Vikas Gupta decides to move on from Unilever

Gupta will relocate to Bangalore in India from Indonesia and report to Anil Goteti, senior VP at Flipkart.

E-Commerce giant Flipkart has roped in former HUL hand Vikas Gupta as head of marketing. As per sources close to the development, Gupta will relocate to Bangalore in India from Indonesia and report to Anil Goteti, senior VP at Flipkart.

Vikas GuptaFlipkart group chief corporate affairs officer, Rajneesh Kumar confirmed the development to economic times. The daily broadsheet quoted Kumar saying, “Vikas is joining us after a long, successful stint in Unilever where he has worked in multiple countries and in various functions.”

On July 19, 2019, Vikas Gupta announced on LinkedIn that he has decided to step down from his role as general manager, home care division, VP, digital transformation & board of directors at Unilever. “Everything I am today, I owe to this beautiful place we call Unilever and the most talented, caring people that make it so,” he wrote on his post.

He added, “I joined this great company in 1998. Over the last 20 years, it has been my home, my school, my playground, my family and my office. Not only did I get the opportunity to work on some of the biggest and most diverse challenges across multiple functions and product categories, I also got to experience living in 5 different countries cross 3 continents. Deep gratitude for everything I experienced, lived and learnt and most of all the wonderful friends I made in this time.”

According to a Deloitte and Retail Association of India report, the fast-growing e-commerce market in the country will grow to be an $84 billion industry from $24 billion in 2017. Valued at $22 billion, Flipkart, which got acquired by the world’s biggest retailer Walmart Inc for more than $16 billion, and Seattle-headquartered Amazon’s India unit Amazon In are the market leaders in the online shopping space. Apart from those, Vijay Shankar’s Paytm Mall, which is backed by Japan’s SoftBank and Alibaba of China is also an emerging force.

According to a Barclays report published in November 2018, Global e-commerce company Amazon’s Indian unit, Amazon India, has overtaken Flipkart with $7.5 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) in the financial year ending March 31, 2018.

In terms of revenue, Barclays report states, “Flipkart continues to be bigger than Amazon ($3.8 Bn vs $3.2 Bn), although Amazon is catching up quickly and continues to grow much faster (82% vs 47%). Its operating losses could be in the $1.5 Bn range for the year ending January 2020.” The report also noted, “India represents 7 per cent of Amazon’s international retail operational expenses in the calendar year 2018.”

While Vikas Gupta will strategise marketing initiatives for Flipkart, Ravi Desai holds the role at Amazon India. As Director, Mass and Brand Marketing at Amazon India, Desai takes care of marketing for e-commerce, video on demand platform, Amazon Prime Video and wallet Amazon Pay. Here is an exclusive interview with the former ITC hand...

"Products don't compete with products anymore": Ravi Desai, Amazon