How Rajeev Jain is Transforming Bajaj Finance

Five months before Covid-19 emerged, board members of the Pune-headquartered Bajaj Finance sat down to give final shape to its five-year strategic plan. It was a routine affair; the mood was sanguine. The consumer finance company had created a record of sorts by raising capital of $1.2 billion, to fuel its massive growth opportunity. For the past decade and a half, the company’s income, assets under management, and profits have been growing at a staggering compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30 per cent-plus. “Given the fast-changing landscape, the natural evolution fundamentally required us to become end-to-end digital,” explains Rajeev Jain, Managing Director of the Rs 1.81-lakh crore (asset size) company.

The board didn’t take much time to give its stamp of approval to build a one-stop shop financial services super app with a shopping and e-commerce ecosystem. “The thought process was to be available 24×7 to our 42.6 million-plus customers, have two-way engagement, and offer them everything they need when they want it,” says Jain, who spurs a start-up culture. Most observers believe that this transformation exercise of the omnichannel network, which is currently underway, was the outcome of the pandemic, but it had actually begun earlier. However, the pandemic did send the plan back to the drawing board for a rethink. “Nothing can make you think as hard as a crisis does. That’s the learning for us to exploit the new opportunities emerging in a…