Online fashion retailer Myntra on Friday said it would completely integrate its sister company Jabong, which would continue to operate as a separate brand.
Myntra chief executive officer Ananth Narayanan would lead the Myntra-Jabong team, the company said in a release, dismissing speculations about his exit.
Flipkart had acquired online fashion portal Myntra in 2014 and Myntra had acquired Jabong in 2016.
The company said since Myntra’s purchase of Jabong, the two brands had been steadily integrating key business functions and streamlining processes. “As the next step in this process, Myntra and Jabong will now fully integrate all the remaining functions including technology, marketing, category, revenue, finance and creative teams,” it added.
The company said Myntra’s independence as a business would be preserved and the team would continue to operate independently. “The closer integration of Myntra and Jabong is a necessary step in our continuing development. By better aligning our resources with our long-term plans, we can put the best structure in place to serve our sellers and brand partners and ultimately benefit our customers,” it added.
The development comes just days after the resignation by Flipkart group chief executive officer and co-founder Binny Bansal following a probe into an alleged “serious personal misconduct”. Bansal, however, has denied the allegations.
There were also some reports that Narayanan is likely to step down after being asked to report to Flipkart chief executive officer Kalyan Krishnamurthy.
Clearing the air over recent reports, Narayanan told PTI: “I continue to be here and I continue to lead the business”.
Narayanan had joined Myntra as the chief executive in 2015, succeeding Myntra co-founder Mukesh Bansal.
Narayanan asserted that while there would be “some redundancies” as a result of the integration of the back-end functions of Myntra and Jabong like technology, marketing, finance and creative, but “it’s less than 10 per cent of the overall Myntra and Jabong headcount”.
Narayanan, however, declined to quantify the number of people impacted as a result of the integration process or the total headcount.
“The integration process is still on. Our employees are valuable but... reason we are doing it is eventually, this is the best business process to have in the market and serve the customers,” he said.
US retail giant Walmart had in August bought 77 per cent stake in Flipkart for USD 16 billion.