Why is Paytm India's Top Startup?

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Paytm was launched in 2010 as an Indian start up. The original service of Paytm was to help users to make their bill payments and recharge mobile phones, while earning reward point. In this post we will see the reason why Paytm is considerd the top indian startup and get more details about this startup. What is Paytm? Paytm was founded by Vijay Shekhar Sharma, in Noida with an initial investment of $2 million. Paytm's parent company One97 Communications which is also owned by Vijay Shekhar Sharma was started in 2000 and operates into multiple fields. Who owns Paytm? Paytm has been backed by Jack Maa's Alibaba and Ratan Tata of the infamous TATA Group. Although partially owned by Chinese company Alibaba, Paytm remains an Indian company with majority of stake holders being Indians (primarily Ratan Tata and Vijay Shekhar Sharma himself.  What got Paytm the required boost? Paytm added a lot of features in 2013 and moved from a mobile and DTH recharge service to an online payment pl
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Your competition can buy your technology but not the resilient mindset of your Employees

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Corporate leaders cannot build a resilient organization without a resilient workforce. Fred Luthans, professor of Organizational Behavior at University of Nebraska says “The true value of a company is no longer the tangible assets or even its technological processes. It lies in the human capital and underlying psychological capital. Anyone can buy your technology or obtain money from financial markets, but cannot buy employee motivation, engagement, confidence, resiliency, hope and optimism.

Franck Riboud is one such leader who wants to boost his firm’s psychological capital. Riboud is the CEO of Danone, a French multinational that is one of the world’s largest suppliers of dairy products and bottled waters. In India, Danone is known in the North markets for its yogurt and lassi products. Danone is the company to launch Yakult the probiotic drink in India. Riboud believes that his 92 year old company is facing 2 major challenges,
1. Consumers around the world are looking for affordable products
2. The biggest businesses will come from emerging markets like Brazil, Mexico, China and Russia.

With his vision to grow into the emerging markets and to provide affordable alternatives to the consumers, he knew his only way for him was the Jugaad way. To begin with, he focused on decentralizing the company’s operations by making each region a standalone business unit. Each region was given its own R&D department and major decision making powers.

Danone had been able to increase its organizational flexibility and successfully expand itself in the emerging markets. Danone grew 60% overall while maintaining its stringent standards for social and environmental sustainability.

This was only half of the story. Riboud wanted his senior managers to experience and learn Jugaad. This was possible only when they were directly exposed to the emerging markets; learn the way things worked in those markets and how the same international practices were done with a much frugal and flexible approach.

The outcome of it in India was when the company’s R&D developed local products like lassi. This was a product that was developed from scratch as no other markets were expected to do a research on it. It was launched in 3 flavours, mango, masala and sweet lassi. Masala however could not be launched in other countries but Mango Lassi was a hit in the European markets.

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