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Tag: Bhavish Aggarwal

  • Indian ride-hailing giant Ola cuts 180 jobs in profitability push | TechCrunch

    Indian ride-hailing giant Ola cuts 180 jobs in profitability push | TechCrunch

    Ola has let go its chief executive officer Hemant Bakshi, merely four months after making the appointment, and is cutting about 180 jobs, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch. The move from the Indian ride-hailing startup is aimed at “improving profitability,” its founder Bhavish Aggarwal told employees in an email Monday seen by TechCrunch.

    The Bengaluru-headquartered startup, which counts SoftBank and Tiger Global among its backers, is undergoing a “restructuring exercise” to gear up for its “next phase of growth,” Aggarwal, pictured above, wrote in the email.

    The move follows Ola shutting down its operations in the U.K., Australia and New Zealand earlier this month. Bakshi, a former HUL executive, was appointed as Ola chief executive in January this year.

    You can read the Aggarwal’s email in its entirety below.

    Dear All,

    In line with our vision to serve 1 Billion Indians, and our commitment to drive sustainable growth and enhance efficiency across the organization, we are undergoing a restructuring exercise aimed at improving profitability and preparing ourselves for the next phase of growth.

    We have made substantial investments in areas of AI & Technology which has led to significant cost advantages and we will continue to focus on these areas to ensure that we build cutting edge products and services across our business verticals.

    These changes will result in certain roles within the company becoming redundant. This decision was not made lightly, and we are committed to supporting those impacted during this transition period.

    Hemant will be stepping down from his role as CEO to pursue opportunities outside the company. We extend our gratitude to Hemant for his contributions and wish him the best in his future endeavors.

    I am very confident of the strong leadership team which we have built over the last few years at Ola Consumer, who bring in a lot of experience and expertise to their respective roles. They will collaborate closely with me to drive technology-led growth.

    We are committed to transparency and open communication throughout this process. Our HR team would be available to address any queries or concerns you may have.

    Thank you for your unwavering dedication and commitment to Ola.

    Best,
    Bhavish

    Manish Singh

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  • Ola will build EVs in all two-wheeler categories, Bhavish Aggarwal’s big announcement after S1 Air launch

    Ola will build EVs in all two-wheeler categories, Bhavish Aggarwal’s big announcement after S1 Air launch

    Ola Electric founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal on Saturday announced entry into the mass market two-wheeler segment with S1 Air that comes with a 4.5 km hub motor, 2.5kwh battery pack, and a top speed of 85 kmph that gives a range of 100 km range in the eco mode. Launched at Rs 84,999, the purchase window for the new model will open in February while the deliveries will begin in April 2023.

     Aggarwal said that Ola Electric garners 50 per cent of the premium scooter market (scooters priced above Rs 1 lakh) in the country. “Already in the scooter market EV penetration is 15 per cent and in many big cities like Bangalore, Delhi, Pune, etc., EV scooter penetration is above 40 per cent. That means above half of all new scooters sold in these cities are already electric. Our mission of ensuring all scooters in India are electric by 2025 is within our sight,” he said.

    Ola Electric currently has two products, S1 and S1 Pro. But the company doesn’t see S1 Air eating into their own products’ market share as a problem. “We don’t mind internal cannibalisation. That’s our philosophy. There could be some customers who prefer Ola S1 Air over S1,” he said.

    Aggarwal adds that in over next 12 months, the company will build EV products in all two-wheeler categories like commuter scooters, motorbikes, sports bikes, and more “to ensure everyone buying an ICE vehicle today has a much better EV option to choose from”.

    Apart from the new model, Aggarwal also announced an update to its software, the Move OS 3 which comes with new features that allow sharing profiles, party mode, improved acceleration, hill hold, vacation mode (which allows energy conservation for upto 200 days), proximity mode (that unlocks when the owner is around and locks when they walk away), etc. 

    Aggarwal said that unlocking a vehicle won’t require entering passcodes or even pulling out the phone. “This technology is a world-first that doesn’t exist in any vehicle, car, or two-wheeler and we’ve patented it,” he added. Move OS 3 will be available for beta sign-ups on 25 October and the rollout will be complete by early December this year, the company said.
     
    Aggarwal also said that Ola Electric has 50 experience centres will go up to 200 by March 2023 and the company is also gearing up for its first international launch in Nepal by the end of this year and Europe and Latin amerce early next year.

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  • ‘My personal style is aggressive’: Bhavish Aggarwal on reports of ‘abrasive management’ at Ola

    ‘My personal style is aggressive’: Bhavish Aggarwal on reports of ‘abrasive management’ at Ola

    Reacting to recent reports calling out Ola co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal’s “abrasive style of management”, the Bengaluru-based entrepreneur said that his company plays by different rules. “We’re a very ambitious company. We’re not here to build a ‘me too’ company, we’re not here to have a nice and easy time. My own personal style is aggressive. We have a culture of high quality and high execution,” Bhavish Aggarwal said at the launch of the new Ola S1 Air on Saturday.

    “We play by different rules, we’re a different company. We’ve so many examples of people who’ve done well in our environment. The yardstick we would like others to judge us would be to see our impact,” he told reporters.

    According to recent reports, Aggarwal’s “relentless pace and management style” has upset both employees and board members. The Bloomberg report said that Aggarwal had called teams at Ola “useless” and hurled Punjabi epithets at the staff. He also reportedly cut meetings short due to trivial issues like a missing page number, quality of the printing paper, crooked paper clip, or a redundant sentence in a memo.

    In another incident, Aggarwal allegedly told an employee to run three laps around the Ola Futurefactory due to a shuttered entryway that was left open. Many experts and citizens have taken to social media platforms to criticize Ola’s work culture including the former Director of Product Management at NASSCOM Saurabh Saha and visiting professor of strategy at IIM-Sambhalpur Dr Nilesh Khare.

    Saha and Khare have slammed Aggarwal for perpetuating a problematic style of management.

    “If this is true then Ola might be one of the most toxic places to work. Somehow, it’ll take a decade or two before Indian startups get what culture means. Till then the employees would be at the receiving end of such brutalities. I don’t think we as Indians understand the importance of respect in the workplace. It’s become a breeding ground for disrespectful behaviour lately,” Saha wrote on LinkedIn.

     

     

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  • Bhavish Aggarwal called teams ‘useless’, directed Punjabi epithets at staff: Report

    Bhavish Aggarwal called teams ‘useless’, directed Punjabi epithets at staff: Report

    Ola co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal’s management style has raised concerns among managers and board members at Ola Electric, according to a report. His “relentless pace and management style” has reportedly raised questions on safety and the business model, stated a report following interviews with about two dozen former and current employees. This comes amid two-wheeler supply chain woes and dip in sales.

    Former employees told Bloomberg that the company was an exciting place to work at the time it started operations in 2013. Aggarwal gradually began working on the creation of Ola Electric, and launched the Futurefactory as well as its EV offerings. But inside the company, things had turned hostile.

    According to the Bloomberg report, Aggarwal ripped up presentations because of a missing page number, called teams ‘useless’, and directed Punjabi epithets at staff. Aggarwal reportedly cut short hour-long meetings within minutes because he was not happy about a superfluous sentence in a memo or a crooked paper clip or the quality of printing paper.

    He reportedly made an employee run three laps around the several-acre-large electric two-wheeler plant upon finding an entryway shut that should have been left open.

    Retaining C-suite level executives was also becoming an issue. Zilingo’s former CFO Ramesh Bafna, in fact, did not join Ola Electric even after accepting employment offers.

    While nothing much has been spoken by the boards of both the companies in meetings, some top executives who have left the company raised questions about the ethics of a share-swap deal with a startup founded with Aggarwal’s younger brother, Ankush Aggarwal, who heads Ola Electric’s financial services unit.

    Aggarwal had in an interview last month said that passions and emotions ran high and that they were not on an easy journey. “But I don’t want to choose an easier journey for myself or for Ola. My anger, my frustration – that’s me as a whole,” he had said.

    Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, both alumni of IIT-Mumbai, founded Ola in 2010. The company was incorporated as ANI Technologies Pvt.

    Also read: Byju’s, Ola, Cars24, Meesho: Which start-up has cut how many jobs?

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