Welcome to the first episode of The Ken’s brand new premium business podcast: Two by Two!

In this episode, hosts Rohin Dharmakumar, CEO of The Ken and Praveen Gopal Krishnan, COO of The Ken, sit down with Professor R. Srinivasan and Srikanth Rajagopalan to discuss Flipkart and Phonepe – both owned by the American giant Walmart – are stepping over each other’s toes in an effort to create more avenues. Why? Of course, to bring in revenue and strengthen their bottom lines. Flipkart is trying to make its mark with its payments app Supermoney and PhonePe is trying to have a crack at hyperlocal delivery with Pincode.

But why wade into unfamiliar waters?

Both Flipkart and PhonePe and Flipkart have their reasons. For Flipkart, their market isn’t growing as fast as it used to and PhonePe – even with its billions of transactions – isn’t able to make money off of it. Because UPI is a public good and should not be monetised. So, naturally, they are looking at places where opportunities lie. And both want what the other has.

And therein lies the conflict.

And what better way to plot this conflict but on a 2x2 – which represents the purest form of a conflict.

In fact, each episode of the Two by Two podcast will feature an important story investigated and discussed and visualized as a 2x2 matrix.

You can think of Two by Two as your personal investigative business brain!

In our very first episode, you’ll hear the speakers discuss how Flipkart and PhonePe are gradually moving in each other’s directions too. When the overall market is only so big, niceties like staying out of your siblings turf is, well, impossible.

So, the question we wanted to ask is, where do these two giants, advancing into each others turf, meet? Where do the sparks fly?

And might they collide?

About the guests:

Prof. R Srinivasan teaches Strategy at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B). He has been teaching strategy for over a quarter of a century, and for the last decade focused on studying platform business models. He also leads IIM-B’s Centre for Digital Public Goods (CDPG).

Srikanth Rajagopalan is the CEO of Perfios Account Aggregation and runs Anumati - one of the earliest startups in the Account Aggregator space. In a career spanning nearly 30 years Srikanth has worked at FMCG companies, tech startups, global credit card giants, telecom and cloud computing.

And don’t miss out on the puzzle, here it is: The X-axis goes from full WFH on one side to full WFO on the other. What should the Y-axis be? You tell us.

Write to us at twobytwo@the-ken.com to let us know what you thought of the episode and of course, your answer to the puzzle.