The second edition of #include, the Indian e-commerce company, Flipkart’s annual event, witnessed prominent industry leaders throwing light on their biggest learnings, challenges and opportunities from the previous year. Krishna Raghavan, CPO, Flipkart, revealed the Company’s intention to focus on “inclusion, entrepreneurship and sustainability” in the next ten years. Understanding the importance of “inclusion, as a prerequisite for building a diverse ecosystem,” Flipkart plans to try and nurture “a culture of inclusion where diverse talent can innovate and excel”. In addition to building sustainable business practices, Flipkart will also try to expand its talent pool. One common point that everyone agreed on was that diversity and inclusion cannot be “restricted to a dialogue”. Each organisation will have to create programmes that will actively contribute to the D&I agenda, by ensuring that all policy making revolves around it.
Nandita Sinha, VP- customer growth, media and engagement, Flipkart; Lalitha Ramani, chief product officer – Myntra; Gunjan Arya, CEO – Only Much Louder; Krishna Raghavan, chief people officer – Flipkart; and Ankit Nagori, co-founder, Cure.Fit, were amongst the key speakers at the event.
The subjects discussed at this virtual event included business challenges in 2020, the evolution of product management, the role of women in designing India-centric solutions and the changing face of inclusion.
Nandita Sinha, VP – customer growth, media and engagement, Flipkart, felt that it was up to the organisations to “ facilitate necessary flexibility in the policies to help employees balance work and home.” She shared how the Company has managed to successfully nurture a bias-free workplace for the employees, providing them “an ideal environment to pursue their career ambitions while balancing personal priorities.”
The participants discussed the role of women in building products and solutions for India, as well as the opportunities and the roadblocks that need to be overcome.
Flipkart is concentrating its energies in enhancing the representation of women across the organisation. It has tried to create a conducive environment that inspires and enables more women to build successful careers within the organisation.
‘Girls Wanna Code’, is the Company’s campus initiative, which engages women engineers across the country, and promotes learning through hackathons and case challenges.
Flipkart’s ‘Mom on Board’ provides holistic support to new mothers through their maternity journey and helps them get back to work.
Over the years, the Company has encouraged the participation of women across various roles and functions in the supply chain through project ‘Vividhta’.
The ‘Evolve’ programme creates a conducive working environment for women through empowering mindset, capability development and coaching programmes
The initiative called ‘INSPIRED’, is a platform for women engineers to network and stay abreast of the breakthroughs in technology.
Not surprisingly, it was ranked as one of the 100 best companies for women to work for in India, in 2020