KIRAN MURTHI is CEO of ASKME and an ex-alumnus of IIT Madras and IIM Bangalore. In an exclusive interview with Venu Atmakur, he talks about the path ahead and what he has learnt from his initial forays.
How did ASKME commence? How has been the journey since?
K M: We originally started as a Yellow Pages company. With fresh investors, member of the founding family started again to create a digital company out of the Getit infrastructure that we had. We stopped seeing ourselves as an advertising company. We stopped seeing ourselves as a print company. We stopped seeing ourselves as Information Company. We started seeing ourselves as a merchant services company, so, which essentially means — it’s not different in terms of activities, but it’s significantly different in terms of the way we see ourselves. So if you see us as a merchant services company, what are the services that a merchant typically pays for, that’s the next question that comes in, right? And we’ve spent enough time figuring out; there are only two things the merchant will pay for – he will either pay for a customer or he will pay for an investor. So we are that somebody to them who is going to lend him money or invest in his business because they are perpetually seeking alternate investment modules, because they don’t have access to organized investment in a serious way, because of their business compulsions.
How did a physical company ‘Getit’ evolve into a digital entity ‘ASKME’?
K M: Over the last six years, we practically have re-architected the guts and interiors of the company, a painful and reasonably difficult process in terms of the change, which has to happen. And you must appreciate that very few print companies globally have done this transition to a digital company. Many have tried but very few have actually managed the transition.For us, actually, a completely different way of looking at the business helped more than anything else. So re-branding, recasting, retraining, what you call, dream marketing, not to consumers,but to our paying customers which is the merchant base, was required.
Do you still use the Getit brand?
K M: There is no more Getit anywhere– anywhere in the group. It’s all Askme end to end. So the marketing side of the Askme business has now scaled up nicely.
How do you see the ecosystem from a customer’s view point?
K M: Every payment whether its cash or digital is tracked on the same platform and the customer gets loyalty and rewards points from the eco-system. It’s not just a one outlet rewards program but a cross outlet rewards program across the area that you live in. That segment, which will eventually be one product where you can see your shops around you and see the deals around you and also be able to walk into any shop and make a payment,get rewards points for anything that you purchase from that shop and redeem it somewhere else in other shop in that same area. So that’s the model, which is growing.
What is the model called?
K M: This is our hyper local division where we’ve essentially aggregated such sellers on to an upper local space. We aggregate these large sellers in each area. On the grocery side, it is area-specific.On the electronics side; it is city-specific where we typically publish their content.
Does this apply to all your product lines?
K M: All of this — all the hyper local businesses operate in this model. Because this seller is a volume trader, he is not a guy who picks up piece-by-piece, checks expiry, checks pricing. We do all of that ourselves, bring it to our hub, where this is reorganized and delivered into the consumers’ homes. That’s the speed of operation that we do.What we’ve essentially done, and similarly in electronics where the order goes to the distributor that we have in each city, he essentially picks it up from the large wholesaler who is already listed and signed up on our platform. The item is picked up, delivered,cash collected and settled back into that guy’s account.
How would a seller benefit from such a model?
K M: For the seller the advantage is, it’s a much faster turnaround, so because it’s a local city, either the money comes into my bank account next day or the stock comes back before the end of the day
How do you deal with competition from Flipkart, Snapdeal, etc with regards to merchant on boarding?
K M: Typically there are different kinds of competition in different areas. The bottom one, the competition is more from the payment companies than from anybody else.But we have our strength there more than anybody else. So in the first month where we were trying out AskmePay and we thought of getting the product out there, we signed up 85, 000 merchants. And 85,000 merchants in the universe where there are 1 million Point of Sale (POS) machines so far. So 100,000 or 1 million is the universe so far in 25 years. In one month, we managed to sign up 85,000 with what you call it — KYC documents, bank account details. So that’s not a small number.
What are the other brands Askme has under its umbrella?
K M: AskmeBazaar, AskmeGrocery, AskmeFurniture, AskmePay, Askme-Ship. But at the end of it, it’s Askme. So Askme is the extensions of brands rather than extensions of businesses. The brand is still ASKME across. Most of frontends will eventually start working together. The consumer investment is not going to be multiple. They’re going to one big large-brand. Front-end portal development, product development, business naming, et cetera might be different. So the good thing about the digital age is that it’s very democratic age. Consumer doesn’tcare. He wants a better experience. Your business model is your problem.
What’s NDD?
K M: Next Day Delivery. Because we don’t believe in shopping TV, Fridge, AC van, from across the country since we don’t have the skill, we rather pick it up from the shopkeeper in Marol Naka and deliver it in Military road.
So this way, is logistics also one of your strong points?
K M: Last mile logistics! That’s what we are investing in hubs in each city and local since the consumer experience gets defined there. The consumer experience doesn’tget defined with 17 warehouses. The consumer experience gets defined in that last mile when the delivery happens and the cashc ollection happens. Correct? So we want to invest there strongly, because that’s what the merchant wants from us. That’s what he can’tdo himself, correct? So merchant preference and consumer preference for our hyper local model is very strong and proven beyond doubt and we are actually very pleased with the way that’s scaling up.Faster turnaround and faster break evens are happening as we speak in those models. So hubs are breaking even, cities are breaking even as we speak with small margins and faster payments to merchant. So it’s actually, this whole pick-up from Delhi and deliver in Salem business model, we are struggling, hurting and we are slogging around. So that pick-up we still have to do that. It’s not something we can give up.
How do you deal with fake products?
K M: We’ve set up a lot of checks and balances, but it’s a continuous process, it’s like things leak and so we have so many sellers, we have distributed 40 branches network across the country, which is uploading content, taking sellers on board live.
Do you want to enter services in the digital space?
K M: We want to but are struggling with it. I have to get the right answers. You need to understand a lot of these marketplace regulations. It’s strange because the consumer doesn’t care. The government might have put regulations in place for that. The consumer holds you accountable for the service quality. So we need to find a balance between regulations and customer expectations.
