Lack of clarity on what the core focus of the company is has affected the growth of its various subsidiaries, said the second former PayTM official quoted earlier in the story.
Business verticals were started at once, but their execution remained lackadaisical. Team members who spearheaded the launch of these verticals moved away, and the company did not make any attempt at retaining them, the official said.
“There were constant senior management exits, and teams at different divisions worked in silos, only coordinating with the founder but never so much with each other,” he said.
For Paytm to be successful it requires synchronisation between its core payments business and the different business verticals built on top of it. “Since that could never be achieved, none of its ventures ever really succeeded as anticipated,” the second Paytm official quoted earlier said.
Last month, Amit Nayyar, president at Paytm, who was overseeing its financial services division, resigned from the company. Other senior management exits this year, include Rohit Thakur, Paytm’s chief human resources officer, and Jaskaran Singh Kapany who headed marketing at the company left in February to join Xiaomi India as their chief marketing officer, said a person directly aware of the development, requesting anonymity.
There was also a great deal of micro-management, the first former executive quoted earlier in the story said. “He is a juggernaut in the PayTM machinery, but lacks warmth and compassion for his own team members. He is ambitious, aggressive and persuasive, but not a team leader.”
Another person, familiar with matter, however, said that the senior management exits were natural attrition. This person added that staffing costs at Paytm have continued to rise as it tried to bring in the right talent.
