Manish Tiwary, Country Manager of Amazon India, on the opportunities in the country, digital, and more
For a company that entered the consumer business in India in 2013, Amazon’s growth has not gone unnoticed. It was up against competition that came earlier. But Amazon used its understanding of technology to focus on areas such as supply chain and greater consumer understanding to enhance the overall experience. It was critical to have an India-specific approach and be Indian along the way. With an increasing base of both customers and sellers, the road ahead is filled with opportunities, though these are early days for India. In an interview with Business Today at Amazon’s country headquarters in Bengaluru, 54-year-old Manish Tiwary, Country Manager of Amazon India, talks about the India story, innovation, and a lot more. Edited excerpts:
It's a big opportunity for Amazon in India…
We are clear [that] e-commerce is at a very early stage in India. You just have to look around to see the levels of optimism and what potential lies ahead of us. For a company with our DNA, everything that we do has digital at the core of it—be it e-commerce, the [Amazon] Kindle or Amazon Prime.
If you look at the basics in India like the growth rates, population, demographics, infrastructure, or the progress in digital, there are many reasons to feel enthused. It is a sentiment that is echoed by all of us here or even when we speak to our management at Seattle (Amazon’s headquarters).
For Amazon, what is the India strategy all about?
When we started off in 2013, the objective was to win here and we, therefore, wanted a team that understood India. There was a clear global strategy, and we were asked to create something that dovetails into what is good for India. That’s exactly why talent is so important to us. What is better than one lakh (100,000) people sitting out of India! It just makes India a powerhouse of innovation.
The proportion of organised trade in India was not too much in the early days. There was nothing called a catalogue and all we got were stunned looks if we asked for one. India is a different market for many reasons. The cost of working capital is very high, and the backbone is the small businessman. [The] penetration of banking services was quite limited, and most people did not understand English. Orders were taken over the phone and if small machines had to be sent to the warehouse, it was a challenge. Hence, we decided to go for a new fulfilment model, where it would now be picked up. Today, we have ideas created out of India and [those are] being moved to other parts of the world like Latin America and Egypt.
A lot has changed, and a small seller can now upload an image of, say, a collared T-shirt and create a catalogue. If working capital is a challenge, there is Gen AI that can be used. Eight years ago, if someone had told me that in 2023, we would have 14 lakh (1.4 million) sellers, it might have been hard to believe. At that point, we had just 100 sellers. Today, we have 43 million cubic ft of storage space apart from our own aircraft; we are one of the largest users of Indian Railways among e-commerce companies; are part of a waterways project. A lot of distance has been covered.
In the early days, none of us knew anything about e-commerce. We wanted to change the way India buys and sells. Now, we can say that what we have here is a model made in India, made for India, and made by India.
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