Anuj Sahai
Class of 2004    
Head - Media Solutions, Flipkart
 


Previous Occupation: Vice-President - E-Commerce, Media & Rewards, PAYBACK
Present Occupation: Head - Media Solutions, Flipkart
Sector: IT(E-commerce/sales)
Work Experience: 9 years 4 months

The first question we ask to any ISB alumis how does it feel to come back to ISB after so many years?
Well, I wouldn't say I was completely cut off from ISB because my wife studied at ISB, she is a graduate from the Class of 2012 , so for that duration between 2011- 2012, I would come to campus almost every weekend, during placements and as a spouse on campus. But yes, I was really cut off for the past 7 years but not as much during the recent times.

How does your typical day look like, 9 to 5? What do you do?
I doubt anyone would have a 9 -5 job, 9 to 9 would be a good way to put it. I worked for Yahoo for almost 6 years in product management. However, I made a conscious decision to move away because I always wanted to be part of general management and manage both product and sales. This is because if you are product manager the pressure levels are different and as a part of general management you will have to deliver sales on a monthly basis so pressure levels on a daily basis is again different. I was never purely a sales guy nor did I want to stick with product but I wanted a product with business orientation.
So my typical day has me getting immediate term numbers and chatting with the sales guys, focusing on advertisers and people whom we generate revenues from and also make sure that new product development is happening and we are innovating. In other words, it's like the best of both worlds.

Does your role span across several categories including new product launches and category launches?
Yes it does span across several categories, but I'm not purely on the category side. I'm setting up new businesses for Flipkart to drive profitability. So I basically head alliances and all media solutions for Flipkart and build initiatives around this.
For example, an alliance would be talking to a Telco to understand if the Flipkart app could be a default app on their sim or talking to some third parties for some potential integration into whatever they are doing. Sometimes even some bank offers could be an alliance. So in a nut shell, an alliance is talking to these parties and seeing if they are interested in giving back something to our customers. This can also mean business development, so this is one of the businesses I manage.

I understand that the course structure between now and the time when you took the course is different, but if one wants to take up the roles of what you are doing now, then what are the electives or courses one needs to undergo?
Well, the course offered here or anywhere else as a matter of fact, does not prepare you in any specific domain, like it doesn't prepare you for the internet or retail or manufacturing etc. It doesn't prepare you in any one particular industry and that's the way it should be. The course only prepares you for the kind of roles you want to take up and the roles basically remain the same. For instance, product management in a credit card company and product management in an internet company remains the same or sales role in Maruti and a sales role in another car company remains the same in terms of skill sets required.
An MBA course does not go up to some advanced management programs which are industry specific, but MBA teaches you on how to pick for yourself the kind of horizontal role you want to go for. An industry pick comes from your interest, your previous work experience or an aspiration

Do you have any ideas for the retail club?
If you have a Retail Club then that will certainly help people understand the different categories or the big categories in retail these days. And whatever category you pick you need to understand the kind of margins you need to work with. For instance, if you come from a semiconductor background, just knowing all the technical details about it is not enough, you also need to know the kind of margins the hard disk industry works with these days.
So my idea would be that the retail club should take some of the big retail categories and go on in them irrespective of online or offline. Online is only the future way of retailing but the construct of the retailing will remain the same. You will still need to figure out what might interest the customer, forecast how your product will be taken, how much would you price it, what is the elasticity from the customers perspective and stuff like that. All this does not change whether you are doing it on E-commerce or offline. So industry specific focus can only come from the club, something no course is going to teach.

Flipkart owns its own inventory, so how big of a challenge is it to find the right balance between knowing your own inventory and getting the market place model?
It's not only about your inventory but also about the customer experience. The moment you start owning an inventory of your own, its significantly better customer experience. For instance, Amazon tries to offer something know as "fulfilled by Amazon" where they allow the market place seller to put their inventory in their warehouses in Mumbai so that's how they control it. Regulatory challenges apart, the customer need is going to determine that skew. For instance, in a woman fashion brand where the selection is broad, you as a single player cannot have the entire inventory, you will never be able to project it, you will never be able to hold the right metrics of stocks and sizes etc, so therefore a market place model will certainly be required.

In this industry, you would value experience at least in the kind of product you are selling. If a CV or a resume comes to you, what would you look at from a fresh MBA graduate?
There is lot on the role. On a deeper note, the roles in Flipkart now range from supply side to warehousing and managing logistics. We deliver to cities where even blue dart doesn't deliver and we do this the next day. And we are in the process of scaling this up to deliver in 500 more cities where blue dart wouldn't deliver in the next two years. So what is important to a guy who joins us is not his previous history but a thorough knowledge on how logistics works. The role will be a function of the domain the person is applying for. All roles are different, every individual is different, his aspirations are different so will the evaluation of the recruiter.
But what are the openings at that point of time when they come to hire, that is what is going to be the determining factor. Every company has the need at some or the other point of time, that is the kind of understanding every individual needs to come with, instead of forcing themselves into taking roles they are not meant to do or are just open at that time. The pressure is there, it's easier said than done but you got to find a way around it and the people who do, will certainly stand out. CLARITY OF THOUGHT is what you need to have.

What about extra- curricular activities, what all were you associated with?
I used to play soccer in my time at ISB and actually scrapped my knee on the third week. I guess I was the reason why they stopped the game on campus. So yes sports played a very important role in my life here at ISB. Our class was the first to aggressively start participating in intra-college activities and I was in a lot of those, so extra-curricular activities played an important role even on a personal perspective.

Looking back, what is that one thing you advice everyone must do here at ISB ?
 My There is just so much to do here and it is important to get the best out of it ,so do everything you possibly can while you are here. On a lighter note, sleep less and you can do more, I mean it's just one year right. This will avoid regrets later on..

Do you think it's important to connect with your peers in college?
Yes, it is extremely important to connect with your peers in college in order to have fun in college. More importantly, maybe 5 or 10 years down the line, they will be the only people who are going to act as the support function to change careers. I made the right goals only because I had friends telling me I was shooting for less. So for me it has been the most important thing. This habit needs to be inculcated within every individual.
 

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