PhonePe

A study in Organization Design

Submitted by Group 2
Maitresh Agarwal 1811377
Ananya Chaudhury 1811389
Suraj Jatoth 1811401
Gunjesh Kumar 1811413
Sailoosha Patchineelam 1811425
Arun Nayan Singh 1811437
Executive Summary
PhonePe is a financial technology company headquartered in Bangalore, India. Founded by
ex-Flipkart executives, it started out in 2015 with around 20 employees with the aim to
develop a payment solution based on the then new UPI platform launched by the NPCI. Even
before they had launched their product in the market, they were promptly acquired by
Flipkart to drive innovation on the payment front of their e-commerce business and was
incorporated as an independent unit within the parent company. The decision to retain
independence was a long-term strategic bet by Flipkart as it recognized payments as one of
the pillars of an economy that was fast moving towards digitization, thus having the potential
to become big, catering not just to Flipkart’s own needs but also building solutions for
external clients.

Owing to the acquisition, the firm received much needed funding and direction from the
parent company and has since grown over 400% in transaction value. The present focus in
the organization is on becoming the market leader in UPI transactions, a space that is seeing
increasing competition from small and big players. The employee strength of PhonePe has
meanwhile grown from 20 to 500.1

The working structure of the organization primarily consists of cross-functional units, called
pods, each working on a specific product and each led by a Product Head. Employees have a
direct reporting to their respective functional heads, while having a dotted reporting to the
specific Product Head. As the firm parallelly works on several projects, not every one of which
sees fruition, and with a continuous inflow of new projects, new pods are constantly being
made, while the ones that do not work out are disassembled. Also, since manpower is
limited, resource sharing across pods is inevitable. This gives us an understanding of the
rationale behind the Hybrid Matrix (dotted) structure that the organization exhibits.

PhonePe also recently acquired the PoS division of hyperlocal e-commerce platform Zopper,
whose team was absorbed into PhonePe. The absorption owed to the complementarity of
their operations, with Zopper’s technology simply adding value to PhonePe’s own PoS
payment platform, strengthening its offline proposition for merchants.

In conclusion, with the fast growing FinTech sector in India, what remains to be seen is how
PhonePe’s structure evolves over time with a growing size as it continues to diversify its
operations.

Objectives
The objectives of this study are:

 Understanding the current structure and culture of the organization

 Understanding how the external environment has influenced organization structure

2
 Understanding the impact of a growing size on the organization structure
 Analyzing whether the existing structure reconciles with Organization Design theory
 Envisaging likely changes in organization design with growth in size in the future.

Methodology
Primary Data Sources
Field Visit
We visited the PhonePe office in Bangalore to get a first-hand account of the firm’s structure
and work culture, the rationale behind it, and the ongoing changes in organization design
necessitated by a rapidly growing FinTech industry in India.

Interview
We have interviewed Ms. Supriya Sudhakaran, HR Business Partner of PhonePe, who gave
us insights on the functioning of the organization. She answered all the questions we had
and helped us understand the practical nuances of the organization in relation with the
theoretical concepts.

Secondary data sources

Since the fintech ecosystem in India is still in its nascent stages, secondary data sources are
relatively scarce. We have used articles published in newspapers and financial magazines
and industry reports to collect data on the broad fintech sector in India.

Basing our analysis mainly on primary data, we first describe the present structure of the
organization. Based on this, we have analyzed whether this structure is a good fit for
PhonePe. Subsequently, we have a few recommendations based on the concepts we have
studied in the class.

Industry Profile
Fintech industry in India has seen a steep rise with proactive support policies by the
government. Post demonetization increase in circulation of high-value currency has led to
boost of transaction value from USD 33 billion in 2016 to USD 52 billion in 2017 with a growth
rate of 57% year-on-year and this is estimated to reach USD 73 billion by end of 2020 with a
CAGR of 22%. The government’s focus towards financial inclusion of 1.3 billion people of
India has made the fintech industry a very lucrative market for all the stakeholders be it
customers, SMEs, investors, accelerators and startups. Government initiatives such as Jan
Dhan Yojana, Aadhar, UPI, startup India and digital India shows the strong intent and instils
the confidence of every stakeholder in this Indian market. Even the established companies
such as Google and WhatsApp are entering into Indian market sole reason being India has
the second highest global fintech adoption rate and 59% higher than the global average.

3
But as per the Yes Bank’s report of IFOR 2018, fintech industry is still very young in India and
most of the startups lack the talent pool required to develop state of art technology to
sustain such scale and growth. The next technological revolution will come with Blockchain
but fintech startups working in India with blockchain hire their programmers from outside
India. Owing to this, the proof of concept and early stage funding is still limited with an
increase of just 34% year-on-year funding in India’s fintech startup ecosystem. As per IFOR
2018, there is a massive growth potential in the Indian fintech industry.12345

Create more than Boost the GDP by Fill the credit gap of

21 Million $700 Billion $408 Billion

new jobs by 2025 by 2025 for MSMEs

Facilitate Resulting in Bring in

$3 Billion $2 Billion $2.4 Billion

reduction in leakages savings in subsidies Investment by 2020

Company Turnover
Paytm ₹814 crores
Bank Bazaar ₹240 crores
CC Avenue ₹157.59 crores
Fino Payments Banks ₹80 crores
Capital Float ₹33.5 crores
Mobikwik ₹29.6 crores

Company Profile
PhonePe is a financial technology company headquartered in Bangalore, India. Founded in
2015, PhonePe started out by launching a payment solution based on the Unified Payments
Interface (UPI) which allowed instant payments by facilitating direct fund transfer between

1
http://www.makeinindia.com/article/-/v/growth-of-fintech-in-india
2
https://www.pwc.in/assets/pdfs/publications/2017/fintech-india-report-2017.pdf
3
https://yourstory.com/2018/03/8-facts-currently-define-indias-fintech-sector/
4
https://www.swissnexindia.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2016/10/Fintech-Report-2016.pdf
5
http://www.yesfintech.com/ifor2018

4
banks. It later expanded to wallet services, merchant payments and recently into Gold and
Gift card purchases.

According to their website, their goal is “to make digital payments so easy, safe and
universally accepted that people never feel the need to carry cash or cards again.” They
believe “India is on the cusp of a new mobile revolution, which will change the way [people]
manage their money on the go”. They see themselves “facilitating this change, through
technology and dogged customer centricity”.6

PhonePe is licensed by the RBI for issuance and operation of a Semi-Closed Prepaid Payment
system.6 In April 2016, PhonePe was acquired by Flipkart and incorporated into the e-
commerce company to function as an independent business unit.

After being acquired by Flipkart, it has received $7.7 billion in two rounds of funding from
the parent company.

In July 2018, PhonePe acquired Zopper, India's largest hyperlocal mobile marketplace where
users can shop over mobile phones and pick up their order from amongst 15000+ listed
stores. PhonePe aims at ramping up its offline business presence via this acquisition.

PhonePe currently has 500+ employees. Its major competitors are the payment applications
Paytm, Tez and BHIM. As claimed by PhonePe, it recently surpassed its competitors to
become no. 1 in terms of UPI transactions according to NPCI data.

Timeline7

6
https://www.phonepe.com/en/about_us.html
7
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/phonepe/timeline/timeline#section-recent-news-
activity

5
Lifecycle
Currently PhonePe has developed past the startup phase where it started with 20
employees, has grown to 500+ employees but hasn’t fully matured as an organization.

It has passed the extremely informal high-growth phase, where the focus is primarily on
survival by seeking funding based on their value proposition.

Over the period of 3 year, it has reached the collectivity stage primarily driven by the
acquisition by Flipkart which help in building strong leadership in the organization. With
their operation being independent despite acquisition A it has enjoyed the advantage of
staying entrepreneurial over an extended duration. There still is very low level of
formalization in the core operation teams. The rules are still being formed, and if the
organization continues to grow by moving into new product & services categories, it would
be hiring more employees as is evident from growing size of company, it would need more
rules, procedures and control systems.

6
As PhonePe prepares to take on new rivals in market and expand its presence in offline
market with acquisition of Zopper, it is evident that over the coming years, PhonePe is
going to provide autonomy at lower level especially in traditional departments like Sales
where employee motivation is driven by his position.

Environment
PhonePe’s environment includes partners, customers, suppliers, banks, technology,
regulators, RBI, Government etc. Due to the evolving nature of the FinTech industry in India,
the environment is highly dynamic, with a need to match up with growing consumer demand
and requirement for legal regulation. Recent examples of such changes include
Demonetization, introduction of UPI, Blockchain, Government push towards a Cashless
India, large scale data breaches etc. Owing to these uncertainties, PhonePe would want to
orient its organization in a way to be able to adapt to these changes at a fast pace. The
current organic structure of PhonePe confirms the same. The PhonePe has cross-functional
product units which work on a specific project and less dependency on other functions;
which lets them act fast and implement soon.

To deal with environmental uncertainty, PhonePe uses the following mechanisms:

 Loose coupling: PhonePe is divided into multiple product units. These divisions have
autonomy in decision making which minimizes interdependence. Each product unit
respond to specific sub-environment.

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 Integrator: Product managers/Business heads work as integrators. They are the face of
the product unit and collaborate with other divisions in cross-divisional projects. This
reduced the uncertainty at the unit level.

Unstable

Simple and Unstable Complex and Unstable

Moderate Uncertainty High Uncertainty
Organic and Homogenous Organic and Differentiated
Change in Elements

Simple and Stable Complex and Stable

Stable

Low Uncertainty Moderate Uncertainty

Mechanistic and Homogenous Mechanistic and Differentiated

Simple Complex
Number of Elements

Task Environment
Regulators
In 2017, PhonePe was alleged by ICICI bank of not complying with NPCI guidelines which was
later confirmed by NPCI- the controlling organization for all retail payments in the country.
PhonePe was found to allow UPI transactions only from its own UPI handle & block payments
from UPI handles of all other banks on their App. This was found as violation of UPI
guidelines which gave users the freedom to choose any UPI handle to make payments.

Partners
PhonePe has partnered with over 50 online merchants including Swiggy, McDelivery,
Foodpanda, PVR Cinemas, Faasos, ClearTrip, Myntra, Jabong, eBay. In Offline market,
PhonePe has been partnering with local retail shops, supermarkets, restaurants etc. specially
post demonetization which has witnessed a spike in cashless transactions.

8
Recently PhonePe acquired Zopper to strengthen its presence in offline retail segment.

Customers
According to PhonePe, they recently
Regulators
crossed the mark of 100 million (NPCI)
customers in June 2018 with $20 billion
in total payment volume run rate Partners
Parent
claiming to be the largest consumer Company
(Merchant
sites)
payment company in country. The
average transaction on the platform is
Task
claimed to be between Rs 1800 and Rs
Environment
2000. With Flipkart acquired by
Walmart, PhonePe might take
advantage of Walmart’s cash and carry Banks Customers
network and explore opportunities
abroad.
Competitors
Competitors
With an estimated of $51,756 million
worth of fintech industry in India,
PhonePe faces stiff competition from a no. of competitors major being Paytm, Tez and BHIM.
Even after being the first player in market to launch UPI, Paytm with its large user base poses
strong competition to PhonePe. Recently, WhatsApp also tried entering UPI payment
segment to take advantage of its even larger user base.

Banks
PhonePe must meet regulatory and security standards of banks. It further involves
interaction with every UPI transaction. Every dispute resolution from end customer involves
PhonePe as an intermediate to deal with both the banks and user.

Parent Company
Another daily interaction PhonePe has is with its parent organization Flipkart for which
PhonePe is the payment gateway. Even being functioning independent of Flipkart, PhonePe’s
business decisions does has impact from its parent organization.

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General Environment
Economy
With consistent 7% growth in GDP,
India’s economy is expected to go
strong in upcoming years. The Economy

Fintech market in India is estimated

to grow from $1.2 billion in year
2016 to $2.4 billion by year 2020
making the timing perfect to invest
in the sector.8 General
Technology Legal
Environment
Legal
The biggest legal concern related to
fintech company is regarding user
privacy and data safety. PhonePe
got into legal trouble when it was
alleged by ICICI of blocking Political
transactions from other UPI
handles on its platform which was
later found right by NPCI and PhonePe must reverse the practice as per UPI regulations.

Political
Sudden political decision of demonetization came as a boon for fintech industries. With cash
crunch in market, offline market saw a significant increase in usage of online wallets and UPI
transactions. The decision came as surprise but companies like Paytm took great advantage
of it to establish themselves in offline retail market.

Technology
Fintech sector is one of the industries where technology lifetime is continuously decreasing.
Also, to keep up with competitors, there always exists the need of technical upgradation to
ripe the benefits of first mover. The recent example is the virtual gold segment which all the
major competitors of PhonePe has started on their platform.

For specific departments, we have the following observations:

 Marketing and HR & Admin departments have a very interactive environment since their
communications and policies change with consumer and industry preferences making
the environment unstable while their variety of elements remain constant. This is due to

8
http://www.makeinindia.com/article/-/v/growth-of-fintech-in-india

10
 company being in growth phase and part of an evolving industry. Hence, both the
functions adapt to organic design.
 Product and Strategy & Planning departments are responsible for setting KPIs and goals for
PhonePe. Strategy & Planning department needs to keep track of industry and
competition to review and revise PhonePe’s strategy while Product department needs to
innovate new products to stay relevant in the industry and get edge over its competition.
This results in high variety of elements and unstable environment resulting in organic
structure.
 Sales, Operations and Finance departments perform routine day to day tasks which
involves carrying out sales pitch for merchants, resolving their issues, expense
accounting, procurement process etc. These tasks are performed in a very stable and
controlled environment making the structure highly mechanistic in nature.
 Engineering and Customer experience department are provided with a very stable
environment with the help of boundary spanners which are Product and Marketing
departments. Engineering department needs a streamlined process to develop products
and customer experience team is expected to act as doer and not the thinker. Hence,
both the departments are structured in a mechanistic manner.

High Uncertainty
Moderate Uncertainty
(Organic Design)
Unstable

(Organic Design)
 Product Department
 Marketing Department
Change in Elements

 Strategy & Planning

 HR & Admin Department
Department

Low Uncertainty Moderate Uncertainty

(Mechanistic Design) (Mechanistic Design)
Stable

 Sales Department  Engineering Department

 Operations Department  Customer Experience
 Finance Department Department

Low High

Number of elements

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Department Technologies

Craft Non-Routine
(Mostly Organic Design) (Organic Design)
 Marketing Department  Product Department
 HR & Admin Department  Strategy & Planning Department
Low

Moderate formalization Low formalization

Moderate centralization Low centralization
Work experience Training plus experience
Analyzability

Horizontal, verbal communication Horizontal communications, meetings

Routine
Craft
(Mechanistic Design)
(Mostly Organic Design)
 Sales Department
 Engineering Department
 Operations Department
 Customer Experience Department
High

 Finance Department
Moderate formalization
High formalization Moderate centralization
High centralization Formal training
Little training or experience Written and verbal communication
Vertical, written communication

Low High

Variety

Marketing Department
The consumer preferences are dynamic and so is the communication targeted towards them
which makes their tasks unanalyzable but PhonePe has a set of brand guidelines and
marketing campaigns that are run centrally by a Project Pod.

HR & Admin Department

The recruiting and training policies change based on the external environment. They also
lead the feedback mechanism and appraisal process for PhonePe which again keeps on
evolving based on the inputs from the senior management and benchmarks set by the
industry. HR policies can be documented but resolving employee issues is something dealt
with case by case basis.

Sales Department
PhonePe has a salesforce of contractual and full-time employees dedicated to merchant
onboarding. They are provided with specific targets and a sales pitch to carry out their day

12
to day operations which is completely documented and if they have any concerns they
escalate it based on an escalation matrix.

Operations Department
It consists of account managers and customer support team handling merchant complaint
resolution process and acts as relationship managers for the merchants. They have a well-
documented customer resolution matrix which encompasses the wide array of issues
generally faced by merchants.

Finance Department
It is responsible for accounting of expenses and making sure that all departments are
compliant with the financial policies of the organization. All the purchases and vendor
payments are managed by this department which makes their work routine with least
variability and heavily documented.

Product Department
It is heavily affected by the external environment and industrial factors due to competition.
They are responsible for innovating new products and continuously improving the existing
products based on consumer preferences and market needs. This results in very high
variability and high difficulty in documenting the processes.

Strategy & Planning Department

They are responsible for defining Goals and KPIs of the organization which translates into
the goals and KPIs of all the employees. Budgeting of expenses and financial planning is also
part of the same department. Business goals need to be dynamic based on market
conditions, industry evaluation and competitive strategy.

Engineering Department
PhonePe treats engineering department as the most critical one because it is the backbone
which supports the whole organization. They bring the product ideas to life and develop
customer facing interfaces. There is a lot of variability involved in their work due to the
dynamic nature of the industry, but the processes are well established and are performed in
an organized manner.

Customer Experience Department

They are responsible for handling all the customer related issues. PhonePe have a call center,
in-app and email support for its merchants and customers. The agents have a predefined
solution matrix for each specific issue and for issues which are not covered or belongs to
high severity gets escalated to floor managers depending upon the escalation matrix.

13
Effect of Acquisitions
Acquisition by Flipkart
PhonePe was acquired by Flipkart in April 2017 to drive innovation on the payment front of
their e-commerce business. The acquisition preserved the day-to-day functioning of
PhonePe’s existing operations. Flipkart acted as a Portfolio Investor, as PhonePe continued
to function as an independent unit. The CEO of PhonePe also sits on the board of Flipkart,
which can be seen as a step towards aligning the goals of PhonePe with those of the parent
company.

The basic idea here is that if the entity being acquired is performing well, then it is usually
left unchanged so that the performance doesn’t deteriorate. PhonePe was functioning as a
loose coupling in an already entrepreneurial environment (within Flipkart), which helped in
developing its own culture and processes. Since these were specific to PhonePe, they helped
navigate the challenges better than would have been possible by being more involved within
Flipkart, either fully or partially.

The decision to continue PhonePe as an independent unit within the parent company can be
understood in terms of the modularity and technology-intensive nature of the payment
division. Besides fulfilling Flipkart’s own payment needs, PhonePe has continued to build
solutions that are correlated to its knowledge expertise, for external clients. The entity has
forged partnerships with large-scale companies to co-create independent customized
fintech solutions.

PhonePe has its tie-ups with merchants in online (such as Zomato, Ola, Redbus, Goibibo,
IRCTC, Swiggy, Fasoos) as well as offline (Mother Dairy, Apollo Pharmacy, Fortis, KFC,
McDonalds, PVR, Netmeds, Cure.Fit) space. It functions as an independent entity, with
operations at Flipkart not impacting those at PhonePe. For example, launch of Flipkart
Grocery Store hasn’t impacted PhonePe processing transactions at Spencers.

However, the relation between Flipkart and PhonePe does lead to development of synergy.
For example, PhonePe provides functionality for faster checkouts on Flipkart similar to
Amazon Pay. This leads to much higher transaction levels for PhonePe and reduction in the
costs that Flipkart would have incurred for payment gateway. This leads to a win-win
situation.

Acquisition of Zopper
The approach was different in the case of acquisition of the PoS division of hyperlocal e-
commerce platform Zopper by PhonePe in June 2018. As per the terms of the acquisition,

14
the Zopper team, comprising 32 employees, was absorbed into PhonePe. The CEO of Zopper
was reassigned to head the offline merchant business of PhonePe.9

Zopper, a hyperlocal mobile marketplace founded in 2010, had in fact acquired EasyPOS, a
cloud-based point of sale software maker, in 2016. This was primarily for increasing revenues
via PoS sales10.

The absorption of Zopper into PhonePe after the acquisition owed to the complementarity
of their operations. The value-added service capabilities of Zopper’s PoS software were
merged into PhonePe’s payment platform, since the product (retail PoS device11) is similar to
what PhonePe offers. This acquisition was strategically important to strengthen its offline
proposition for merchants. This is expected to help PhonePe gain market share in offline
presence.

Strategy

Defender Analyzer Prospector Reactor

Every organization has its own set of goals - some are immediate and other long-term goals.
Strategies help organizations achieve these goals and organizational structure is enabler for
the devised strategy.

PhonePe started with the aim of making digital payments easy, safe and reliable. Initially,
they started off with prospector strategy by introducing UPI payments to Indian consumers.
Their first mover advantage was soon nullified by competitors and PhonePe was no different
in terms of services from its competitors except that it wasn’t mandatory to load their wallet
while making transactions. In fact, PhonePe had fewer services and its distribution channel
was weaker when compared to its competitors. Recently, they launched gift card and gold
purchasing services to compete with Paytm, which again is a reactive strategy. PhonePe is
trying to improve its distribution channel by aggressively onboarding merchants and
customers luring them with lower PoS charges and heavy cashbacks. We can sense the

9
https://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/phonepe-buys-zopper-retail/article24436067.ece
10
https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/startups/zopper-acquires-software-company-
easypos/51249298
11
https://retail.zopper.com/features

15
defender strategy being adapted by PhonePe because the whole rationale is to acquire more
and more customers which would help them demand a premium in the future both from
merchants and customers. Currently, PhonePe fits the analyzer strategy where they have a
set of generic services like bill payments, mobile recharges, money transfer for masses while
simultaneously working on innovative products such as gift cards and gold purchasing
services for niche customers.

Organization Structure
PhonePe, prior to acquisition by Flipkart, was a 20 membered team working based out of
Bangalore. Their focus at that time was to launch the product in the market, and their team
consisted mostly of engineers and a few strategy roles with no formal structure and division
of labor. Everyone was involved in all parts of the product development and strategy
formulation.

After the acquisition of Flipkart, PhonePe has increased considerably in size to current 500
employees and with size, there was a need for proper structure which aligns with the strategy
of the organization. Currently, PhonePe has a hybrid matrix structure. Organization is
divided into product units. Each product unit has a combination of engineering, marketing,
operations and sales. These functions have a dotted reporting to the product unit head and
a direct reporting to the functional head. Human Resource, Finance and Administration are
central functions. Product units at PhonePe are: Payments Core, Users, Infrastructure,
Accounting, Merchants & In App.

Organization Structure at PhonePe

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For a startup like PhonePe, having a Matrix structure can be expensive to bear the costs of
coordination required for such a structure. But, given the dynamic nature of the FinTech
industry, there is a need for responsiveness which is possible through cross functional
teams.

Having said that, PhonePe could also have implemented a divisional structure with each
product unit being a division consisting of teams from all functions. But since all the products
of PhonePe are integrated on a single mobile App and have a common backend payment
technology there is also a need for high degree of coordination among the divisional teams.
Hence, the current hybrid Matrix structure is a good choice for its structure.

Organization Culture
PhonePe follows an Adaptive culture. It is an entrepreneurial culture which gives freedom
and flexibility to its employees in dealing with the clients. The employees are encouraged to
understand the external environment and adapt to the changes voluntarily. They are
expected to solve an internal-issues within their purview. The recruitment process too
ensures that the employees being recruited are a good fit for the culture of the organization.
External

Adaptability
Mission Culture Culture
Strategic Focus

Bureaucratic
Clan Culture
Culture
Internal

Stability Flexibility

Needs of the environment

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Symbols
PhonePe follows a thematic interior designing which represents various offline activities that
the employees are encouraged to indulge in.

Organization structures
Since PhonePe is designed in a matrix structure, it supports Adaptive culture. Matrix
structure typically is not inclined towards a rigid hierarchical structure instead creates more
space for interdisciplinary communication.

Power Relationships
Since PhonePe has recently emerged from the entrepreneurial to growth phase, there is no
concentration of power in the hands of a few divisions or functions.

Control systems
PhonePe lets its employees make their own choices based on their expertise. It gives its
employees the freedom to solve their own problems. However, there is a subtle
responsibility associated with this control system. The employees are expected to make
decisions and work responsibly towards their own set targets.

Overall, this kind of culture encourages risk taking by the employees. This leads to more
competitive nature among the employees. Since the company trusts its employees, the
employees are indirectly bound to the values.

PhonePe doesn’t work on a “rules and norms”-based structure. Instead, it works on values-
based leadership.

Control Systems
PhonePe has a Culture based control
system. Employees are evaluated based
on neither the output nor their behavior.
High

Process/Output
Behavior Control
They are free to work at their convenience Control
Programmability

as and until they deliver the work. Since it

is an entrepreneurial culture with
frequently changing scenarios; the tasks Culture Control
are mostly low on measurability and
programmability. Promotion is based on
Low

Output Control
the skills. If employees have managerial
skills, only then they are promoted to
these roles. They have a high focus on
Low High
recruitment. They hire people who are a
Measurability
cultural and ideological fit. Employees
should be opinionated and talented at what they do. They shouldn’t have a managerial or

18
hierarchical thinking. instead should have a high sense of ownership and creativity. PhonePe
has a 360-degree employee feedback system given by the peers independently which help
in the overall development and developing skills of the employees. There are boundary
conditions at the organization level which are recently documented, that needs to be
followed by all the employees.

 Marketing and HR & Admin departments are high on task programmability and low on task
measurability because it is difficult to objectively measure the sales driven by marketing
or to measure employee satisfaction driven by HR interactions. Therefore, they adopt
Process control. These are more of process-based roles than of output based. There are
certain norms, which are implicit rules that the departments could follow.
 Product and Strategy & Planning departments are low on task programmability and low on
task measurability because we can only control the input that goes into the processes
but cannot possibly control the output. Therefore, it assumes culture control. Different
working teams might choose their own style of working on the tasks requiring strategy
and planning. However, the employees are competitive enough to follow a well thought
out process and fulfill the task. It sometimes also assumes role-modelling when the
associates try to follow aspirational figures.
 Sales, Operations and Finance departments are high on both task programmability and task
measurability because they constantly could be monitored through well set rules and
targets. Hence, they fall under process/output control. These departments have definite
Standard Operating procedures and checklists which could be followed by the associates.
 Engineering and Customer experience departments are low on task programmability and
high on task measurability. Hence this falls under output control. Engineering is
measured on the outputs produced and customer experience is captured through
customer review and feedback after the customers receive the organizational services.
PhonePe as understood stands high on these lines because the engineered products are
well received by the customers and the high customer base could serve as a proxy for
high customer satisfaction.

Limitations
The field of FinTech is still developing in India. Hence, the demarcations are not clear in
many of the classifications. In such cases, we haven’t provided the labels required.

Since PhonePe is not listed and is a relatively new company, there is fewer information
available in public domain. This has led to more dependence on Primary Sources.

19
Appendix
List of questions asked during the interview and for the research
 What is the history of PhonePe and the major events which have happened?
 What were the changes in the organization before and after Flipkart? Does PhonePe still
work with as much independence after the merger?
 Zopper acquisition: is the talent pool merged with the existing business or are they
operating as a separate entity?
 What is the organization structure? Divisions, reporting structure?
 What are the various activities you do for employee engagement/interaction?
 How is success celebrated? Rewards? Failures?
 What is the culture at office? Open or closed?
 Who takes the strategic decisions? Senior management or at a divisional level?
 Any rulebook/guidelines for employees at PhonePe?
 Mission, vision and goals of PhonePe and the core competencies?
 What are the key metrics tracked at an organization level?
 How is performance measured? Based on Outputs or rules?
 What is the process of annual appraisal? What items are employees evaluated on?
 How are decisions made? Data-based or gut based?
 Future strategy? Expansion plans?
 How does the communication happen between teams?
 How are cross-team dependencies resolved? Integration mechanisms?
 Various departments and the kind of work they do.
 How many full time/part-time/contract employees?
 How is goal and metric setting done for divisions (alignment with organizational goals)?
 How do you measure employee satisfaction?

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