'Am no longer an employee, have quit': AskMeBazaar CEO

Anjali Singh moneycontrol.comOn August 23, a notice was put on the noticeboard at the offices of AskMeBazaar. “In view of the current suspension of operations, a strategic decision has been taken that no employee is required to report from August 24 onwards to office,” the notice said. Just days prior, Ankur Gur, logistics and supply chain head at AskMe on August 17, left an email to Achint Pathak, operations manager, Next Day Delivery operations and Leen Fernandes, head sales and distribution at Getit Stores, the company’s own seller arm to stop immediate processing of orders. “In the light of our current financial situation, please stop processing of all orders till further notice,” he said, in an email reviewed by moneycontrol. The mail was marked to Kiran Murthi, CEO of AskmeBazaar. This is what Kiran Murthi told moneycontrol when we reached out to him: "Legally, am not obliged to speak on the company, as am no longer an employee. I resigned in mid of August," Kiran Murthi, ex-CEO of AskMeBazaar told moneycontrol. "I was just an employee and only the founders can speak on the company now," he said. 'CEO stopped coming to office since June'Murthi had stopped coming to Noida office where the entire AskMeBazaar team sat. He instead chose to work from the company’s small office in Gurgaon. “He wished not to answer any questions about company’s health when confronted by employees,” another employee in his team told moneycontrol. The plight of “All Work, No Pay” has compelled even the experienced, high-profile and well-to-do employees to actually question the strategies and leadership qualities of the organisation they are working for. Murthi and top management resigned days after all transactions were stopped on the e-commerce platform last month. For employees, what followed is a shocking revelation of the hardships and the daily struggle of the employees.In the words of an Askmebazaar employee working at the customer support division, closure of the company was the writing was on the wall and the management chose to ignore it. Ritika (name changed to protect identity), a top official at the Call Centre and Pre-sales Division at Askmebazaar, has an inside view of the fiasco at e-commerce firm Askmebazaar.com.Ecommerce dreams shatteredAs a person having first-hand experienced the layoffs, she says that most shocking of all was “the leadership and the strategic inefficiency of the organisation”.“Earlier the work was good, and the employees were self-motivated and committed during early years when the investment was coming. The sudden change of events was a shock to everybody who was convinced that the startup ship was on solid ground.”In order to delay the impending disaster, Ritika says, the organisation began to start new projects and launch initiatives out of the blue which left employees overworked. “Thereafter, the backup system gave way. The strategies were a muddled vortex of loopholes and failures and that’s when it hit us all. The entire scenario seemed so scripted that failure became inevitable,” she adds.She’s quick to highlight that poor leadership of Askmebazaar’s captain Sanjiv Gupta led to the demise of what promised to be a great start. Management hid Astro’s red line decision of 2015Astro in it’s email to moneycontrol says that it informed Gupta last year that it was not going to invest any further. “A red-line was drawn in 2015 by AENL and management were asked to commence sourcing for alternate funding through a third party investor,” an Astro spokesperson told moneycontrol in an email. “With the CMD Sanjiv Gupta leading the way — a way which was filled with consequences that now affect only the employees — AskMeBazaar faces a rather tragic end juxtaposed to a great beginning”. (See later - The profile of Sanjiv Gupta).The question that remains now is whether or not the closure, which paints a rather sordid picture of a scam, was pre-destined, and a pre-planned one. Top employees knew that the end was near and had started planning for it. Employees were also startled to see the pictures of AskmeGrocery’s founders on Facebook who were partying in Thailand, even as their staff awaited their salaries for three months!(With inputs from Harsimran Julka)Also read: How the AskMeBazaar scam unfoldedWith no management, employees can’t even resign or get fired!In dire straits: Employees threaten suicide in emails to CMDAskMe scaled too fast and ran out of money'I might have to sell my house to pay debt': AskMe seller(Write to Team Startups at Moneycontrol - feedback@moneycontrol.com)