BE UNIQUE, THE FLIPKART WAY: UNRAVELLING UNPRECEDENTED CORPORATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Business & Economics Non-Fiction

BE UNIQUE, THE FLIPKART WAY: UNRAVELLING UNPRECEDENTED CORPORATE ENTREPRENEURSHIP

By: Varadharaju Janardhanan M.H. Bala Subrahmanya

695.00

  • ISBN: 978-93-6156-204-4
  • Pages: 240 pages
  • Published: February 2025
  • Format: Hardback
  • Imprint: Rupa
  • Language: English

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 ex- Flipsters 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.



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 Fulbright-

Nehru 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.

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