Dipankar Biswas — Head of Online Supermarket Operations, Carrefour UAE (Majid Al Futtaim)
Dubai, United Arab Emirates · ex-noon · ex-Swiggy · started at bigbasket
I head online supermarket operations for Carrefour UAE — 40 supermarkets converted into a 20-minute rapid-delivery network, plus 60-minute express from 11 stores: roughly 6,200 daily orders and ~AED 230M in annualized sales inside the UAE's AED 1.9B e-commerce P&L, with the same stores fulfilling marketplace orders for Talabat, Instashop and Deliveroo. My job is making speed profitable: since taking over, fulfillment cost per order is down 47% and OTIF is up from 70% to 99%, while the delivery promise dropped from 30 to 20 minutes.
I learned this trade at the companies that defined it. At Swiggy, I ran central operations through the hypergrowth years — ₹22 Cr in OPEX savings and a 5,000-restaurant expansion across 30 cities. At noon, I drove fulfillment operations excellence across 10+ fulfillment centers in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. I started in grocery e-commerce in 2014 at bigbasket. Between Swiggy, noon and Carrefour, I have seen quick commerce built three different ways in two regions.
If it involves getting groceries from shelf to doorstep quickly and profitably, I have probably run it — scheduled, express, quick commerce, dark stores, store-based picking.
Cost per order from AED 15 to 8 in twelve months — pick-rate uplift (70→100 UPH), prepack, dispatch redesign — while volumes grew and the promise shortened.
Designed and ran the program converting 40 supermarkets into 20-minute fulfillment nodes — the capex-light alternative to dark-store buildout. Launched 20 dark stores where they do make sense.
Seven months as acting Head of Egypt operations: 5K orders/day through Ramadan peak at 98% on-time, NPS 60+, and a successor recruited before handover.
Built the UAE operations org — 12 ops managers, 20 team leads, 35 admins — and picker-economics redesigns that lifted productivity 30% while cutting early attrition from 35% to 20%.
"One of the best colleagues I had a chance to work with. Solid aptitude in innovation, creativity, problem solving and program management — his work on financial services for gig workers was instrumental and seminal for multiple workstreams built on it later."
"Amazed by his positive demeanor and approachability… thoughtful and practical questions, and he went the extra mile."
Most Dark Stores Should Never Have Been Built — an operator's case for store-based picking, with the unit economics. July 2026
MBA (Strategy & Operations), Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode · B.Tech, Calcutta Institute of Technology (West Bengal University of Technology)
Open to conversations about Director / Head of Operations roles in fulfillment and quick commerce — UAE, GCC, or global. Always happy to talk shop on dark stores vs store-picking.
📩 maildipankarbiswas@gmail.com · linkedin.com/in/dipankarbiswas1