Competing on Analytics

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Competing Internally on Analytics

Internal analytics deals with using the organization’s data to solve issues and handle internal business. It usually comprises internally managed functional units of a business like finance and accounting, R&D, manufacturing, HR management, cost management, merger and acquisition analytics, operations and quality analytics, etc.

Flipkart is an organization which has a large number of companies in its folds making it a very complex structure to manage. Flipkart uses a variety of analytical software’s to manage its internal functions. For example it uses Cybersource and Square for Finance and Accounting; Capabiliti, Greenhouse, HackerEarth, HackerRank and Hiree for HR management; Adobe Audience Manager, Buffer, Criteo, DareBoost, Marketo, Tracxn, etc for Marketing; LaedSquared and Ameyo for Sale and Customer support. It uses 99tests, Akamai Fast DNS, Crashlytics, etc. for development and IT. Flipkart uses Teradata database, VoltDB, MySQL, HockeyApp, etc as its developer stack.

These tools help Flipkart manage all internal analytical functions and be constructive and innovative in its business. The result of these analytical capabilities can be seen on its financial font-Flipkart’s revenue has grown three times since 2013. Also, in spite of all the management changes Flipkart has seen in the past few years, it’s still going strong and giving a tough fight to all its competitors.

Merger and acquisition is also one of the key points of discussion when it comes to internal analytics. Flipkart has made a lot of acquisitions over the years. In 2010 Flipkart took over WeREad, a social book discovery tool; in 2012 it took over LetsBuy.com, an e-retailer; in 2014 it acquired Myntra, an e-commerce company for fashion products for $300 million. In 2015 Flipkart made three acquisitions-Appiterate, FX Mart ($6.8 million) and MapMyIndia. The most recent acquisition being PhonePe which is a payment start-up.

Competing Externally on Analytics

Using analytics to improve external processes is complex and a challenging task to perform, since it involves data and resources from outside source. External entities involve Customer Relationship Management (CRM) processes like sales and marketing and Supply Chain Management (SCM) processes like procurement and logistics.

Flipkart manages to successfully implement analytics on external processes that involves logistics management, pricing optimization, brand management, converting customer interaction into sales, managing customer life cycle, personalizing content, connecting customers and suppliers, etc. Flipkart makes use of predictive analytics, BI, data management, NLP, big data analytics, etc. to perform external analytics. Some other tools that Flipkart uses are Apache Pig to create MapReducer programs, SimilarWeb is a tool that gives an insight into the website being used, Adobe Analytics-a tool used to analyse real time data, etc.

To manage other external aspects of its business, like logistics, payment gateways and supplier-customer relationship. Flipkart has its own payment and logistics arm. E-kart is Flipkart’s logistics arm which helps the organization in taking orders, confirming those orders, shipping the orders and making the final delivery, without any delays. E-kart powers Flipkart’s growth with ideas like Cash-on –Delivery, In-a-day and Same-day services. Having its own logistics arm has it benefits such as, Flipkart now can service more orders than what it did previously and also optimize on cost and inventory. Also, the customers and the suppliers can track their shipment and know exactly where their shipment is and can estimate its arrival time. Thus, Flipkart could expand its reach and scope which eventually turns out to be much profitable.

Flipkart even has its own payment gateway called PayZippy where any customer can make payments either through credit cards, debit cards or via net banking. PayZippy is quick and easy to use; no hassle at all. Flipkart’s induction of PayZippy for a payment gateway has made its mark since it services both the customer and the merchant. For a customer, it is secure and also easy to use as they don’t have to enter their credit or debit card details evert time they make a payment. Their credit or debit card details can be stored in the database of the portal and can be used in the future to make payments online. For Flipkart, it helps reduce its own inventory and they just have to deliver the products to the customers.

Conclusion

Competing on analytics deals with using sophisticated analytical tools to build an organization in terms of supply chain and customer relationship. Flipkart is an organization that has been in this competition for a really long time now. Thus they know their strengths and weakness and the working of their organization well enough to be able to see through the problem and hitches and rectify them on time.

However, due to recent setbacks that Flipkart faced due to their marketing strategies gone wrong, they need some new and innovative policies and strategies to overcome that rift they unintentionally created. Flipkart has a well-organized team and senior management to take care of such setbacks and they also have a strong analytical background to overcome such hurdles. With an overall change in the management and strong analytics, Flipkart can efficiently and effectively manage to take the organization to new heights and remain focused on its primary objective of providing the customers with reliable, efficient and the best services possible.

References

Book:

- Competing on Analytics-The New Science of Winning by Thomas H. Davenport and Jeanne G. Harris, Published in 2007

Web Documents:

- Flipkart to use analytics, market data to help SMEs scale up business from http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/flipkart-to-use-analytics-market-data-to-help-smes-scale-up-business-114061801054_1.html

- Flipkart’s Growth Charts from http://factordaily.com/flipkart-revenue-profit-2015/

- How do companies like Flipkart actually work? from https://www.quora.com/How-do-companies-like-Flipkart-actually-work

- Business Model of Flipkart from http://unicornomy.com/business-model-of-flipkart/

- What is the technology stack used at Flipkart? from https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-technology-stack-used-at-Flipkart