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<ul><li><keyword id="6397414" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ananth-Narayanan">Ananth Narayanan</keyword> was one of the most high profile exits from Flipkart, after it was acquired by Walmart. </li><li>Narayanan has now joined e-pharmacy startup <keyword id="3873233" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Medlife">Medlife</keyword>. </li><li>Medlife, which was started in 2014, reportedly does 20,000 deliveries in a day.</li></ul>Ananth Narayanan, who quit Flipkart owned Myntra after the acquisition by Walmart, has now joined Medlife as its <a href="https://www.livemint.com/companies/people/former-myntra-jabong-ceo-ananth-narayanan-joins-medlife-1564991124569.html">CEO</a>. There were rumours that Narayanan left his position as Myntra Jabong’s CEO because of his misalignment with Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy. Even while Narayanan was working for the company, reports said that he could join the Indian OTT platform Hotstar. However, he is now part of <keyword id="2868700" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="online-pharmacy">online pharmacy</keyword> startup. Medlife was founded in 2014 by Tushar Kumar and Prashant Singh, and helps patients and doctors manage their files online. The company claims to perform 20,000 deliveries across India and is reportedly in talks with pharma giant Cipla for a funding round. Cipla could invest <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/cipla-in-talks-to-back-e-pharmacy-medlife/articleshow/70489577.cms">₹170 crore </a>in the e-pharmacy startup. There were also reports that <a href="https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/softbank-in-talks-to-invest-70-million-in-indian-e-pharmacy-medlife-119061301247_1.html">SoftBank</a> too was looking at investing in the startup. Bengaluru-based Medlife had also acquired its competitor <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/medlife-acquires-myra-to-take-epharma-service-to-22-cities/articleshow/69193813.cms">Myra Medicines</a> earlier in May 2019, expanding its deliveries to 22 cities in India.

Former Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan joins online pharmacy Medlife

<ul><li><keyword id="3873233" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Medlife">Medlife</keyword> is currently witnessing an 8% month-on-month growth and hopes to achieve 100% year-on-year growth over last year.</li><li>It will continue to focus on digital marketing, and come up with hyper-local personalized content to target consumers.</li><li>Medlife is looking at almost doubling its consumer base from last year’s 1.5 million to 2.5 million this year.</li></ul> It’s been about three months since <keyword id="6397414" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ananth-Narayanan">Ananth Narayanan</keyword>, former CEO of Myntra and Jabong came on board as the Co-founder and CEO of Bengaluru-based health-tech company Medlife. Since then, Narayanan has focused on coming up with strategies to scale up the business, always keeping the consumer at the core. Founded in 2014 by Tushar Kumar and Prashant Singh, Medlife, which started out being an online medicine delivery platform has today diversified its offering to <keyword id="164597" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="diagnostics">diagnostics</keyword> and online consultations. The company is currently witnessing an 8% month-on-month growth and hopes to achieve 100% year-on-year growth over last year. It is also looking at expanding its diagnostics presence across 50 cities within the next 24 months. In a recent conversation, Narayanan told us that Medlife’s marketing strategy would revolve around coming up with hyper-local digital content to target different areas in the cities they launch and will back that up with BTL as well as Radio. “However, our aim would be to do a 360 degree surround for our consumers. When they think of healthcare, Medlife should be the first port of call for them,” says Narayanan. Edited excerpts: Q) From growing Myntra in the fashion e-commerce space to now growing Medlife in the online healthcare space, how has the journey been so far? I am a consumer-backed person and look for large markets to play in. Both Myntra and Medlife are a $100 billion market, however in India, access, consumer journey and having standardized processes and procedures to make healthcare simple is a problem. So it felt like a very large problem to solve. Medlife started four years ago and is in the process of solving at least two or three of these problems. I met the founders Tushar and Prashant at that time, and it felt like we're very complementary. While Tushar played more of a strategy role, Prashant and I went on to run the business. It seemed like a good idea to come together and see if we could scale it. My vision for Medlife is to build it into a trusted brand partner and serve all the healthcare needs of the 100 million plus Indians, by keeping technology at the core. Since you joined Medlife, what have your areas of focus been? There have been three to four focus key focus areas for me. The first is to improve consumer experience. We’ve launched a new react native app and have reduced the lead time for delivery. We're scaling Express which is our two-hour delivery service in eight cities. So consumers have been a big focus. Secondly, we need to make the business sustainable. In the next six to eight months, we want to reach unit economics breakeven, which means at the unit level, we don't lose money anymore. Once we achieve that, we can scale as much or as little as we want. Thirdly, there’s a continued focus on ramping up the team. We already have a terrific team of 400 people but are working on strengthening it further. We want to strengthen the tech, product and the operation side of the team. Also, we're a very small part of a very large business and our aim is to sustain a healthy growth. What kind of growth has Medlife been witnessing? Today, the online penetration of health is less than 2%. We want to grow 8% month-on-month. By the end of this year, we'll have a 100% year-on-year growth over last year. It looks like we will be ahead of our original plan for the year. Have you set a target for yourself, in terms of Medlife’s growth? In the next five years, I want to be 10X of what I am today. And if we continue to see 100% growth year-on-year, we will easily reach there. Also, I want to be able to serve multi-million customers. By when do you expect Medlife to become a profit-making entity? The key milestone is unit economics. Hopefully, as I said, six to eight months from now, we'll get there. And after that, it's really a matter of choice as to when you want to become profitable. How big is your consumer base right now and what kind of growth are you seeing in that regard? Last year, we served 1.5 million customers, and we continue to grow. This year, we will serve 2.5 million customers. Since you have diversified to diagnostics and consultation, which segments are performing the best for you? We started out being a medicine delivery platform and that's still 85-87% of the business and still growing rapidly. But that gives us a large customer base to do diagnostics with. Diagnostic is a newer business which we started about a year ago and is growing very fast for us, the unit economics are already profitable. On the <keyword id="387573" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="online-consultation">online consultation</keyword> front, we have about 1,500 doctors on board and again, that number is growing rapidly too. In terms of growth, medicine delivery is growing at 6-7% and the other two are growing in double digits month-on-month. How have you built the consumer’s trust on your platform? In the businesses we operate in, the way to build trust is by sticking to your promise. We measure a lot on NPS and consumer experience. We work hard to ensure that we deliver whatever we commit to the customer. We are also very careful about quality, whether it's our medicines, diagnostic test results or the consultations. We do a lot of checks, tech-driven and otherwise, that allow us to make sure that the quality of our offering is great. Your vision is to turn Medlife into an e-health provider. Can you expand on that? Our aim is to own the consumer journey and provide them with everything they need. Today, we may be into medicine delivery, diagnostics and consultation but there are many other things that the customer actually wants. They want home healthcare, primary and secondary care and health insurance. We don't intend to do all of this but we’re trying to partner with the ecosystem to provide customers all of these offerings. What are your strategies to grow your market share and expand reach? Like I said, the current penetration is 2% and we have 10x growth ahead of us. We’ve built a good supply chain network. We have over 40 fulfillment centers all over. Extending the supply chain is one way of penetrating the market. The second is continuing to reach people through digital marketing. And the third is by starting to expose them to the multiple services that we actually offer. There are roughly 62 million online transacting customers in India today and we only serve 2 million, so there’s a huge opportunity. Are your consumers primarily from the metro cities? The age range of our customers is between 26 and 86, so it's a much broader range than e-commerce. Secondly, about 60% of our consumers are from the top 30 cities and 40% come from beyond. Medlife has made some strategic acquisitions with <keyword id="8296503" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="medlabz">MedLabz</keyword> and <keyword id="304370" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Myra">Myra</keyword>. Are more acquisitions on the cards? We will continue to do strategic acquisitions. We acquired MedLabz when we realized diagnostic is important for us. Express delivery was an important capability. The market today has chronic needs and acute needs. Acute needs account for roughly half the market, but you need to be able to supply within one to two hours. That's why we acquired Myra. So we will keep looking for capabilities to buy. How will be your broad marketing strategy going ahead? The healthcare space works micro-market by micro-market. So we look at 10 parts of Mumbai as 10 different markets. We think of personalizing the digital marketing in each of these areas very differently. We will also do Radio and BTL to get to our consumers. But the key is to start doing a 360 degree marketing around the customer so that Medlife becomes a part of their lives. Medlife needs to be the first port of call for them, whenever they think of health needs and that’s what we're trying to establish. Our brand proposition is, ‘Health comes home’. Where do you want to see Medlife in the next few years? There's still a lot of scale left to be had in the medicine delivery side of business. We want to expand our Express rapidly. We are offering diagnostics in 20 cities currently, we'd love to be in 40-50 cities. So we'll scale it up in the next 24 months. Thirdly, we will also work on creating personal online consultation into a paid consultation service, not just a complimentary one. Where do you anticipate the next phase of growth for Medlife will come from? We will grow with deeper penetration in the current cities that we’re in. I believe that in all the big cities that we're in for pharma, labs will start to become big. Medicine delivery will expand beyond the top 30 cities and we're starting to think about supply chain infrastructure beyond the top 30 cities.

Medlife hopes to achieve 100% growth by the end of this financial year, will take its diagnostics offering to 50 cities within the next 24 months

New Delhi, Apr 28 () E-Health platform Medlife on Tuesday said it has partnered with accredited labs to launch at-home testings for COVID-19 in select cities, and plans to expand it going forward. The price of a test is set at Rs 4,500 and will be conducted by labs authorised by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Medlife said in a statement. It added that the tests will be conducted using real-time PCR methodology. Currently, the COVID-19 testing service is available in Mumbai, Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad and Faridabad, it added. Gurugram and Pune will be added shortly, the company said. Medlife has also launched its e-consultation services and has empanelled 1,500 doctors across India for the same, the statement said. "We are partnering with ICMR-authorised labs to aid in the rapid scaling up of COVID-19 testing in India, an essential measure to check the spread of the virus in the country," Medlife co-founder and CEO Ananth Narayanan said. As the company plays its part in the nation's fight against the pandemic, it is determined to ensure that regular and chronic patients continue to receive quality healthcare services, he added. "The launch of our e-consultation service is aimed at encouraging vulnerable and at-risk patients, especially ones with chronic diseases, to direct their concerns to our highly-trained doctors from the safety and comfort of their homes", Narayanan said. The labs with which the company has partnered are accredited by National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL), a constituent board of the Quality Council of India. AKT HRS

Medlife launches at-home COVID-19 testing in select cities

(Photo Source : <keyword id="319719" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Myntra">Myntra</keyword>) <ul><li>The CEO of <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword>’s fashion brand Myntra, Ananth Narayanan, said that he is going to continue lead operations in the fashion unit. </li><li><keyword id="80487" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="walmart">Walmart</keyword> is currently in the process of restructuring Flipkart after the abrupt resignation of former CEO and co-founder <keyword id="6364080" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="binny-bansal">Binny Bansal</keyword>. </li><li>The e-commerce has already announced plans of rolling Myntra and Jabong into Flipkart, and now reports indicate that the two fashion entities may come under one umbrella. </li></ul>After the announcement of Binny Bansal’s <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/flipkart-group-ceo-binny-bansal-steps-down-following-allegations-of-serious-personal-misconduct/articleshow/66608441.cms">resignation</a> from the Walmart-owned Flipkart Group, reports speculated that the Ananth Narayanan, the CEO of their fashion brand, Myntra, would likely resign. But it seems as though he’s here to say with <a href="https://in.reuters.com/article/myntra-ceo/flipkart-group-fashion-unit-chief-says-to-continue-in-role-idINKCN1NL0KJ">Reuters</a> reporting he is excited about Myntra going forward. According to a <a href="https://www.livemint.com/Companies/PgkNUOseOWncBjl30Ib9eO/Walmart-to-layoff-200-at-Jabong-today-merge-it-with-Myntra.html">report</a> by LiveMint, Walmart is planning on completely integrating Jabong into Myntra only days after announcing that the fashion brands would be rolled into Flipkart. Sources are afraid that this may lead to nearly 200 layoffs. What was the confusion? Binny Bansal’s abrupt resignation led Walmart to name Kalyan Krishnamurthy as the new CEO of the Flipkart Group. According to recent <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/flipkart-in-a-flip-myntra-ceo-cfo-quit/articleshow/66644142.cms">media reports</a>, Narayanan did not share a ‘friendly’ rapport with Krishnamurthy. Even without any change in Narayanan’s position at the organisation, he would now be reporting to Krishnamurthy instead of Bansal which many speculated would cause friction. Till now, Myntra, while being a subsidiary of Flipkart, has operated more-or-less independently. Krishnamurthy maintains that, even with Jabong merging with Myntra, the fashion brand will continue to have the same level of autonomy. Bansal, who <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/allegations-left-me-stunned-flipkarts-binny-bansal-resigns-denying-claims-of-personal-misconduct/articleshow/66619043.cms">denied</a> all the charges of ‘personal misconduct’ in his last letter to employees, is currently undergoing an independent investigation.

Walmart may have plans to merge fashion brands under Flipkart — But Myntra’s CEO isn’t going anywhere

New Delhi, Mar 25 () Online health platform Medlife on Wednesday said one of its delivery personnel in Delhi was hit by the cops while on duty, and urged authorities to ensure that delivery personnel with valid documentation are allowed to perform their duties. The development comes at a time when the entire country is under 21-days lockdown. The government, however, in its notification has allowed delivery of all essential goods including food, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment through e-commerce. "Medlife delivery personnel Prakash in Delhi in the Todapur area was bringing back curfew passes and was hit by the cops on the way back to the fulfillment center. In the process, he was injured and suffered bruises on his face and body. We now also have reports of similar incidents in Bengaluru," Medlife CEO and co-founder Ananth Narayanan said in a statement. Narayanan said, the indiscriminate use of force against personnel delivering items specifically exempted by the government during the shutdown will disrupt services. "The essential services sector has to be free of harassment and violence. We request the state governments and concerned authorities to ensure that strict instructions are given to the police to permit delivery personnel with valid documentation to perform their duties in these times of crisis," he added. E-commerce players, including Amazon India and Milkbasket, have been facing disruption in delivery of even essential products to their customers. Industry watchers have said there is an urgent need for uniform classification of essential items across various states, and that instructions need to flow down clearly to the last mile, where the delivery agents are facing issues. Industry experts also flagged challenges around movement of delivery personnel and staff, as well as interstate movement of goods amid lockdown across the country. Some e-commerce players are also urging the government to expand the scope of essential products beyond food items and medicines to include other products like cable and routers that may be required for customers who are working from home. SR SHWSHW

Covid-19 lockdown: Medlife says staff was hit by cops

(Eds: Updates with order withdrawn) New Delhi, Mar 26 () Hours after allowing several online retail firms to re-start their delivery services, the Delhi police on Thursday withdrew its previous order with "immediate effect", officials said.The police had issued a statement directing its personnel to allow persons and vehicles engaged in essential services to operate in Delhi and listed names of retailers and online delivery services that should be allowed to function.However, the order was withdrawn with immediate effect hours after it was issued, stating that the revised guidelines will be released and all traffic, picket and beat staff would be briefed accordingly.The police did not cite any reason for withdrawing its previous order, but a senior police official said essential supplies would continue and a uniform order across states would be issued soon.This comes a day after the Delhi police held a meeting with representatives of e-commerce platforms to ensure uninterrupted supply of essential goods and services during the 21-day lockdown enforced to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.Zomato, Flipkart, Amazon, 24Seven, Blue Dart, DTDC, Wow Express, Swiggy, Grofers, BigBasket, MilkBaasket, Dunzo, Big Bazaar, Snapdeal, Licious, Medlife, Pharmeasy, UrbanClap, Ninjacart, Honsa Conumer Pvt. Limited, Healthians Diagnostics, Delhivery Pvt Limited, Nutrimoo Milk Dairy, More Retail Limited, Easyday, Jabong, Myntra, Spencer's, Reliance Fresh, Jubilant Food Works, Foodpanda, Faaso's, Pizza Hut, Uber Eats, Needs Supermart Pvt Limited, 1MG, Dr. Lal Path Labs, Max-Path, Satvacart, Iifco and other e-commerce retailers and operators were allowed to function in the national capital, according the now-withdrawn order.Police have set up a platform on WhatsApp for e-commerce websites to solve their issues and delivery agents were being issued passes for hassle-free movement.The government announced a 21-day nationwide lockdown since Wednesday, saying social distancing is the only way out for the country in its decisive battle against the coronavirus pandemic.The novel coronavirus cases in the country climbed to 649 on Wednesday. The death toll has reached 13, according to the Union Health Ministry. Delhi has reported 36 cases, with one death. AMP ABHABH

Delhi police withdraws order allowing online retail firms to re-start services

(Photo Source: Rediff) <ul><li><keyword id="319719" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Myntra">Myntra</keyword> is seeing a management shakeup with key leaders including its head resigning from their respective posts. </li><li>The online fashion retailer’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Ananth Narayanan, stepped down from his role in the company, Mint reported on Monday. </li><li>Other top-notch officials including Mithun Sundar, the company’s Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) and Manpreet Ratia, who heads Human Resource for the company, have also resigned from their posts. </li><li>Overall <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword> has fired nearly 200 employees from its fashion units, Myntra and <keyword id="6388367" type="LOCATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="jabong">Jabong</keyword>, but has been trying to hold onto their employees and executives via retention packages, according to media reports. </li></ul>Just weeks after Binny Bansal’s <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/allegations-left-me-stunned-flipkarts-binny-bansal-resigns-denying-claims-of-personal-misconduct/articleshow/66619043.cms">controversial</a> resignation as Flipkart Group’s CEO last month, its subsidiary, Myntra, is seeing a management shakeup of sorts with key leaders resigning from their respective posts. Most recently, the online fashion retailer’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Ananth Narayanan, stepped down from his role in the company as per a Mint <a href="https://www.livemint.com/Companies/SBP6RB7kvaAbDtlES1dLRO/Myntra-chief-Ananth-Narayanan-quits-firm-may-abolish-CEO-po.html">report</a>. Other top-notch officials including Mithun Sundar, their Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), and Manpreet Ratia, who heads Human Resources for the company, have also resigned from their posts. The post for company’s CEO will be abolished entirely after Narayanan’s resignation, while Flipkart’s executive Amar Nagaram may end up leading Myntra, according to the report. Myntra’s workforce is also reportedly seeing a reshuffle as the company and the subsidiary have been aggressively firing employees. So far, Flipkart has fired nearly 200 <a href="https://www.livemint.com/Companies/SBP6RB7kvaAbDtlES1dLRO/Myntra-chief-Ananth-Narayanan-quits-firm-may-abolish-CEO-po.html">employees</a> from its fashion units — Myntra and Jabong. With Flipkart recently announcing Jabong’s assimilation with Myntra across verticals, more firings are <a href="https://www.livemint.com/Companies/SBP6RB7kvaAbDtlES1dLRO/Myntra-chief-Ananth-Narayanan-quits-firm-may-abolish-CEO-po.html">expected</a> to take place. On the other hand, the fashion retailer is also seeking to hold onto other employees and executives via retention packages that include incentives for the employees aside from their regular salary. Walmart acquired Flipkart earlier this year for $16 billion. With the retailing giant’s backing, Flipkart has been <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/has-amazon-overtaken-flipkart-new-numbers-reopen-the-debate/articleshow/66863163.cms">competing</a> neck and neck with <keyword id="18635" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Amazon">Amazon</keyword>. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/has-amazon-overtaken-flipkart-new-numbers-reopen-the-debate/articleshow/66863163.cms">Has Amazon overtaken Flipkart? New numbers reopen the debate</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/walmart-may-have-plans-to-merge-fashion-brands-under-flipkart-but-myntras-ceo-isnt-going-anywhere/articleshow/66652526.cms">Walmart may have plans to merge fashion brands under Flipkart — But Myntra’s CEO isn’t going anywhere</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/allegations-left-me-stunned-flipkarts-binny-bansal-resigns-denying-claims-of-personal-misconduct/articleshow/66619043.cms">‘Allegations left me stunned’: Flipkart’s Binny Bansal resigns denying claims of ‘personal misconduct’</a>

Myntra is in the middle of a management shakeup after key leaders resign in succession

In a bid to ramp up the operations, technology and ethnic offerings, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=flipkart&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Flipkart</a> raised the annual budget of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=myntra&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Myntra</a>. <keyword id="319719" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Myntra">Myntra</keyword>, which was acquired by <keyword id="6354742" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Flipkart">Flipkart</keyword> in 2014 for $300 million, will also use the budget to invest in at least three small to medium ethnic brands. "This year we got 25% extra money from the Flipkart board," said Myntra CEO <keyword id="6397414" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Ananth-Narayanan">Ananth Narayanan</keyword>. "We will just invest in those brands and that will eventually be run by the entrepreneurs. In addition to our operating budget, our board has asked us to thoughtfully invest more in areas such as technology and brands which will help us continue on our growth trajectory and achieve profitability by March 2018," Narayanan told ET in an interview. Flipkart has funds to rake in Myntra as it had raised $1.4 billion funding from global giants <keyword id="10387" type="CITY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Microsoft">Microsoft</keyword>, eBay and WeChat-investor Tencent. Narayanan said, “The additional budget will boost Myntra's chance of reaching its milestone of becoming profitable by March 2018 along with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/searchresult.cms?query=jabong&amp;sortorder=effectivedate">Jabong.com</a>.”

Flipkart is pumping money in Myntra to ramp up operations; hikes annual budget by 25%

<ul><li>While we all are watching, worrying about everything that’s happening outside from behind the closed doors, delivery personnels from Dunzo, Medlife and Housejoy are risking their lives everyday to make sure we get our daily essentials and stay safe.</li><li>We reached out to their marketing heads of these brands to understand the challenges these players have faced in the past 21 days, from delivering products to communicating with consumers and here is how they are functioning in the new normal. </li></ul>While we are all scared and anxious to step out even for a few minutes, brands like Dunzo, Medlife and Housejoy are making sure that we are all safely cooped at home. From catering to the ever-increasing demand to coming up with creative solutions like contact-less delivery that ensure the safety of their consumers, as well as their delivery partners, these brands have embraced the challenges—as and when they come—with open arms. To prepare for the long haul, they are welcoming new delivery personnel, introducing fresh HR policies, sanitising their storing facilities, and reminding their consumers to take good care of themselves by washing their hands and maintaining safe physical distance -- on social media every day. However, things haven’t been simple for these players on the ground. In the first few days of the lockdown, owing to confusion and lack of clarity around guidelines, it was difficult for a lot of these players to function smoothly. Telling us what kind of challenges Medlife faced during the first few days of the lockdown, Meera Iyer, CMO, Medlife, said, “The lockdown has been quite a difficult time for Medlife. In terms of business, our traffic and demand has more than doubled. Organically, a lot of people have been coming online and wanting to order medicines as well as use our e-consultation service. But unfortunately, on the other side, the lockdown has meant total disruption on the ground for our operations team. The supply chain particularly was severely impacted in the first 2 weeks. Things are better now and slowly coming back to normal but it was the case of 2X the number of orders and pretty much 50% capacity on the ground, thereby allowing us to service around 25% of our customers. So customer experience went for a toss during this period.” Despite the limitations that the lockdown brought, it also brought with it a lot of growth opportunities for brands like Dunzo. Elaborating, Sai Ganesh, Head Marketing &amp; Creative, Dunzo said, “Groceries used to be our main category earlier and demand in that category has gone through the roof. We have seen significant organic growth, especially in grocery, medicine, meat and fish. That’s been the biggest opportunity where we are seeing a lot of organic traffic and new users coming in. Housejoy, which is a tech-driven construction, renovation, interiors and Home Maintenance company, rose to the occasion and started delivering essentials. Telling us how they arrived at it, Arpan Biswas, Vice President - Marketing, Housejay, said, “We saw an opportunity as the big players, who deliver essential services, have seen a growth of 6X. However, a lot of their delivery personnel left for their hometowns. So we have internally we offer home services and some of them don’t fall in essentials, so we have supply and tech in place. We just had to add groceries to it. We took a couple of weeks to take a call -- we saw an opportunity and thought this might make sense for us! From there, it was quite easy for us. Also, we wanted to make sure our internal delivery guys get to earn a bit and keep their households running. We have seen good growth so far. If it continues, we will think of approaching this category seriously.” In sensitive times such as today, there's always a chance that if brands come out with marketing communications, their intent will be frowned upon. Telling us how Dunzo is treading that line between communicating what’s required and being opportunistic, Ganesh said, “Our marketing communications in the past 45 days is very rarely focusing on selling the value proposition of Dunzo. We have also tried to use what guidelines WHO released for brands to incorporate social distancing, wearing masks, washing hands regularly, etc, so we have tried to use that. After the first lockdown was announced for two weeks, there was a period when users did not care about what your brand had to say. We saw very little engagement in those two weeks. The first two weeks were spent on informing the audience about what's happening, right things to the users and what precautions we are taking. Right now, they are looking for lighter, humourous content. There is a lot of stress right now and social media is a comic relief for them. So, we have moved to lighter content and none of it sells our product.” To help maintain a positive environment on social media and reach out to a wider audience, Dunzo is also looking at exploring TikTok, which, as Ganesh said, is a great way to connect with their delivery partners. Biswas, on the other hand, reminded us that this situation might not end very soon even if the lockdown opens. Therefore, as a marketer, you need to remind your consumers about the do’s and don’ts they need to follow. He further said, “We should think of ourselves as customers, not marketers. When I think of what is my need v/s want, as a customer, it is the essentials. So I would rather stick to delivering essentials and making sure that consumers get the necessary information. You also need to be very patient and see how things turn out in the next two-three months. We should save cash, not burn it in the media. We should rather create content that adds value to our customer’s life.” Moreover, taking care of the health, wellness and hygiene of their delivery partners is also a priority for most of these brands. Talking about all that Medlife has been doing to take care of its partners, Iyer said, “All our fulfillment centres across 15 cities have a doctor. We have thermal scanning for allowing people to come in. Use of masks and periodic sanitizing is mandatory. And we are doing everything to ensure that their commute to the warehouses and back home is also made safe.”

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Former Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan joins online pharmacy Medlife

Sanchita Dash

Medlife hopes to achieve 100% growth by the end of this financial year, will take its diagnostics offering to 50 cities within the next 24 months

Samarpita Banerjee

Medlife launches at-home COVID-19 testing in select cities

PTI

Walmart may have plans to merge fashion brands under Flipkart — But Myntra’s CEO isn’t going anywhere

BI India Bureau

Covid-19 lockdown: Medlife says staff was hit by cops

PTI

Delhi police withdraws order allowing online retail firms to re-start services

PTI

Myntra is in the middle of a management shakeup after key leaders resign in succession

BI India Bureau

Flipkart is pumping money in Myntra to ramp up operations; hikes annual budget by 25%

BI India Bureau

From delivering essentials to communicating effectively with consumers, here is how these brands are helping us survive the lockdown

Karuna

Samarpita

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