COMPARING PEOPLE’S PRACTICE IN AMAZON

AND FLIPKART

SUBMITTED BY

ASHIRWAD TIWARI

M210049MS
Amazon is an American multinational technology company. It is an e-commerce platform based
in Seattle, Washington, founded by Jeff Bezos on July 5, 1994. Amazon is among the big five
companies in the U.S. information technology industry. The company initially started as an
online bookselling company, but eventually, it has drastically expanded and now
sells electronics, software, video games, apparel, furniture, food, toys, jewelry, and many more
Amazon currently is the largest e-commerce company and the most valuable company in the
world. Amazon allows downloading and streaming of videos, music, and audiobooks via prime
video, amazon music, twitch, and audible subsidiaries. Over 40 subsidiaries are owned by
amazon which the users can choose from according to their needs and requirement. Amazon also
has a publishing forum amazon publishing, a film and television studio on amazon studio and
cloud computing subsidiary, amazon web series. Amazon also produces consumer electronics
such as kindle, fire tablet, fire TV, and echo devices. Amazon for few countries has a special
retail website and also often provides international shipping for a few of its products. The
amazon website had been visited by 615 million users annually in 2008 however, in 2016 130
million users were just visiting the U.S. website itself each month. A huge amount has been
invested by amazon on its server capacity for its website as often there is too much traffic
causing the server to crash. And by February 2022 it has over 2.3billion monthly visits.

Flipkart is a Singaporean e-commerce company. It was founded in the year 2007 by Sachin
Bansal and Binny Bansal. The headquarters of the company is located in Bangalore, Karnataka.
Initially, the company started as an online bookselling company but later on ventured into selling
several other products such as electronics, apparel, home essential, groceries, and lifestyle.

In 2017 March flipkart held 39.5% of the market shares in India’s e-commerce industry. Flipkart
has a more superior position in the apparel section giving tough competition to fellow
company myntra. In August 2018, 81% stakes of flipkart were owned by U.S. based retail
chain WALMART. The company valuing at $20 billion walmart bought the stakes for $16
billion. he subsidiaries of flipkart that the users can enjoy according to preference are myntra,
jabong.com, phonepe, ekart, and 2gud. Flipkart is an Indian company and it does not ship its
products outside India. It is majorly based in India.
Following are some key differences of AMAZON and FLIPKART:-

1. Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos whereas Flipkart was founded by Sachin Bansal and
Binny Bansal.
2. Amazon was founded in the year 1994 whereas flipkart was founded in the year 2007.
3. Amazon has its headquarters in Seattle, Washington U.S.A. whereas flipkart has its
headquarters in Karnataka, Bangalore.
4. Amazon is a public listed company whereas flipkart is a private listed company.
5. Amazon is available all over the world. And certain products can be shipped internationally.
Flipkart is an India based company hence it is only exclusively available in India shipping
across India does not happen.
6. On the amazon website products cannot be compared for easy accessibility. On the flipkart
website products can be compared which makes it easier for the users to choose form.

The HR practices of both the companies are studied based on following points.

1. Organizational Culture
2. Candidate/ Employee Experience
3. Career growth opportunities
4. Performance Management
5. Financial and Non-financial Benefits
ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE:-

AMAZON

Generally, Amazon organizational culture integrates the following five key elements:

1. Immense performance pressure. Amazon organizational culture has been described as

“breakneck-paced, and notoriously cost-conscious”, as befits a company that has run only a
small profit, or a loss, under generally accepted accounting principles for most of its life as a
public company. Amazon has a very intense corporate culture with an extensive emotional and
even physical pressure to some employees. This can be explained in a way that Amazon has a
unique organizational culture that is not for everyone. Only employees who can thrive under
immense pressure and fast-paced environment can survive in this company.

2. Constant reinvention and optimization of organizational culture. Amazon founder and

CEO Jeff Bezos “emphasizes the importance of constantly assessing and adjusting Amazon’s
culture so it never loses the agility, nimbleness, and hunger for experimentation”. Accordingly,
Bezos constantly opposes “one-size-fits-all” culture of decision making. Moreover, Bezos uses
“two pizza rule” for meetings, where the numbers of participants in a meeting are limited to a
group that can be all fed with two pizzas. The e-commerce giant is a data-obsessed company and
this obsession also extends to the formation of its corporate culture. The company has a wide
range of metrics related to employee performance and on the basis of data analysis it constantly
attempts to enhance employee performance via tweaking with specific aspects of organizational
culture.

3. Customer-centricity. Amazon positions itself as one of the most customer-centric companies

in the world. Amazon vision statement is “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where
customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.” High level of
customer-centricity is one of the cornerstones of Amazon corporate culture with direct
implications to a wide range of organizational processes and procedures.

4. Operating like a startup. Despite the gigantic size of the company that employs 1,3 million
people worldwide, Amazon attempts to maintain startup mentality in terms of risk-taking,
experimentation, flexibility of the business and ‘hunger’ for success. The founder and the first
CEO Jeff Bezos was never tired of repeating ‘Day 1’ mantra and the new CEO ANDY JASSY is
following the same suit. “Day 1”is about being constantly curious, nimble, and experimental. It
means being brave enough to fail. “Day 1” approach is deeply integrated into the core of
Amazon corporate culture.

5. Diversity among workforce. Valuing diversity among the workforce is also placed at the core
of Amazon organizational culture. The company has GLAmazon, an official employee affinity
group for gay and lesbian employees, as well as, Black Employees Network and Women in
Technology groups.
FLIPKART

Flipkart has successfully attained the right balance between the mean and goal orientation, as it
emphasizes over the importance of accomplishing the goals, and meanwhile encourage
employees to take risks only if they are worthwhile.

 By focusing on the mean orientation, Flipkart ensures that the employees must adopt the
ethical and integrate ways for accomplishing the assigned goals because it considers the
integrity as its core value. In this way, employees are encouraged to only promote the
healthy competition.
 By focusing on the goal orientation, Flipkart encourages its employees to put their best
efforts for accomplishing the assigned goals. Employees are not punished for sharing new
ideas and taking risks. In this way, Flipkart has successfully reduced the fear of failure
from its employees.

The Flipkart’s organizational culture is more internally than externally driven. Despite ensuring a
quick response to the changing customer needs, the top management openly communicates the
importance of adopting an ethical attitude while responding to the market needs. The company
shares strong commitment to embedding ethics and integrity into its business operations. The
internally driven organizational culture has enabled the organization to use its ethical brand
image as a tool to get a strong competitive edge over rival firms.

. The creative and innovative work behaviors are promoted by rewarding the employees with
various monetary and non-monetary rewards, but the empowerment and autonomy is limited due
to organizations’ inclination towards the strict work discipline.

However, in response to the employees’ growing need for autonomy and empowerment, the
management has decided to make a gradual shift from the centralized to decentralized
organizational structure. This shift will transfer some authority from top to the bottom, and
consequently, the organization will attain a new equilibrium between strict and fluid structure.
In case of Flipkart , the company promotes a professional attitude among its employees. There is
no obligation to behave in a particular way. At Flipkart, the diversity is promoted and differences
are appreciated. It is done to leverage the opportunities offered by such constructive differences.
Flipkart shows the importance of cultivating a professional organizational culture to remain
successful in a highly diversified environment.

.The open cultural system has enabled the Flipkart to ensure a high information flow and
leverage the knowledge, skills and competencies of employees from diversified backgrounds.
Both these factors are considered important by the multinational organizations like Flipkart to
timely respond to the changing customers’ needs in different geographic areas.

In my view the organizational culture of both the companies are more or less similar with
pressure performance, diversity, constant reinvention etc.

CANDIDATE/ EMPLOYEE EXPERIENCE

AMAZON

As per the reviews collected from glassdoor.co.in, following are the details of the candidate
interview experience. (based on 40,000 interviews )

For getting an interview, the candidates got 56% of the opportunities online from various job
portals, 11% campus recruitment,2% by agency, 12% by employees referrals, 3% in person, 14%
by recruiting. The level of interview was average with a scale of 3.1 out of 5. The overall
experience of 24000 canditates were positive which constitutes around 60%, 18% negartive and
remaining neutral.

Out of the 119000 reviews , 85% of the employees said that they will recommend it to their
friends and 93% of total reviews mentioned as Mr Andrew Jassey as their best CEO. The most
common pros and cons review were.

Pros
 1. Good work culture (30%)
2. Good benefits (15%)
3. Decent Pay
4. Fun at working
5. Great learning experience

Cons

1. Long hours of work

2. No work life balance
3. Working is quite fast paces
4. Working environment is quite noisy
5. Short breaks

FLIPKART

From all the 750 reviews on glassdoor.co.in,for getting an interview, the candidates got 21% of
the opportunities online from various job portals,31% campus recruitment,13% by agency, 12%
by employees referrals,5% in person. 61% of the interview experiences were positive, 22%
negative and 17% neutral.The level of interview was average with a scale of 3.1 out of 5.

Out of 3600 reviews, 82% employees will refer Flipkart to their friends, 92% employees
approve Kalyan Krishnamurthy as their CEO.

Pros

1. Good work culture

2. Good work life balance
3. Dynamic yet growing work environment.
4. Good culture and great team work.

Cons

1. Long working hours

2. High work load.

The overall rating is shown in the table

 AMAZON FLIPKART
OVERALL RATINGS 4.3 (16000 interviews) 4.1 (3600 interviews)
Career Opportunities 4.1 4
Compensation and benefits 4.1 3.8
Worklife balance 3.8 3.5
Senior management 3.9 3.7
Culture values 4.3 4
CEO approval 93% 92%
Referreal to a friend 85% 82%
Positive business outlook 81% 76%

From the ratings it can be said that

1. Amazon scored higher in 9 areas: Overall Rating, Career Opportunities, Compensation

& Benefits, Work-life balance, Senior Management, Culture & Values, CEO Approval,
% Recommend to a friend and Positive Business Outlook
2. Amazon employees rated their Compensation & Benefits 0.3 higher than Flipkart
employees rated theirs.
3. Amazon employees rated their Work-life balance 0.3 higher than Flipkart employees
rated theirs.
4. Amazon employees rated their Culture & Values 0.3 higher than Flipkart employees
rated theirs.
5. Amazon employees rated their % recommend to a friend 3% higher than Flipkart
employees rated theirs.
6. Amazon employees rated their Positive Business Outlook 5% higher than Flipkart
employees rated theirs
CAREER GROWTH OPPORTUNITY

After interviewing some of my college friends worked in Amazon a finiancial Associate and
some in linked in , I came to know that all of my friends worked as Tier 1 employee, where they
have to undertake the necessary training and report to their managers constantly to learn and
understand the work pressure and abilty to handle it . Some of them got their Promotional
interview in 9 months , 10 months and some in 1 year, for the post of Tier 2 position. If you can
perform really well , you might get into Tier-3 position with good salary hike and incentives. A
normal performance may lead them to Tier 2 position with average salary hike and increments.

The same kind of growth opportunity is there is Flipkart as well, after getting various reviews
from glassdoor, comparably and linkedin, there is a comparatively slow growth in Flipkart than
Amazon. One of my friend mentioned, sometimes good Engineers are stuck in level 3 or (Tier-3)
for more than 2 years.

PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Amazon has something called the Performance Improvement Plan. It’s a 3-months period during
which underperforming employees are expected to improve their performance to the point where
it meets the company’s standards. Employees that fail to do so are fired.

Flipkart is also a performance oriented organization where the performance of each employee is
measured under a transparent evaluation process. They use this review to differentiate
performance and maintain a high bar, which is reflected in their total rewards philosophy. The
top performers are rewarded highly and promoted to the next growth level.

FINANCIAL AND NON-FINANCIAL BENEFITS

Amazon.com Inc pays its employees an average of ₹8.50 lac a year. Salaries at Amazon.com Inc
range from an average of ₹2.3lac to ₹3.1 lac a year. Amazon.com Inc employees with the job
title Principal Software Engineer make the most with an average annual salary of ₹45 lac, while
employees with the title Retail Associate make the least with an average annual salary of ₹2.15
lac. .Amazon offers a range of great benefits that support employees and eligible family
members, including domestic partners and their children. These comprehensive benefits begin on
day one and include health care coverage, paid parental leave, ways to save for the future, paid
college tuition, and other resources to improve health and well-being. In addition to fair pay,
employees have opportunities to own Amazon stock, participate in 401(k) plans with company
match, and enroll in paid life and accident insurance. Amazon takes initiatives for the special
care of the families of the employees .Amazon employees have free access to a network of more
than 2 million caregivers, including nannies, babysitters and special-needs caretakers. Employees
receive discounts on certain day care centers, and Amazon provides a variety of free resources
for parents of children with autism, ADHD and developmental disabilities.

Flipkart has some additional benefits for their Indian employees. It pays its employees an
average of ₹11.8 lac a year. Salaries at Flipkart range from an average of ₹3.3lac to ₹40 lac a
year. Flipkart employees with the job title Senior Software Development Engineer (SDE) make
the most with an average annual salary of ₹23.3lac, while employees with the title Operations
Team Leader make the least with an average annual salary of ₹3.7 lac. Flipkart has the following
benefits for it’s Indian employees:

1. Insuarance benefits:- Consists of medical insuarance for employees and 5 family

members and Accident and life insurance
2. Work-life Benefits:- 20 annual leaves, 12 casual leaves,10 declared holidays,2 optional
holidays, 1 special leave, 15 days of paternity leaves, 6 months of maternal leaves, 5 days
of marriage leaves, unlimited bereavement leaves and sebatical leaves. Employees can
carryforward upto 30 leaves .
3. Parental support Benefits:- 6 months of leave and 4 months of flexible hours – all with
full payUp to INR 600/day transport reimbursement for 2 months before going on
maternity break. Dedicated parking spot for two months pre and post delivery, Day-care
 support (co-shared between employee and employer (50:50) for children up to 4 years of
age). Higher Maternity Claim (INR 65,000 for normal delivery, INR 80,000 for C-section)
.Celebrate Joy (Baby shower & Gift Box worth INR 5,000).Adoption assistance program.
4. Wellness programs:- Quarterly body checkup, Bi-annual blood donation camps, As a
Flipkart employee, they are covered by the Family Assistance Program, which provides
them free consultation for work, life, family, legal, financial matters and much more.
5. Mobility Benefits:- Comprehensive relocation program covering household goods
packing, moving, unpacking, airport pick-up and welcome, city orientation, home search,
school search etc. Travel entitlement Employee + max 5 members including spouse,
children, parents or parents-in-law. Local accommodation :- 15 days (domestic hire) and
60 days (international hire). Local conveyance:- Rented car with driver for first 30 days
(international hires)
6. Retirement Benefits and other benefits:- Gratuity and NPS, Higher Education
assistance, Car Lease Program, Salary Advance Policy, Mobile and Broadband
Reimbursement policy.