Flipkart, the Walmart-owned e-commerce giant, is undergoing a significant technological transformation spearheaded by its unified platform, OneTech. This move is crucial as the company prepares for a potential initial public offering (IPO) in 2026, following its recent legal approval to shift its domicile from Singapore to India.
The Engine Behind Flipkart's Ambitions
OneTech is the core technological foundation that powers every customer-facing product and service at Flipkart, while also supporting internal business operations and corporate functions. Balaji Thiagarajan, who stepped into the role of Flipkart's chief product and technology officer (CTPO) in September, now oversees this critical stack and the large organization of engineers and product managers behind it.
In an exclusive interview, Thiagarajan explained how OneTech is modernizing Flipkart's architecture across several key areas: IPO readiness, the expansion of its quick commerce service Flipkart Minutes, advanced trust and fraud detection features, warehouse automation, and fintech growth. This technological push comes after the company secured a $1 billion funding round in May 2024, led by Google, which valued Flipkart at an estimated $35-36 billion.
Structure and Strategic Focus of OneTech
The OneTech organization is structured around core groups that handle the entire customer journey. A consumer experiences team manages all buying and delivery interactions. A supplier experience team assists sellers, while a marketplace team acts as the bridge, cataloguing inventory and matching it with consumer demand. The supply chain organization manages product movement, and a fintech and payments group handles all financial transactions between buyers and sellers.
A major area of investment is artificial intelligence. Flipkart is reportedly increasing its AI investments six-fold. Thiagarajan stated that AI is already deeply embedded across the platform. The company has evolved from traditional machine learning models to a combination of large language models (LLMs) and small language models (SLMs). Flipkart uses a mix of technologies, including in-house models, Gemini, and ChatGPT, depending on the specific use case. For instance, its in-house LLMs understand user queries in voice search, then delegate tasks to specialized SLMs for reliable, hallucination-free execution.
Voice Search, Customer Segmentation, and Scaling Quick Commerce
Flipkart is making voice search a "first-class interaction mode." With advancements in noise cancellation and language coverage, the company envisions a future where users can have full, contextual conversations with the app, similar to talking to a store assistant. This is expected to be popular across both metros and smaller towns.
The company strategically segments its vast customer base. Its quick commerce service, Flipkart Minutes, targets metro dwellers with high convenience needs. For the value-conscious segment, it operates Shopsy to compete with players like Meesho. Flipkart claims its core mid-market strength gives it roughly 48% of India's e-commerce market share.
To scale its quick commerce ambitions, which include adding around 1,000 dark stores, Flipkart's tech team has remapped India's pin codes into smaller polygons. They analyze population density, historical demand, and local infrastructure to identify optimal dark store locations. The system is also built for resilience, allowing orders to be intelligently rerouted to adjacent stores if one location cannot fulfil them, ensuring availability even when popular items run out.
As Flipkart consolidates its technology under OneTech and aligns its corporate structure with its primary market, the stage is being set for one of the most anticipated public listings in the Indian tech landscape.
