rejig.
As far as Jabong is concerned, Myntra acquired the company in 2016 and was headed by CEO Ananth Narayanan. Jabong is now expected to lay-off around 50% of its 400 strong workforce. This calls for merger of the several departments of Jabong with Myntra such as technology, HR, finance among others.
Both Myntra and Jabong have been brought under the control of Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy following cofounder Binny Bansal’s exit as Group CEO earlier this week.
As per reports, merger of Myntra and Jabong with Flipkart is also on the cards. However, most probably, Flipkart Fashion and Myntra may continue to be run independently, “although it is not clear how much focus will remain on Jabong and if it will continue operations.”
In a statement on Thursday, Krishnamurthy said he is committed to growing the Myntra business. “The Flipkart group is committed to the success of Myntra and growing the business, now more than ever… We want to empower the Myntra team to continue to operate independently to achieve even greater success.”
Flipkart Headquarters
The things are not smooth at Flipkart headquarters as well.
It was a well known fact that not many senior executives at Flipkart have been the die hard fan of Krishnamurthy. As the Flipkart founders move out from the company (that too in a political fashion), at least 20 senior executives at Walmart-acquired Flipkart have reportedly floated their resumes to explore job opportunities, as per media reports.
As said, the executives fear duplication of roles if Walmart decides to merge Myntra-Jabong with Flipkart and hence looking out for options.
“While Flipkart’s fashion business has been run by close to 100 employees, the same functions at Myntra are run by 1,000 people. Sourcing for all three platforms may be merged while further synergies are being explored,” said a few of the ET sources.
In August this year, when global retail giant Walmart acquired Indian ecommerce unicorn Flipkart for $16 Bn, it was seen as the sign of the maturity Indian startup ecosystem has gained, thereby giving a wonderful exit to the investors in the company. However, the way Walmart has pushed the founders Binny Bansal and Sachin Bansal out of their own company, it has forced the startup ecosystem stakeholders to think once again on their fund raising and exit strategy.
Update: The media reports later confirmed that Ananth Narayanan will continue as CEO of Myntra
