BE UNIQUE, THE FLIPKART WAY: UNRAVELLING UNPRECEDENTED CORPORATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP

by Varadharaju Janardhanan, M.H. Bala Subrahmanya

  1. ISBN: 978-93-6156-204-4
  2. Pages: 240 pages
  3. Date: 5th August 2024

ABOUT THIS BOOK

The book traces the history of the unprecedented growth of Flipkart from its inception in 2007
till 2022, owing to the successful adoption of corporate entrepreneurship and the nurturing of
entrepreneurial culture.
When Flipkart was created in 2007 in Bangalore, the e-commerce industry was hardly present and the entrepreneurial ecosystem for tech start-ups was at its infancy. The book analyses the way the founders of Flipkart and its management overcame multiple challenges and created supply capability, on the one hand, and generated demand on the other. In the process, the founders and management undertook process innovations, financial innovations, and market innovations for supply creation and demand generation. Thus, the simultaneous focus on supply and demand has been the outstanding feature of growth model of Flipkart.

Flipkart kept nurturing entrepreneurial culture among its employees leading to many periodic strategic renewal, ‘start-ins’ and M&As. Another significant outcome of Flipkart’s entrepreneurial culture is in the form of emergence of more than 200 start-ups by its former employees (ex-Flipsters). Flipkart has contributed to India’s start-up ecosystem not only in the form of entrepreneurship generation, but also investment funding, market support, mentoring, incubation, and accelerator support system, among others. A near-unanimous convergence of opinions of management, executives and exFlipsters on the presence of entrepreneurial culture reflects the strength of the company. Based on extensive research and authentic data, the authors conclude that the successful pursuance of corporate entrepreneurship in Flipkart is contributed by pro-active, risk-taking, and motivated executives with high education qualifications.
This book is a game-changer for start-ups and start-up ecosystems.

AUTHOR OF THE BOOK

Varadharaju Janardhanan is a seasoned global HR leader, and award-winning thinker, author,
educationist and coach with nearly three decades of experience with budding start-ups, mid-sized companies, and large multinational corporations in helping build and scale up their talent and people functions. In addition to his contributions towards building organizations for scale, Varadha is also a mentor for early-stage tech start-up founders.
M.H. Bala Subrahmanya is a senior professor at the Department of Management Studies, Indian
Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. He has been serving in IISc since May 1996. He is a recipient of Commonwealth Fellowship (1999–2000), Japan Foundation Fellowship (2004–05) and FulbrightNehru Senior Research Fellowship (2009–10). He has more than 200 publications to his credit comprising research papers in refereed national and international journals, among others. His field of specialization is industrial economics.