Beating the Big Boys to Become One - Manu Kumar Jain's 'How To' Guide every brand needs to know

For some, success is just a habit. This certainly seems to be the case for Manu Kumar Jain, who was the brains behind one of India’s earliest fashion e-commerce website Jabong.com. A personal development made Manu move on from Jabong. Instead of feeling thwarted, he chose to be employee zero for Xiaomi India, operating from a tiny room. The rest as the cliché goes is history. In this candid conversation, Manu walks us through a series of extraordinary events that led to the creation of India’s no. one smartphone and smart TV brand. Join us on the journey!

It is no secret that Xiaomi India is the market leader today. But there was a time when you were employee zero and life was like the first half of a fairy tale- full of daunting challenges. Walk us through the “origin story” of Xiaomi and tell us what it is like to start when no one wants to start with you.?

Manu Jain: Xiaomi is a young company- 10 years old and only 7 years old in India, and now we are the world’s third-largest smartphone manufacturer and, the world’s largest consumer IoT platform. I learned about this company when I was still running my own e-commerce start-up Jabong .com. What fascinated me is that even in those times, 70% of the traffic on Jabong’ s website was through mobiles, even though smartphones were pretty basic compared to today. So, I realised that majority of Indians did not have access to desktops and laptops. I started researching and discovered Xiaomi, a company trying to disrupt both hardware and software; and I connected with them through common friends. And then sometime in 2014, the Xiaomi founders reached out and asked me to run their India venture. My first office with Xiaomi was my home, then a café, and then a small room where I used to open the door and serve beverages myself while trying to talk of deals worth crores. The irony was not lost on the visitors who quite obviously wondered whether a guy who does not even have an office boy can handle such large deals. Those were heady days… I once counted the no. of smartphone brands in India and at that point, they were more than three hundred!?We were the true underdogs… Almost every city had a predominant smartphone brand, and we were the smallest- in business size, team size, and budget.

That is how the journey started roughly seven years ago…

Adrian Terron: When you think of a national launch in a country like India, it’s a massive undertaking. And even until a few years back, all you had were roughly three hundred employees. When you are a challenger when you have just three hundred soldiers (like the famous Hollywood movie) battling against the behemoths, how do you keep everyone together in this pursuit of a gargantuan goal? Is there a secret recipe for that?

Manu Jain: That would be a combination of a few things. Our first business plan presented to the board had the grand vision of having ten people in India eventually. But the numbers started growing with our ambitions, and by the time we overtook the no. 1 brand position in India, we were three hundred. Today we are approximately sixty thousand people. Three things that helped us in reaching this level.?First, most people are not from the smartphone industry. Instead, they are from internet and other varied backgrounds.?Second, we believe frequent and open communication. Our All-Hands sessions are brutally honest, and anyone can ask any question within the bounds of decorum. Some of these All-Hands last for two-three hours and we answer every single question. I have answered two hundred questions in one session!?

Third?is the speed of communication. It was easier to keep people together till we were three-four hundred because we were on a single floor. We used to stand on a desk and shout, and everyone would sort of come together and would be energised. But it became difficult with the growing team. That said we still manage to maintain the speed. 90% of our communication happens through our internal chat app, where we have groups based on topics. In those groups, everyone regardless of seniority can voice their opinions and can share advice that will help the company. Critical decisions are taken on this app.?

We have this false dichotomy in our lives- we think of our personal and professional selves separately. But nothing could be further from the truth. Can you speak to us about your personal challenge that became a pivotal moment of your life and prompted you to join Xiaomi in India, after creating one of India’s most famous fashion start-ups successfully?

Manu Jain: I believe one’s personal and professional lives cannot be disconnected. Usually, people who are successful in professional lives also do well personally and vice versa, because when you are unhappy in one part of life you cannot do exceptionally well in the other.

Back in 2013, my wife and I had been a weekend couple for the last 7-8 years, because of our respective professional commitments. But then our first baby was born, and it was an emotionally charged time. When I held my son for the first time, I decided that we would live together like a family. I was based in Delhi with Jabong at that time and my wife was in Bangalore. So, I took a tough call of exiting Jabong. That turned out to be the best decision for me, because if I had not quit Jabong, Xiaomi would have never happened.?

Coming back to the present, you are no longer a challenger. Instead, you have challengers coming after you now;?the hunter has become the hunted. How do you and your team plan to stay agile and nimble and maintain this lead, or in fact enhance it?

Manu Jain: It is a great question. Becoming number one is a lot easier than maintaining a lead across product categories. My mantra is to keep doing three things to stay successful. The?first?is to keep launching products with great innovations across the board. The?second?is to continue to stay agile, especially in decision making. We are a growing organisation and now systems and processes are coming into play. But despite the size, we try and take quick decisions. This also means that we make wrong decisions at times- one in three decisions we make could be wrong. But being nimble in decision-making pays, and we quickly rectify our mistakes and move on.

The?third?is to continue the same team spirit and keep attracting good quality talent. Everything we do depends on people’s ability to do them well. It is crucial for continuing to win in the long term; and hopefully, we will keep attracting good talent and onboarding people who really want to do something different.

This reminds me of what the founder and chairman of Starbucks once said about?doing what is right for the customer. We know that you are a big believer in that. But in a Pandemic-present world, how do you make sure that you listen to the consumers ever more closely and react to their needs before your competitors do?

Manu Jain: I think it is extremely important. Before Covid, everybody, including I worked out of our call centres and service centres regularly. This allowed us to learn a lot more about customer complaints and solve them more proactively. Due to COVID though, it has become difficult to follow this practice. But one of the other practices I encourage our people to do is to be active and post regularly on social media. It helps in maintaining constant communication around the brand and in listening to the consumer’s feedback. And we have a dedicated chat group, where any employee, who finds a customer complaint can share and escalate it for resolution. So social media becomes a great two-way mechanism, especially because our marketing budgets continue to remain low.?

This is a very efficient and a real-time way of attending to Customers. Let me end with a question that is pertinent to challengers, since we have been speaking about challenger brands- What are Mr. Manu Kumar Jain’s s next big challenges?

Manu Jain: I think several, but I would like to speak specifically of two. We have had great success in a few product categories. But there is so much more to do. We are launching new product categories like robotic vacuum cleaners, IoT devices, smart lights, smart shoes, and many other things. So how do we keep innovating in new product categories and expanding is the?first?big challenge. The?second?is, how do we keep building motivated and talented teams. These are the two big goals I look forward to.?

Adrian Terron: Thank you for taking us through the fascinating journey into the mind of a challenger! On behalf of everyone at the Tata Group, I wish you even bigger success in all your ventures.