“I don’t thing we are running the same company that we started back in 2008. The business that we had is very different from the business that we have now. I think this the fourth version (Zomato 4.0) of the company,” Goyal said.
Zomato’s founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal sees quick-commerce service Blinkit to be bigger than its parent food delivery business in a year.
Goyal was speaking at the Startup Mahakumbh event at Bharat Mandapam in Delhi. During a fireside chat with Info Edge Founder Sanjeev Bikhchandani, Goyal said, “It is all about how do we disrupt our own businesses. For instance, right now we have a business plan competition going on within the company, which will focus on offering funds to a small team, which will come up with a plan to disrupt the businesses that we are in right now. That could lead to Zomato version 5 or Blinkit version 2. Blinkit is a part of Zomato version 4, and in one year’s time, Blinkit would be bigger than Zomato.”
“I don’t thing we are running the same company that we started back in 2008. The business that we had is very different from the business that we have now. I think this the fourth version (Zomato 4.0) of the company,” Goyal said.
Goyal also said it will be difficult to build a generational company in current times compared to previous times. “None of the business models that are being created right now will last beyond a decade because with all the tech and distribution systems that are changing. You have to innovate and create new businesses from the outcomes you’ve created so far if you want to last longer.”
According to Albinder Dhindsa, Founder & CEO of Blinkit (he founded online grocery delivery service Grofers with Saurabh Kumar in 2013), quick commerce was thought of as far back as 2015, but the backend proved to be an issue. And when it emerged, it was not entirely planned. “We opened stores during the pandemic since the supply chain had collapsed. To overcome that, we disaggregated the facilities and instead of one large warehouse, we had to go for smaller ones,” he told Business Today in an earlier interview.
Now, there was an opportunity to deliver faster with a very efficient supply chain. “Inventory must move fast and if you sweat the asset and increase the width of products, the number of places where you get operating leverage (proportion of fixed costs to overall costs) takes off. Quick commerce (apart from Blinkit, there is Swiggy Instamart and Zepto) may give you lower revenue per item, but it also moves quickly and assortment between stores must be different,” says Dhindsa, 41. In terms of a strategic fit, Zomato understood areas such as how much to charge and the service parameters, while Blinkit had grasped the nuances of brands, apart from sourcing, warehousing, and replenishment.
