Resilient systems

When two young IITians Sachin & Binny Bansal started an online book store in 2007—likely inspired by their experience at Amazon—there were serious doubts about the success of their venture.

- KRISHAN KALRA, ALL INDIA MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION

Later, as they went on adding products across categories—consumer electronic goods, fashion apparel, toys, cosmetics, etc., soon to have virtually everything on their site—the doubts were laid to rest. Just 11 years later, Walmart valued their enterprise, started with an initial investment of a mere ₹4 lakh, at $38 billion, and acquired a 77 per cent stake in the company.

There were also serious fears that kiranas (neighbourhood grocery stores) and many other services would all go out of business. These fears heightened hugely when, in 2013, Amazon set up shop in India, rapidly expanding since. Today, they have over a million sellers on their platform and a huge juggernaut of partners—delivery, warehousing, fulfilment—needed for handling their multi-billion-dollar business and almost flawless systems for quick delivery, replacements, and refunds, etc.