The food delivery major Swiggy is planning and piloting a programme to launch operations in university towns. This programme will be known as Launchpad.
Launchpad will bring onboard students, typically those in the third year of a four-year graduation degree, as the campus Swiggy CEO in each university or college town to leadSwiggy’s operations in the campus.
The company at present is running pilots for the Launchpad in universities including Birla Institute ofTechnology and Science (BITS) Hyderabad, Lovely Professional University in Punjab and Chitkara University, also in Punjab.
Swiggy is currently operational in 50 cities and is looking to roll-out the initiative in a full-fledged manner on 400 campuses over starting January. The campus CEOs will be supervised by Swiggy’s executives who will also assist them in product and operational processes.
“We are looking at campuses, given that a macro environment of restaurant supply and large potential user base already exists across a radius that is smaller than that of cities. Thus, with the scale disadvantage taken away, the cost of running the operation is much lower given the volumes generated are large enough,” said Vivek Sunder, chief operating officer at Swiggy.
This development is expected to cut down cost of launching operations in a new market by up to 50%for Swiggy.
On large campuses, this the for more than one student to be a part of the programme with students running key parts of operations and finance. The firm has also signed up digital payments partners such as PhonePe and Google Pay for cashless transactions by students.