Urban Company (UC), erstwhile Urban Clap, is basking in glory with a 76.7 percent revenue growth from last year. Founded in 2014 by Abhiraj Bhal, Varun Khaitan, and Raghav Chandra, the home service company started its operation in Guwahati in 2021.

Urban Company’s operating revenue for the Financial Year 2021-22 was close to Rs. 438 crores, up 76.7 percent over last year. Business Northeast gets in conversation with senior executives of the company.

Q. How did it all start?
UC: The home services industry was predominantly unorganized, fragmented, and offline. Customers found it difficult to avail quality services in a convenient manner, and service professionals were struggling to make ends meet owing to reliance on middlemen and local aggregators. As a result of these and several other factors, the industry was in need of transformation, a disruption brought about by Urban Company. We streamlined how people availed home services at one end and how technicians delivered services on the other.

Today it is Asia’s largest home services company. We offer services such as beauty and spa at home, cleaning, plumbing, carpentry, appliance repair, painting, and more through our mobile app and website.

We operate in more than 50 cities in India (including Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Surat, Vadodara, and Visakhapatnam) and 8 international markets (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, Riyadh, and Jeddah).

We have a partner network of over 40,000 hand-picked service professionals, who are empowered through training, technology, financial services, tools, product procurement, insurance, and a host of other ecosystem enablers, thereby transforming them into organized and high-quality micro-entrepreneurs. This full-stack approach helps the company live up to its promise of delivering high-quality, delightful services at home.

Our vision is to empower millions of professionals worldwide to deliver services at home like never experienced before.

Q. Tell us about your expansion to Guwahati.
UC: The expansion in Guwahati is in line with the company's strategy of increasing its footprint to the top 100 cities in India. The company is focused on delivering delightful services and will implement its international practices in Guwahati as well. We believe we can create genuine consumer delight while empowering a whole new set of service professionals - transforming them into micro-entrepreneurs and enhancing their income.

Presently, we have close to 200 service professionals associated with Urban Company in Guwahati.

The process is fairly simple to join the Urban Company platform as a service professional. You first need to register yourself on the Urban Company Partner app, submit the form and book an appointment for the screening interview. During the screening interview, you will be tested on aptitude and basic skills. Once you have cleared this round, you will undergo a training program, the duration of which will depend on your skill level and the service category is chosen. After the conclusion of the training program, you can become a certified service professional on the platform.

Q. What value are you adding to the area of home services?
UC: Urban Company is adding value to the ecosystem by providing consumers with:
i) Top-quality services enabled by a fleet of trained and skilled professionals.
ii) Convenience enabled by technology-first thinking that allows consumers to get services done as per their schedule.

We have witnessed a rapid increase in demand for at-home services- beauty amd wellness, and home repairs and maintenance. So far, we have delivered delightful services to over 40 lakh households across India. We have continued to grow year on year despite the pandemic.

We solely focus on scaling our business verticals.

Q. How do the partners benefit from being associated with Urban Company rather than working independently?

UC: Urban Company has always had a structured approach towards partner development and well-being centered around 4 key pillars: improved earnings, safety net, training, and wealth creation.

As per the recently released UC Earnings Index, partners who delivered at least 30 orders a month, earned about Rs. 32,000 per month, with the top quartile of partners earning close to Rs. 42,000 per month. According to the findings of PGA Labs’ Earnings Benchmarking Study, partners of Urban Company earn at least 60 percent higher net monthly earnings than their offline counterparts while working for considerably fewer hours (almost 50 percent less).

To upskill service partners both in technical and soft skills, the company has also made significant investments in its training infrastructure. The company’s training programs range from 7 days to 45 days, depending on the candidate’s skill level and profession chosen. Since 2014, the company has invested more than Rs. 100 crores in training and skilling of its partners. The company operates over 100 training centers pan India and has an in-house team of over 200 full-time trainers.

Urban Company also offers a safety net to its partners in the form of insurance and access to financial support. All active partners on the UC platform in India are covered under a comprehensive health insurance plan of up to Rs 2 lakhs and 12 free medical consultations. They also have access to the Group Life and Accidental Insurance cover. Some of the key aspects covered under the policy are life insurance (Rs. 6 lakhs), disability cover (Rs. 6 lakhs), accidental hospitalization (Rs. 70,000), and accidental OPD treatment (Rs. 10,000), among others.

The company has announced an industry-first Partner Stock Ownership Plan (PSOP) for its service providers. Under this plan, the company will award stocks worth INR 150 crores to thousands of service partners over the next 5-7 years. The company will set up an evergreen trust to manage the PSOP plan and award them at near zero cost to service partners. The company has already got board approval for the first tranche of Rs. 75 crores worth of stocks, to be disbursed over the next 3-4 years.

ALSO READ : NABARD lays Foundation stone for Rural Haats in Arunachal Pradesh .