New Fast Forward podcast episode is on. This time we have a pleasure to introduce you to Aditya Bandi, Head of Product of the Marketplace at Cabify, a company that connects private users and companies with the means of transport that best suit their needs.
Aditya Bandi, Head of Product of the Marketplace at Cabify: Shape Culture, Drive Strategy
In this podcast, you will learn more about:
- Hyperpersonalization
- Sustainability as the core of Cabify business
- How pandemic caused Cabify to create a new business model
- Agility and innovation
- Why culture is so important to him
During their talk, Aditya emphasized that a general trend and the biggest disruptor across industries is hyper-personalization.
“Just about 30 years ago or 40 years ago, TV was the only way to reach an audience. Before that, it was radio….But really things are becoming hyper personalized now. And I think that’s the general trend across every industry and that seems to be the real disruptor and the real change agent in the world. And I see some pretty interesting things happening in the next ten years. Obviously we have other things like blockchain technologies, etc.”
Aditya also explained why sustainability is the core part of Cabify’s vision.
“I think that the interesting thing is that Cabify has been focused on sustainability from the very beginning. And this comes from the founders, from the vision of the company…And I think we were one of the first players to actually have that as a core part of our vision. And, as for me, being in the marketplace and leading that group, I think sustainability is a big, big goal, even in the business model — how we treat our planet…We don’t want drivers driving around empty. We want to solve that problem of getting the drivers as close to demand as possible. So, we’d rather have them occupied than have them driving around empty looking for their next fare. So there’s some very interesting things there. If we just look at sustainability as a goal, I think we want to make sure that if there is an alternative to going in cars, we should push our users towards that.”
The pandemic has caused disruption across the globe, and Cabify also witnessed its impact. Aditya explained how Cabify had to shift their business model to meet the a unique set of challenges they came across along the way.
“…In Cabify, you know, the pandemic hit us, and the way the company responded has been truly tremendous. We launched a delivery service within two weeks…We had to shift our model literally in a week or two weeks…And, it’s interesting how we are tackling this.”
Aditya believes that Innovation, agility and experimentation are the main drivers of Cabify’s business success.
“The reason we’re here today is because a lot of things are happening in very random ways and there are certain paths that are kind of taken and we ended up here. So a lot of innovation, a lot of things. It’s all about giving yourself as many chances as possible. And the only way to do that is to experiment and try. Right. So innovation, in a nutshell, is giving as many chances to yourself as possible, trying new things. For me, it’s all about the agility of experimentation. One of the first things I did when I moved to Cabify was to look at our experimentation speed. And I said, okay, we need to speed up things in the next quarter. So that’s an important sort of thing that we need to always keep track of.”
To Aditya, culture is what keeps things going. Culture plays a major role in business success, especially in the time of crisis.
“…After all this time, I think that without culture, everything becomes hard, innovation becomes hard, work becomes hard, your satisfaction becomes really low…And Cabify has excellent culture, for example. So for me, it’s always been about culture when I’m being interviewed by companies… Because culture can always eat strategy for breakfast, like people said.”
Stay Tuned for Fresh Fast Forward Episodes
We are always eager to dive into other industries and learn something new that can inspire us to make positive changes in the world we are all part of. Make sure you don’t miss out on our next FastForward episode.
Is there an industry expert you would like to learn more about? Let us know.
In the meantime, learn more about our fast-forward tech stars at our fast-forward page or connect with us via Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to keep up to date with the latest news, insights, and some of the world’s best disruptive stories.
