Flipkart’s bruising row with IITs and IIMs sheds light on deeper problems

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India’s ecommerce biggie Flipkart has stirred up a hornet’s nest over campus recruitment. The row puts a fresh spotlight on the company’s internal issues as it revamps organizational structures.

…a relationship based on mistrust and lack of transparency can never be mutually beneficial.

Earlier this week, Flipkart informed campus recruits that their joining dates had been postponed by six months – from June to December. It offered a compensation of US$2,200 as joining bonus for the delay.

The prestigious Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Ahmedabad responded with a missive to Flipkart CEO demanding more compensation and less delay. After all, many of the recruits had loans to repay and had turned down other offers when they accepted the Flipkart jobs, the college said.

“Future engagement of Flipkart with B-school campuses is bound to get affected as a relationship based on mistrust and lack of transparency can never be mutually beneficial,” an email from the chairperson of the college, addressed to Sachin and Binny Bansal, said.

Flipkart has refused to budge. In an email to Tech in Asia, a Flipkart spokeperson said: “This is not the first time that campuses have faced such a situation. We all live in a dynamic and evolving business environment that is changing rapidly. Taking an empathetic view, Flipkart is possibly one of the few companies to have offered the additional joining bonus. Please look at it as a goodwill gesture of the company that cares about its future employees. We are not in a position to increase this.”

We all live in a dynamic and evolving business environment that is changing rapidly…

These developments come at a time when Flipkart has been struggling with numerous top level exits, organizational rejigs, and valuation knockdowns by global investors.

Flipkart has put up a note on its website, claiming that postponing the joining dates was unavoidable because of an ongoing organizational restructuring, and promising that there will not be any further postponement.

“The decision to defer joining for six months has been taken after due evaluation of all possibilities and keeping in mind the timelines to complete the organizational restructuring at Flipkart. We are committed and absolutely confident of having all our trainees on board in December 2016,” says the note.

But despite the company’s statements, the hiring row refuses to go away and threatens to snowball.

Will Flipkart be blacklisted like Zomato?

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) – the country’s premier engineering colleges – are reported to be scheduling a special meeting of their placement committees to take a stand on this. The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are also planning a video conference with all stakeholders.

Flipkart’s ongoing woes