Snapdeal's co-founders Kunal Bahl & Rohit Bansal take 100% pay cut

Highlights:

1. We are combining teams, reducing layers, eliminating non-core projects and strengthening the focus on profitable growth, cited Snapdeal co-founder Kunal Bahl in an e-mail to employees

2.  Many of our leaders have also stepped up proactively and offered to take a significant cut in their compensation, Bahl said in e-mail to employees 

3. According to PTI sources, it is also laying off about 600 employees across Snapdeal, Vulcan Express (logistics) and FreeCharge (payments) in an attempt to become profitable e-commerce company in India in two years 

Homegrown e-commerce company Snapdeal's co-founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal have taken a 100% cut in their compensation as the company realigns resources to become profitable online retailer in India in two years, PTI reported on Wednesday . 

"...both Rohit and I are taking a 100% salary cut. Many of our leaders have also stepped up proactively and offered to take a significant cut in their compensation," the news report said quoting Kunal Bahl, as saying in an e-mail to employees.  

ALSO READ: Freecharge CEO Govind Rajan resigns a year after working in Snapdeal subsidiary

Bahl in an e-mail to employees conceded that over the last two to three years, with all the capital coming into this market, the company and the entire industry "started making mistakes".

"We started growing our business much before the right economic model and market fit was figured out. We also started diversifying and starting new projects while we still hadn't perfected the first or made it profitable. We started building our team and capabilities for a much larger size of business than what was required with the present scale,"  the report said quoting Bahl, as saying. 

ALSO READ: Snapdeal to lay off 600 people over next few days

The SoftBank Group-backed Snapdeal, which has been struggling to raise fresh funding, is also laying off hundreds employees and eliminating non-core projects to focus on "profitable growth". 

Bahl cited examples of global and domestic companies like Apple, Tesla, Amazon, Netflix, Lego and SpiceJet that "painted themselves into a corner many times over" before they became successful.

He said Snapdeal is being re-organised into a lean, focused and entrepreneurial company.

"We are combining teams, reducing layers, eliminating non-core projects and strengthening the focus on profitable growth. Sadly, we will also be saying really painful goodbyes to some of our colleagues in this process," he said.

According to PTI sources, the company is in the process of laying off about 600 people across Snapdeal, Vulcan Express (logistics) and FreeCharge (payments) in an attempt to become profitable e-commerce company in India in two years.

ALSO READ: Snapdeal's losses widen 125% in FY16; falls to third spot

The sources added that the reduction will include employees across levels and the process will be completed in the next few days.

Commenting on the layoffs report, Snapdeal's spokesperson said in a press release issued on Wednesday,“On our journey towards becoming India’s first profitable e-commerce company in two years, it is important that we continue to drive efficiency across all parts of our business, which enables us to pass on the value to our consumers and sellers. We have realigned our resources and teams to further these goals and drive high-quality business growth."

The company had last reported an employee strength of 8,000 people, according to PTI report. 

Snapdeal in an online marketplace launched by Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal in February 2010 and it competes with Amazon India and Flipkart.