Published on March 14, 2024
Who would want grocery in 15 minutes? This was the early reaction from consumers when the concept of instant delivery was launched by e-commerce retailers. Today, the same consumers are expecting groceries at their doorstep in an instant, ordering even multiple times in a day. This unprecedented shift in consumer preferences is changing the landscape of online grocery business in the country, and BigBasket is at the forefront of the quick commerce revolution. “The order is processed in 30 seconds, the item is picked up in three minutes, the transit is six minutes and we have four minutes for the customer interaction,” said T K Balakumar, Chief Operating Officer of BigBasket, revealing the Tata company’s execution excellence in delivering groceries in 10-15 minutes flat. Addressing TBExG’s 47th Leadership Series Webinar on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, Balakumar shared the secret behind’s BigBasket’s 16x growth story in just nine years, with over 50 million customers across the country and an annual revenue of more than Rs. 11,000-crore.
BigBasket is India’s leading online grocer, having a presence in more than 350 cities and towns, with 50,000+ employees processing over 20-million orders every month, covering 100,000 listed products. Notably, 85% of the orders are from repeat customers. “We have a consumer centric business model supported by a strong technology-enabled and inventory-led back-end supply chain that includes branded foods, private label foods as well as non-food offerings,” said Balakumar, adding that the company has varying lines of business like instant delivery, quick commerce, same-day slotted delivery and grocery partnerships with kiranas. Out of 19,000 pin codes in the country, BigBasket services 3600+ pin codes and its reach is growing by the year.
Culture of Excellence
At BigBasket, agility is a virtue. “When it comes to meeting customer needs, quick and crude is better than slow and steady. Agility is deeply embedded in our execution processes,” said Balakumar, adding that the culture at BigBasket is built around three goals and four tenets. The three goals aim to make BigBasket the most preferred for three sets of people – the most preferred e-grocery destination for customers, the most-preferred business partner for farmers and the most-preferred employer for the blue collar workforce. “Our four tenets – to have a maniacal focus on customers, to demonstrate a sense of urgency and speed in everything we do, to have freedom with responsibility in everything we do and to take ownership for everything – are aligned with our goals,” said Balakumar.
BigBasket’s quest for execution excellence is defined by its 3C focus – customer experience to deliver customer delight, capacity management to plan the capacity on ground and ensure a balance between demand and supply, and cost optimisation to tightly monitor costs in the scale-run business. The excellence journey aims to recreate and replicate the touch-and-feel experience for the consumer in a sector where 95% of grocery is still purchased in-person and e-commerce accounts for just 5% of the market. “What you see is what you get – this is our assurance of quality to the consumer, and we go to great lengths to deliver what we promise,” said Balakumar.
Robust Processes
The online grocery operations are run through four key metrics – fill rate of the goods, out of stock percentage, on-time delivery and customer complaints. “There’s a strong correlation; a defect in any of the first three metrics reflects in the fourth one, with customer dissonance leading to rise in complaints. The four metrics are tracked on a dashboard at all levels – right from the shift supervisor on the ground to the CEO,” revealed Balakumar.
There is empowerment at various levels and the processes are well-defined – right from failsafe picking process to last-mile delivery, every stakeholder is fully empowered to handle all customer issues. “The call centre is the final frontier. The executives are empowered to address customer issues on the spot. Similarly, while the operations managers are empowered with all the data and MIS on the field, the regional business leaders fully own the P&L,” the industry veteran said, adding that the role of each person is clearly defined even as the central dashboard reflects the daily performance of all units. The performance review is structured and the organisation extends strong performance-linked incentives across levels. “We have the high profile and high impact annual pinnacle awards for all performers across the board, including the blue collar workforce, to recognise and reward talent,” Balakumar said.
Redefining Benchmarks
Departing from the conventional supply chain model with multiple levels that discounted the farmer’s price, BigBasket has revamped the fruits and vegetables supply chain to buy directly from farmers. “It’s truly a farm-to-fork model in place. 80% of our produce is sourced directly from the farmers. We have instances of farmers harvesting the produce in the morning and the consumer consuming it on the same day,” said Balakumar, adding that while the farmer gets better price realisation, the consumer gets fresh produce of better quality.
Another area where BigBasket has redefined the business is the diversity of its workforce. Mitigating challenges of attrition, the leadership team launched a concerted diversity & inclusion drive to induct women delivery partners, enroll the PWD employees in the support framework, initiate leadership connects and conduct skill-building programmes. BigBasket also conceived a tech-enabled personnel protocol that handles blue collar employees right from onboarding through the entire lifecycle management. Special training apps have reduced the training time from three days to just three hours. This not only led to a significant improvement in productivity but also BigBasket is recognised among India’s Best Workplaces for Women.
Continuous Innovation
Innovation is a key function within BigBasket. While customer-focused initiatives have improved efficiency and delivered cost reductions, leveraging technology has yielded significant results – from introduction of multi-order picking to route optimisation. Despite constraints like preferred delivery slots, on-time delivery, order clubbing, route restrictions and real time traffic, tech-enabled innovations have increased efficiency by 15% as well as augmented the net earnings of the biker. Other tangible results of continuous innovation are 98% on-time deliveries, 23% improvement in time utilisation, 15% increase in capacity utilisation, 18% reduction in logistics cost and 12% increase in rider efficiency.
An innovative approach to packing and packaging of fruits and vegetables has not only reduced picking time but also cut packing waste to make the process more sustainable. Initiatives like setting up of automated cash deposit machines and invoice printing machines have also made a positive impact. “At BigBasket, innovation is a continuous process and excellence in execution is integral to delivering delight to the Indian consumer,” Balakumar said.