Jaldipe - Wave 2.

Started by Vidhu Shekhar Jain, as an online recharge platform in 2010, JaldiPe became the most
successful mobile payment and money transfer app used in India a few years back. For a country which
had 95% of monetary transactions made in cash prior to demonetization, it was difficult for JaldiPe to
make customers believe in digital money. But, JaldiPe did the drill, they tapped the un-served/under-
served lots of India and enabled them to do cashless transactions. And, by the means of cashbacks and
offers, JaldiPe raced ahead of its then rivals – Freecharge, PayU, Mobikwik, etc. However, the picture
seems to be changing today. After the entry of players like Google Pay & PhonePe, the brand is starting
to fall behind in the race. And with the release of WhatsApp Pay, things are only going to be tougher for
the company.

Business Aspects and Expansion:

JaldiPe has always focused on the customer-centric approach. This is evident from that fact that, even
before JaldiPe started with wallet services, the company built a 24×7 customer care service. It
understood that digital payments were still new in India and so, it had to ensure their customers get all
the right support. This enabled people to get their queries solved and trust their money with JaldiPe. It
has spent nearly Rs.14,500 crore to convince Indians to substitute cash with digital payments. One can
clearly understand how JaldiPe must have pivotal role in our Hon. Prime Ministers’ Digital India dream.

UPI (Unified Payments Interface)

With the launch of Unified Payments Interface, two major giants – Google Pay and PhonePe entered the
market and people preferred UPI transactions over JaldiPe wallet transactions. To keep up the race,
JaldiPe also launched BHIM UPI transaction mode but recorded lower transactions than its rivals.

FMA. The first mover advantage. JaldiPe probably thought that their wallets will sustain them against
these players, which was nice, in theory. We all would remember, right? Google Pay actually went rogue
with the middle class of the country, do you remember your friends telling you to send some cash just to
gain some extra bucks in the transaction?

Current picture:

JaldiPe has been losing ground to its competitors with bigger pockets. To add salt to the injury, the Jio-
Facebook deal is posing enormous threat to the company. Jio has already started on-boarding local
shops on their platform. Who will then essentially host motivate these owners to use Facebook’s
WhatsApp Pay, poised to launch in June, 2020.

Given that WhatsApp has around 400 million users in India, integrating payment here would make it
convenient for the users to just send money. And, essentially, inconvenient for JaldiPe. This has raised
concerns amongst investors about JaldiPe’s total valuation and business model. With the losses
mounting up, it would be difficult for JaldiPe to keep its head above the water and continue the trust of
its investors. Classic example of why you must choose your niche. If you have ever used JaldiPe, you will
realize that the company actually tried to expand into a lot of spaces. It tried to have movie bookings,
travel, bill payments, shopping deals, banking and finance (JaldiPe banks) and what not! Maintaining so
much requires equal amount of capital, and having concerned investors on board will not make that
happen for you.
In their journey, JaldiPe has experimented with the avenues for growth in the digital finance as a new
age fintech company. With the RBI license as payment bank, it needs to be visible as the trusted
organization with all stakeholders. As such the organization is the process of creating people
management practices to create a sustainable business path. While organization continue to be risk
taker with first mover advantage in all the space of digital transactions, it now has to keep its position
ahead of new competition from telecom, social media network based payment companies. The digital
disruptions are continuous threats to this organisations.

The management now would like to take JaldiPe to Wave 2.0 with integrated technology like blockchain,
AI and Cognitive Intelligence technologies to create larger customer base from partners, networks,
direct customers etc. As such there have set up as AI Department which would support their business
plans by creating FMA. The organization would like to build and nurture this team with inhouse
development, engagement and retention programmes. Losing any key member from this team would
spoil the FMA initiatives. The HR has created a grand strategy to get the best talents both at the fresher
and lateral levels. Entire HRM initiaives to create a positive employee experience has been chalked out.
However, the company is facing some challenge in terms of the customization of the HRM programmes
for technocrats such as Data scientists, AI Engineers etc which are new roles in the JaldiPe.

As a group, you need to address the three phases of the group project assignments.