Book Review: Saying No To Jugaad
In August 2019, Amazon launched its grocery store - Amazon Fresh - in India to deliver fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy and meat items and other packaged food items to customers in two hours. In September 2019, Bigbasket responded by merging two core businesses - on-demand 90-minute delivery and planned next-day orders - to supply a larger selection of items to its customers in less than 4 hours.In a country where groceries account for half of the almost $1trillion retail market, Bigbasket is fighting not just Amazon. Bengaluru-based Bigbasket competes against micro-delivery players such as MilkBasket and SuprDaily in the subscription-based milk delivery business. Jumbotail, Ninjacart and Udaan compete for the customer’s wallet with Bigbasket in its wholesale retailing business. It fights against Flipkart, and even Swiggy and Dunzo. In this crowded marketplace, Bigbasket has grown from being a babycorn to Unicorn. Saying No to Jugaad is their story.
Affluence of consumers impacts Bigbasket strategy
Jugaad has been synonymous with India. Today Jugaad has become a lazy person’s excuse to stop innovating. The first thing I liked about this book about the story of Bigbasket said no to Jugaad at every stage. They see their business like running a marathon. Their assortment selection, supply chain, warehouses, cold chains, farmer-connect programmes and international sourcing are all designed keeping in mind rapidly changing consumer preferences. Millets are now considered a superfood; they are also gluten-free. A few years back, millets was considered to be the poor man’s food. Food is the first thing people splurge on, when income levels rise, followed by apparel, housing and education.Affluence changes consumption patterns. What you eat is the new status symbol. “Indians consume 22 per cent more calories now per day vis-à-vis 50 years ago. The share of protein (including protein from meats) has grown. The share of cereals has decreased. The fall in the share of grains has happened alongside increase in sugar and fat intake. As people are becoming more health-conscious, they are shifting to diets that are low in carbohydrates, but high in protein, vitamins and minerals.”At Bigbasket, the sale of gourmet products went up a hundredfold in just three years. Consumption of internationally procured cheese has shot up. Vinegar consumption has gone up almost 500-fold in the last three years and so has the consumption of olive oil. These insights have been woven into the fabric of the business plan
How did Bigbasket become a Unicorn
“Saying No to Jugaad” is the story of Bigbasket’s business strategy, culture and its desire to build a culture that puts the customer at the center. There are some interesting questions posed. Is is better to be tech-driven or tech-enabled. Most start-ups fall into one of two categories: a) those that are tech-first, where one of the co-founders is also the CTO. The perspective in these start-ups is often, ‘How can we leverage technology to build new businesses?’; and b) those that are tech-enabled, where the CTO is almost always not a founder. The perspective here is, ‘How can technology enhance the effectiveness of our business?’Read: Why should India stop celebrating JugaadThe book names several employees who have brought in the little nudges and innovations. In retrospect, that maybe the unique flavour of the book. It is not the founders and the leadership team that is portrayed as the reason for success. From a book written by a HR leader like TN Hari, we would expect nothing less. Bigbasket is not tech-first. It maybe tech-enabled. It places the employee shoulder to shoulder with the customer. That maybe the missing secret the book should have told us.
Waiting for the sequel
India is the second largest producer of Fruit and Vegetables (F&V) in the world at over 300 million tonnes per annum. Despite this, our per capita consumption of F&V at about 300 grams per person a day is still lower than the WHO-recommended 400 grams per person a day. The shopping basket of the Indian household will become even bigger. That can mean only one thing – there needs to be a sequel to this book.I met Hari recently and asked him how the hiring strategy of an organization changes as it grows. His answer was very interesting.https://youtu.be/S_fpvv4m8q0
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