Tag: Ola

  • 10 Successful Startups Led By IIT-Grads

    Do you also get goosebumps when you hear the word “IIT”? Do you also see IITians getting special treatment in social circles (among your family, relatives, friends, neighbours, etc)?

    Here, I’ll provide additional reasons to back the statement above. IIT is among the most respected educational institutions in India ever. It has had students who have made an immense impression on students all over the world. It is, without doubt, eminent and highly productive.

    IIT is the ideal choice for students who want to study engineering. It is famous for producing the top engineers in the world and there are plenty of IIT graduates who chose another path than they had planned to take. They became entrepreneurs and set up their own startups in the marketplace. Although they’re not experts in their sector, they’re making waves. Let’s take a look at 10 successful startups led by IIT-Grads.

    1. OLA
    2. Flipkart
    3. Quikr
    4. Acadboost
    5. Zomato
    6. Khetify
    7. InMobi
    8. Housing.com
    9. Shopclues
    10. Snapdeal

    Conclusion
    FAQs

    1. OLA

    OLA is an Indian multinational ride-sharing company offering services that include a vehicle for hire and food delivery. Founded by Bhavish Aggarwal, a Computer Science and Engineering graduate of IIT Bombay in 2008. He began his career with Microsoft, where he worked for two years, filed two patents, and published three papers in international journals. In January 2011, he co-founded Ola Cabs with Ankit Bhati in Bengaluru.

    OLA - Successful Startups
    OLA – Successful Startups

    Now, OLA has a turnover of $320 million and is valued at $6.2 billion in worth. It has over 6000 employees working and is currently available in 169 cities in India. It has expanded in countries like Australia and New Zealand in 2018 and the UK, it started its Auto Rickshaw service in 2019.

    OLA Success Story – Full Form, Story, Founder, Business Model, Funding History, Team, News
    ‘Ola’, the company needs no introduction. The first Indian cab aggregatorcompany, Ola has made availing cab services a smooth experience. Owned by ANITechnologies Pvt. Ltd., and formerly known as OlaCabs, Ola was started in Dec2010 by two IIT Bombay [/mumbai-startups/] graduates. Ola serves as an…

    2. Flipkart

    Founded by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal in 2007, it is one of the most popular e-commerce in India. Both Sachin and Binny are alumni of IIT Delhi. The two wished to offer Indians an online store that was created in India which led to the making of what we all now know as Flipkart.

    Flipkart Online Shopping Platform
    Flipkart Online Shopping Platform

    Flipkart, which initially started as book sales, expanding into other product categories such as electronics, fashion, and lifestyle products. In August 2018, US-based retail chain Walmart acquired a 77% controlling stake in Flipkart for $16 billion, valuing Flipkart at around $20 billion.

    Flipkart Online Shopping – Latest News, Business model, Founder, Subsidiaries.
    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified informationon different startups and organizations. Don’t you think online buying and selling has become an essential part of ourlives? Youth and adults rely on the internet to buy stuff at affordable priceswith amazing return…

    3. Quikr

    Quikr is an Indian online marketplace and classified advertising company, based in Bangalore, India with listings in over 1000 cities in categories such as mobile phones, household goods, cars, real estate, jobs, services, and education. It provides a platform for users to buy or sell goods and services from each other. Other services offered include a missed call service and instant messaging. Quikr was founded by Pranay Chulet and Jiby Thomas in 2008. The CEO of the company Pranay Chulet grew up in Rajasthan and completed his Chemical Engineering from IIT Delhi.

    Quikr | Co-Founder | Pranay Chulet

    4. Acadboost

    Acadboost is started by Kalpit Veerwal, an IIT Bombay student. He has completed his 3rd year of Computer Science Engineering from IIT Bombay and founded AcadBoost Technologies Pvt Ltd in his second year. It is an EdTech startup that aims to provide the correct mentorship to students from experts in various fields of education – ranging from competitive exams like JEE, NEET, CAT, GATE to college.

    AcadBoost Online Learning Platform
    AcadBoost Online Learning Platform

    5. Zomato

    After graduating from IIT Delhi, Deepinder Goyal took up work at a company Bain & Co, where he met Pankaj Chaddah, and the duo then started a delivery service Zomato in 2008. Zomato is an Indian multinational restaurant aggregator and food delivery company that provides information, menus, and user reviews of restaurants as well as food delivery options from partner restaurants in select cities. As of 2019, the service is available in 24 countries and in more than 10,000 cities.

    Zomato - Online Food Delivery App
    Zomato – Online Food Delivery App

    Zomato shares made a strong stock market debut on 23rd July 2021, listing at ₹116 apiece on the NSE. Zomato shares surged 53%  over the IPO price of ₹76. With the listing, Zomato entered the club of India’s top 100 listed companies with a market capitalization of over ₹90,000 crores. The company’s shares got listed at ₹115 apiece on the BSE.

    Zomato Success Story – Delivering Delicious Happiness to Your Doorsteps!
    There were days when we used to call different restaurants to place orders andagain call up for corrections and directions and reservations. Then came inapplications like Zomato who reversed the whole scenario and made it extremelysimple for the consumers. Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah found…

    6. Khetify

    Khetify is an urban farming venture in New Delhi, India founded by IIT Kharagpur graduates Kaustubh Khare and Saahil Parekh that build farms in urban spaces and enable people to grow chemical-free, fresh food. The aim of the startup is to promote food sustainability to city dwellers.

    Khetify Logo
    Khetify Logo

    Claiming that 16,000 sq km of rooftop space is being wasted in urban cities, Khetify aims to promote the use of this unutilized space to develop small rooftop farms.

    7. InMobi

    Founded by Naveen Tewari, an IIT Kanpur graduate. InMobi is an Indian multinational mobile advertising technology company, based in Bangalore. Its mobile-first platform allows brands, developers, and publishers to engage consumers through contextual mobile advertising. In 2008, it was enhanced from SMS-based services to mobile advertising and rebranded as InMobi. It is now competing with giants like Google and Facebook for data-driven mobile advertising. InMobi is one of the top 5 players in the US, China, Southeast Asia, and India. Also, Softbank has invested $200 million in it.

    InMobi Logo
    InMobi Logo

    8. Housing.com

    Housing.com is founded by Rahul Yadav, an IIT Mumbai alumnus. Housing.com is a Mumbai-based real estate search portal that allows customers to search for housing based on geography, number of rooms, and various other filters. Rahul Yadav was featured in the list of Forbes 30 under 30 young Entrepreneurs. He is known as the bad boy of an Indian startup, gaining comparisons from Steve Jobs. And fun fact, he was once fired from a company.

    Housing.com Logo
    Housing.com Logo

    NoBroker Success Story – Business & Revenue Model | Founder | Valuation | Wiki | Owner
    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified informationon different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by the organization it is based on. Anything that has to do with real estate, specifically as a purchaser, isconvoluted and often, a…

    9. Shopclues

    Founded by Sanjay Sethi, an alumnus of IIT Delhi who previously worked in the US in the field of e-commerce marketplace, online payments, and operations. After serving as a key to establishing eBay in India, he started his own company Shopclues, along with Sandeep and Radhika Aggarwal. ShopClues provides unstructured categories of home and kitchen, fashion, electronics, and daily utility items at wholesale rates. In 2019, the company was acquired by Singapore-based Qoo10 in an all-stock deal valued at approximately US$70 million, representing one of the largest valuation meltdowns for an Indian-based startup.

    Inspiring words of ShopClues Co-Founder- Radhika Aggarwal

    10. Snapdeal

    FYI Snapdeal wasn’t an e-commerce company till 2008, but then it was founded by Rohil Bahl and Kunal Bahl, the former has a Wharton degree while the latter has an IIT Delhi, graduation degree under their belt.

    Snapdeal Logo
    Snapdeal Logo

    It is now one of the most popular e-commerce websites in India, with over 3,00,000 sellers, over 3 Crore products across 800+ diverse categories from more than 1,25,000 regional, national and international brands and retailers and a reach of 6,000  towns and cities among the country.


    Snapdeal Company Profile – Catering to 400 million Value-Conscious Indian Consumers!
    How easy have our lives been ever since e-commerce portals came into action! Oneof these, Snapdeal makes online shopping a boom with its coupons and vouchersfor the consumers. Founded by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal in February 2010, Snapdeal is an Indian e-commerce company based out of New Delhi.…


    Conclusion

    Hope this list of successful Indian businesses that are helmed by IIT graduates helped you gain an understanding of some successful IITians.

    FAQs

    Which are the top successful startups led by IIM grads?

    • Redbus. in
    • Naukri.com
    • TaxiForSure
    • MakeMyTrip
    • Reddif.com
    • Travel Triangle
    • First Cry

    Which IIM is best for entrepreneurship?

    • IIM Ahmedabad
    • IIM Bangalore
    • IIM Calcutta
    • Indian School of Business, Hyderabad
    • S P Jain Institute of Management and Research

    Which IIT is best?

    • IIT Madras
    • IIT Delhi
    • IIT Bombay
    • IIT Kanpur
    • IIT Kharagpur

  • Acquisitions of Indian Startups by its Competitor

    What do you mean by the term Acquisitions? On what metrics the company acquires other companies? Is acquiring other competitor companies legal? Which are some of the latest acquired companies? Interesting isn’t it?

    According to Investopedia, the definition of Acquisitions is as follows-

    An acquisition is when one company purchases most or all of another company’s shares to gain control of that company.

    Acquisitions, which are very common in business, may occur with the target company’s approval, or in spite of its disapproval. Some of the parameters needed to be checked before acquiring a company. These metrics should be followed before evaluating an acquisition- Financial value of the company, Asset value of the company, Possible resale value of the company, and its assets.

    Read this article to know more about the common questions related to startup acquisitions. We have listed down some of the latest and deal-breaking acquisitions in the Indian Startup Ecosystem.

    Top Indian Startup Acquisitions
    1. Walmart acquires Flipkart
    2. Snapdeal acquires FreeCharge
    3. Tata motors acquire Jaguar and Land Rover
    4. Flipkart acquires Myntra
    5. Ola acquires TaxiForSure
    6. Zomato acquires Urbanspoon
    7. MakeMyTrip acquires MyGola
    FAQ’s
    Conclusion

    Indian Startups – Funding & Investors Data [January 2021 Updated]
    Ideas, creativity, and execution are essential for a startup to flourish. Butare they enough? A startup succeeds in the long run only if it can scale as andwhen required. Investors provide startups and other entrepreneurial ventureswith the capital—popularly known as “funding”—to think big, grow …

    Top Indian Startup Acquisitions

    India, the 3rd largest startup hub in the world is home to many new startups. Every other day we hear about new startups coming up in India. With all these new startups coming up every other day, the competition increases. This leads to acquisitions. The strong prey on the weak or the potential competitor. Recently, the Walmart-Flipkart merger in mid-2018 is the first breakthrough in the minds of many. From a country’s M&As (mergers & acquisitions) viewpoint, this acquisition has been a milestone and still has an ecosystem impact. If the sale was the horse rider or the fact that the ecosystem was more M&A safeguarded, the overall fusions and acquisitions this year have decreased.

    As we approach the mid of 2021, there are sudden reports of potential acquisitions and exits in the Indian startup ecosystem. Some of India’s largest startups have made many acquisitions to grow their footprint, grab a larger market share or endure growing competition from competitors, including Tata Motors, Zomato, Snapdeal, Flipkart, and others.

    1. Walmart acquires Flipkart

    Flipkart and Walmart Logo
    Flipkart and Walmart Logo

    With the American retail giant investing 16 billion worth, Walmart‘s takeover of Flipkart is the first-ever in India. But this acquisition was not the country’s first major takeover we saw. Here is a list of some of India’s major fusions and acquisitions. In 2018, Walmart purchased Flipkart 77 percent for $16 billion. This makes it India’s largest acquisition.

    Walmart | American Multinational Retail Company | Company Profile |
    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified informationon different startups and organizations. The content in this post has beenapproved by the organization it is based on. Walmart Inc. is an American multinational retail corporation that operates achain of hypermarkets…

    2. Snapdeal acquires FreeCharge

    Snapdeal and FreeCharge Logo
    Snapdeal and FreeCharge Logo

    In April 2015, Snapdeal acquired the Freecharge smartphone recharge service. It was valued at $400 million for the cash plus equity deal and the largest takeover in Indian internet business history. The partnership brought in about approx. $1.1 billion in financing from Snapdeal, and $120 million from Freecharge in particular. Freecharge remained a separate company after the takeover, allowing Snapdeal to grow its digital trading ecosystem. Snapdeal has had several major acquisitions last year: In the center of this move, China’s giant Alibaba took an interest in Indian eCommerce in Snapdeal.

    Sandeep Tandon | Co-founder of FreeCharge | Managing Director at Tandon Group |
    Sandeep Tandon is a Technology Entrepreneur, Investor and a Mentor. He is the Co-founder at one of India’s first mobile payment platform, FreeCharge[/freecharge-best-deals-cashbacks/]. He also serves as the Managing Director of Tandon Group, a technology catalyst that owns numerous businesses by …

    3. Tata motors acquire Jaguar and Land Rover

    Tata Motors, Jaguar and Land Rover Logo
    Tata Motors, Jaguar and Land Rover Logo

    As announced on March 26th, Tata Motors purchased the Ford Motor Company’s Jaguar Land Rover companies from the company for a net amount of $2.3 billion. In the Jaguar Land Rover pension plans, Ford contributed around US$600 million. Mr. Ratan N. Tata, Chief Operating Officer of the Tata Sons and the Chief Financial Officer of the Ford Motor Group, Don Leclair and Mr. Lewis Booth, Executive Vice-Chairman of the Ford of Europe Motor Company and Mr. La Jaguar La Tata Motors attended this ceremony at the Gaydon headquarters at the Jaguar Land Rover.

    Success Story Of Tata Group Of Industries | Tata Group Case Study
    Tata Group is an Indian global aggregate holding organization headquartered inMumbai, India. Established in 1868 by Jamsetji Tata, the organization increasedworldwide acknowledgment in the wake of acquiring a few global companies.Perhaps the biggest aggregate, Tata Group is claimed by Tata Sons.…

    4. Flipkart acquires Myntra

    Flipkart and Myntra Logo
    Flipkart and Myntra Logo

    In May 2014, after months of rumors, India’s leading e-commerce company Flipkart acquired a trendy rival Myntra, a development that had to do with the increasing presence of Amazon in India. None of the parties verified the acquisition’s exact valuation, but sources placed the cash and equity transaction between 300 and 330 million dollars.

    Flipkart launched as a supermarket in 2007, offering apparel and electronics in all categories. It also offers furnishings and white products. The change is anticipated to help Flipkart reinforce its clothes collection and contend with Amazon and Snapdeal more vigorously. With his co-founder and CEO Mukesh Bansal joining Flipkart and running the apparel company, Myntra will continue to run as an autonomous entity.

    Mukesh Bansal – CEO of Cure.fit | Founder of Myntra
    Mukesh Bansal is the Founder of the fashion e-commerce firm, Myntra[/myntra-online-fashion-store/]. He is an Indian businessman, who currentlyserves as the CEO of Cure.fit and its co-founder as well. He is also on theboard of Olympics Gold Quest, which is a non-profit organization that promotess…

    5. Ola acquires TaxiForSure

    Ola and TaxiForSure Logo
    Ola and TaxiForSure Logo

    Ola, one of India’s largest ride-hailing operation, acquired TaxiForSure for $200 million as a smaller, but value-centric, cash and equity acquisition in March 2015. Ola’s footprint in the country has been extended by adding TaxiForSure’s 15,000+ fleet onto its network across 47 cities. In October 2014, Ola raised SoftBank $210 million in addition to the 41,5 million dollars it raised earlier, adding over a quarter-billion dollars in overall financing in 2014. When TaxiForSure was acquired, it had 15,000 vehicles in 47 cities on our network a few months after the launch of Ola in January 2011. In India, it has recently been an upright battle between Uber and Ola, who have joined Didi Kuaidi, GrabTaxi, and Lyft globally.

    OLA Success Story – Full Form, Story, Founder, Business Model, Funding History, Team, News
    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified informationon different startups and organizations. The content in this post has beenapproved by the organization it is based on. Ola needs no introduction. The first Indian cab aggregator company, Ola has madeavailing cab serv…

    6. Zomato acquires Urbanspoon

    Zomato and Urbanspoon Logo
    Zomato and Urbanspoon Logo

    In January 2015, Zomato purchased a 50 million dollar US competitor, Urbanspoon, at what was one of the highest offshore transactions for an Indian startup. The purchase marked Zomato‘s visit to the US, Canada which Australia, and took over 22 countries around the world. The takeover signals the entrance of Zomato in the USA. This is the sixth and largest purchase of Zomato in the last six months. The purchase will rise from 300,000 to 1.000,000 restaurants globally more than three times the inventory of Zomato’s Restaurant. In the coming months, Urbanspoon will pass onto Zomato.com, and the Zomato software will be used by all Urbanspoon app users. Zomato increased the overall amount of venture funds raised by the firm to $113 million from Sequoia, Knowledge Edge, and Vy Capital in November.

    Deepinder Goyal Success Story – Never Have A Bad Meal Through Zomato
    The food delivery segment in India has witnessed an unprecedented surge. Latenight cravings, urgent home delivery, etc. are now becoming the norm. Atpresent, 2-3 brands dominate this industry and Zomato is one of them. Zomato is an Indian restaurant aggregator and delivers food in almost everyIn…

    7. MakeMyTrip acquires MyGola

    MakeMyTrip and Mygola Logo
    MakeMyTrip and Mygola Logo

    A leader among India’s travel reservation sides was the Nasdaq-listed MakeMyTrip, a pioneer in Indian tourism reservation – which was funded by investors such as Helion Venture Partner, 500 Partners, and Blumberg Capital at the last minute. Mygola, founded by IIT Mumbai in 2009, says travelers can create customs journeys in 15 minutes by using Bapna and Prateek Sharma. It has up to 5000 installations in the Google Playstore on Android and is present in 16 cities worldwide. The acquisition happens as Indian travel is heating up, as an investment in 2015, for the most part, early-stage, has crossed 71 million dollars, compared to 55 million dollars in all of 2014 (about 440 crores).

    MakeMyTrip Success Story – Founder | Business Model | Revenue
    More Indians are now booking tickets and hotels online than ever before. Nothingcan beat the comfort of being able to plan a trip from the comfort of your home.You can check out the prices and compare them to get the best out of the deal. A company that holds a major share in the Indian online …

    FAQ’s

    Let’s discuss some of the frequently asked questions (FAQ’s)  related to startup ecosystem..

    What do you mean by the term Acquisitions?

    An acquisition is when one company purchases most or all of another company’s shares to gain control of that company. Acquisitions, which are very common in business, may occur with the target company’s approval, or in spite of its disapproval.

    On what metrics the company acquires other companies?

    These metrics should be followed before evaluating an acquisition- Financial value of the company, Asset value of the company, Possible resale value of the company, and its assets.

    Acquisitions, which are very common in business, may occur with the target company’s approval, or in spite of its disapproval.

    Which are some of the latest acquired companies?

    Larsen and Toubro Ltd (L&T) gained a controlling interest in Mindtree Ltd, raising its stake to 60% in the Bengaluru-based company on 27 June 2019 and successfully concluding India’s first hostile takeover of an IT company.

    How do startups get acquired?

    The startups that last usually get acquired for their market share before they hit those numbers. Intellectual property is the most common way to build a defensible product. In fact, many startups with a proprietary product get acquired before they even take their solution to the market.

    How long does a startup acquisition take?

    Corporate mergers and acquisitions can vary considerably in the time they take to be completed. This length of time may span from six months to several years. There are a number of individual steps that need to be completed successfully by two public companies before they are legally combined into a single entity.

    Conclusion

    Startup acquisitions happened in the past and will keep happening in the future. If there is a slight possibility that the competitor can be a problem in a long run then acquisitions will happen for sure. Investors will keep looking for further IPOs, new firms and acquisitions from publicly traded companies in the subsequent year as the number of acquisitions, and their scale in India is growing. Up until now, they have relied primarily on other startup acquisitions. As the Indian startup ecosystem continues to expand and draw more foreign interest, the value of M&A transactions in the country can only be projected to rise in the coming years accordingly.

    The Rapid Growth Of Foodtech Services In India
    The application of technology to food innovation forms the core of the foodtech vertical. Nicolas Appert’s improvement in 1810 of the canning procedure is anearly example of foodtech innovation. The emphasis was on safeguardingsustenance. The procedure wasn’t called canning at that point, and App…

  • Uber: Mumbai Office Shuts Down, Services For Riders Will Be Unaffected

    Uber has taken a decision to permanently close it’s Mumbai office as a part of the ride-hailing company’s decision to close around 45 branches of Uber globally. However, employees will work from home until December.

    Uber Not Coming Up With A Proper Statement

    services being continued from home
    Uber Mumbai Office shuts down

    When people tried to contact the spokesperson of Uber he stated, “Uber continues to provide a high level of service to all its riders in Mumbai”.

    Gurugram consists of one branch of Uber which is a big one and Uber is also having its technology centers in cities like Bengaluru and Hyderabad. It also consists of small support offices in many cities in India.


    OLA Cabs forays into United Kingdom after Australia & New Zealand
    Indian cab-hailing app OLA [/startup-story-ola/] launched its services in theisland nation of Europe in 2018. Indian startups [/tag/indian-startups/] aresetting the stage for global expansion. Indian ride-hailing app Ola has launchedoperations in London. Ola has more than 25,000 registered driver…


    Arch Rival Ola Also Facing the Same Type Of Crisis

    Uber’s arch-rival Ola has also fired around 1400 employees in May due to the same pandemic situation. Ride-hailing Competitor Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal also stated that companies condition is “very unclear and uncertain.”

    Adding to it Aggarwal said, “It is going to take a long time for people to go out and about like before. With more companies preferring to have a large number of employees work from home, air travel limited to essential trips and vacations being put off for better times, the impact of this crisis is definitely going to be long-drawn for us.”

    Fired Around 25% of Employees Globally

    In May Dara Khosrowshai, CEO Uber wrote to all the Uber employees that they are taking a decision to shut down around 45 Uber branches globally. This step has been taken due to the coronavirus pandemic.

    Uber also fired around 3700 employees in may which constituted around 25% of the workforce of the company.

    “We have made the incredibly difficult decision to reduce our workforce by around 3,000 people, and to reduce investments in several non-core projects, “said the Uber CEO in May hinting the outcomes.

    Till now around 6000 employees of Uber has been fired since the start of the pandemic which is creating a difficult situation for the company.


    Uber Success Story – How This Ride Hailing Company Came into Being
    In the 21st century, every tick-tock of clock counts and in such a scenario eventhe idea of waiting in queues for buses or autos does not seem good. UberTechnologies, Inc., came up with an idea to make every tick-tock count andenhance the traveling experience. Uber hails from The States and hasr…


    India Consisting Around 8% Of Total Global Employees

    India consists of around 8% of the total global employees of Uber. Also, Uber gave a statement that they will be laying off around 600 employees in the departments such as customer and driver support, business development, legal, finance, policy, and marketing verticals.

    “We began 2020 on an accelerated path to total company profitability. Then the coronavirus hit us with once-in-a-generation public health and economic crisis,” Khosrowshahi said in May.

    Uber Eats Can Be A Silver Lining

    Not much enough to compensate the loss
    Uber eats can be a silver lining

    “If there is one silver lining regarding this crisis, it is that Eats has become an even more important resource for people at home and for restaurants,” he said hoping a better future for Uber Eats. “We no longer need to look far for the next enormous growth opportunity, we are sitting right on top of one.”

    Although he has said that the profit they hope to gain from Uber eats would not help in the loss they are facing due to their cabs services. He has also warned that the profit can not be earned overnight.

    Uber globally also faced a huge loss of around $2.9 billion in the first quarter of 2020. In 2019 they were having a growth rate of around 14% from $3.1 billion to around $3.54 billion.

  • Top Companies Providing Contactless Services to its Customers

    As we look forward to the next normal, customers are already indicating a preference for companies who delivering contactless services by taking care of proper safety measures, reducing risk all along the customer journey. Companies are moving forward quickly to institute new policies that will allow them to resume their operations post COVID-19

    As India is going into a recovery phase, all its companies are looking for ways to provide goods and services seamlessly to its customers keeping in mind the safety of both its customers as well as its employees. Here is what the big companies are planning to do to provide a  contactless service to its customers.

    1. McDonald’s

    Westlife Development, the company that owns and operates McDonald’s restaurants in India has launched fully contactless take-outs in selected cities. The company stated that this move is aimed at providing a safe, hygienic, and convenient food take-outs for its customers who decide to step out of their homes to avail essential services. This contactless service delivered by McDonald’s allows its customers to place their take-out orders from their preferred stores ( nearest McDonald’s restaurant), pay online, and pick-up their order from the take-out counter on their way to home or work.

    The company ensured that the entire process from placing the order till receiving the order will be completely safe, contactless, and with adequate social distancing at every step. The company was one of the first QSR brands to resume their services with contactless deliveries and are currently delivering out of more than 150 delivery hubs.

    McDonald's 'contactless service' policy
    McDonald’s contactless policy

    Also Read: How to Provide a Contactless Experience to your Customers


    How Does This Contactless Service Works?

    • Open the McDonald’s app and select the take-out option.
    • Select the preferred store for the take-out ( nearest restaurant).
    • Order your meal and pay online.
    • Collect your order at the take-out counter at the restaurant

    1. Swiggy-Zomato-Dunzo

    The Directorate General of civil aviation (DCGA) has given permission to Swiggy, Zomato, and Dunzo to deliver the products to its customers using Drones. This will mark the first step in India’s plan to develop local drone-based services capabilities. This will set a benchmark for other companies as this will be the most appropriate method for contactless delivery. All these companies launched ‘contactless delivery’ in early March when India had less than 100 cases of the novel coronavirus. The companies continued their services throughout the pandemic with safety and hygiene measures being taken by their employees. As the cases in India have crossed lakhs and the fact that the virus’s impact is going to continue in the near future too, made these delivery startups to take the bold decision of serving its customers through drones.

    “We will start flying in the first week of July and plan the clock around 120 hours of flights in two and a half months.”

    said Nagendra Kandasamay, founder and director of Throttle Aerospace, which received approval from the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation in March along with Dunzo. India is looking at these experiments as a way to fast-pace its policies and preparing the local industrial sector to push into the drone service segment on a global basis.

    Volume of drones in Amazon's fleet from 2016-2020 (per 1000 people)
    Volume of drones in Amazon’s fleet from 2016-2020 (per 1000 people)

    Also Read: The Role Of Drones In The Upcoming Future


    2. Uber-Ola

    After four iterations of nationwide lockdown, the Indian government has lifted the restrictions from public transports as well. As public transportation services resume, Uber and Ola have come up with guidelines using which they will be rendering service to its customers in a ‘contactless’ way. With the fear of contagion of the virus being in the people’s minds, these companies have released guidelines using which a person can travel confidently. The things to be taken care of while using cabs are:

    • The driver should ensure that there are only two passengers traveling in the cab at a time
    • Wearing of masks is essential
    • Cab users can only occupy the back seats
    • Both Uber and Ola will need to discontinue their pooling services,i.e. Uber pool, and Ola pool
    • Cabs should be disinfected after every ride
    • Both the drivers and the customers should maintain hygiene inside the cab.

    Keeping in mind the Government policies, Uber also issued some guidelines which were also reflected on the Uber app.

    a) Checklists

    The online checklist available on the app cross-checks that both the driver and the customer are taking required precautions before requesting/accepting the ride.

    b) Mask Verification

    Uber is urging the drivers to click a selfie with a mask on before accepting a ride and also allows the driver to cancel a request if they feel that the customer is not wearing a mask.

    c) Free Cancellation

    The updated policy for cancellation by the company now allows the passenger to cancel the ride anytime if they feel that precautions are not being taken by the driver. The driver has the same rights to cancel under such circumstances.

    Similarly, Ola cabs have also taken such measures to ensure the safety of both its drivers as well as the customers.

    Conclusion

    As India struggles to get back the normalcy, the government, as well as the different sectors, are coming up with policies and guidelines for its citizens who do not have the luxury of staying at their homes and have to come out of their houses to do their respective jobs and duties.

  • FoodPanda (Ola) – Are you Listening to Your Customers? 🐼

    India is a market where our homegrown companies are competing fiercely with multinational giants. For Ola there is Uber, for Flipkart there is Amazon and Swiggy is competing with ubereats. One thing which greatly differentiate Indian companies from MNCs is the service quality. We all agree to the fact that Amazon and Uber provide better customer service than their competitors. This was also found in a recent survey by redsheer, where NPS score of MNCs were higher. ✔️

    FoodPanda and Ola 🐼🤝🚗

    I was talking to my friend who is currently working with Ola and he said that sometimes he has to work for Foodpanda when workload is higher (If you don’t know ola acquired Foodpanda this year). I instantly asked him if he can provide me Foodpanda coupons. He laughed it off and said, “why do I need a coupon when Foodpanda is already giving away food for free”.

    After the call, I checked the app and I found this 😍

    Offers on Foodpanda app

    I was really happy after seeing this, I will save money and time, as I won’t have to look in the big 4 (Zomato, Foodpanda, Ubereats and Swiggy) for coupons and offers. FoodPanda was my goto place.

    Here is what I found one day! 🥧 Pastries in 5 rupees!  

    FoodPanda offer | Delivered pastries | FoodPanda delivery guys

    So we ordered like 25 pastries and we had party in the office that day. We could only order one item in one order but there wasn’t any restriction on the number of orders. 25 different delivery boys delivered those 25 packet worth 5 rupees (after discount).

    Inefficiency kills me! Even though we enjoyed pastries, It was really surprising that, foodpanda or any other food delivery app don’t have any option to club the orders if two orders are from point A to point B. What’s more funny is that the a delivery guy who is 5 km away is assigned to pick an order from a restaurant who is just 800 mts away!

    This clearly shows that foodpanda wants to increase it number of order no matter what, probably to show investors, raise more funding and burn more! This events reminds of one business leasson from ashish hemrajani, founder BookmyShow!

    Ashish Hemrajani, founder bookmyshow on doing business 

    In StartupTalky, I learned a trick to check click data of any bit.ly or goo.gl url shortener. Just add “+” sign after the url. Foodpanda send a goo.gl URL whenever you place an order (to track status of delivery guy).

    [I don’t understand any company will leave one real data point open?] I checked the data if the offers had done a great work, and yes they did. I am sure the team was able to increase the number of orders at least 3 fold! Congrats! You are now ready to raise more funds! 💸💰

    Data of url sent to customers after delivery

    Update: Well they recently removed the offers and we can see the clicks have gone below the average. 📉

    Data of url sent to customers after delivery

    Well, this the joy of ordering food for so cheap was very short lived. with scale came problems!

    FoodPanda Problems

    Foodpanda problems
    • Restaurant is closed still showing
    • Order not delivered
    • App not working
    • Late or No delivery
    • Coupon not working
    • Order cancellation and refund
    • Bad customer support
    • Difference in taxes with orders with and without coupon
    • Chef at work showing for the last 4 hours
    • Order is showing delivered in the app but not in reality

    Was I the only one? NO!

    Just to know that if Foodpanda is just messing with or with everyone, I checked their Facebook page to see and in a post with more than 170 comments not a single comment was positive. Just like me, other customers were also having all sorts of issue with the order. It was very hard for Foodpanda support team to handle all these queries.

    Customers comment from their facebook page

    I am sure their twitter handle is also filled only with such queries. One of the comments which made me laugh like anything was

    We know running a startup is a tough job. Keep Indian customer happy feels like heaven but Mr. Panda how to plan to compete with global players when the situation is so pathetic? 🤔

    What people think about Big 4, Food Delivery startups

    I conducted a poll in StartupTalky to understand what people think of all food delivery startups.While swiggy stands at 157, food panda just got 8 votes!

    Poll conducted in the group

    What was the matter?

    To know the reason, I again talked to my friend and here is what I got to know.

    After the acquisition, Ola had announced that it would invest $200 million – over Rs 1,400 crores – in Foodpanda to elevate its market presence. Discount was one easy way to get new users and engage existing users. So a campaign “The Crave Party” was launched to relaunched Foodpanda. It was launched across all major cities and all discounts were given by Foodpanda only (restaurant was not bearing any cost for discounts, they just have to pay 23% commission on the original cost which Foodpanda anyways takes as an aggregator).

    Woah! No words

    Now to fulfill the orders, Foodpanda started to recruit 60,000 delivery men by offering a substantially higher salary than anyone in the hyperlocal delivery business but solwly they started reducing the salary from INR 1320/day to INR 40/delivery which comes around INR 400-450/day. Here is what happned next (in diagram).

    Bad Experience, Bad Experience, Bad Experience!

    How one thing at the top of the funnel affects the whole food delivery business

    So you can see these are all operations are connected as a funnel. Also, we can see that foodtech startup is more about the operation than tech.

    Learnings  📖

    • Scale your business but not at the cost of customer satisfaction/happiness.
    • Things may go out of your control while you scale, always be prepared for that.
    • Treat your team well, be true with them. They are one who will stand with you when no one will.
    • Indians are understood to love offers and discount, but everyone on the planet expects a minimum level of service quality. Especially when you are in food delivery, No one likes free pizza when they are not hungry.
    • Marketing is important but it must be supported with the efficient operation and tech.

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