I see Tata Motors amongst the top 3 manufacturers in the country: Mayank Pareek 10 Dec, 2014, 1806 hrs IST, Ketan Thakkar, ET Bureau In a chat with ET, Pareek talks about the importance of connecting with the youth, rural penetration and segmented marketing as key focus areas. Mayank Pareek, the newly-appointed president of passenger vehicle business at Tata Motors, is relying on a new generation of products to connect with personal buyers, a facet of business where the company has struggled in the recent past. In a wide-ranging chat with ETs Ketan Thakkar, Pareek talks about the importance of connecting with the youth, rural penetration and segmented marketing as key focus areas, even as the company begins its journey to claim the pole position in the Indian automobile industry. Excerpts: Tata Motors as a company is known as the largest commercial vehicle maker or the owner of JLR, but it struggles to make a mark in the passenger vehicle space. How do you plan to change it? You are both right and wrong. Tata Motors has been selling trucks for over six decades, but cars for merely a decade and a half, so it will happen. The goodwill the Tata brand evokes is something seen to be believed. People actually want the Tata brand to succeed. Proof of the pudding was Zest -- the company launched a product in a very competitive segment and look at the reception. People want to give it a try. Zest sold more than Honda Amaze for two successive months; last month, we could have crossed Hyundai Xcent, if not for the supply constraint. Prior to Zest, the focus was on fleet customers, but now that an appropriate product has come, it has come into the reckoning. We are selling 4,000 units a month against well entrenched competitors, we think Bolt will do the same thing. After all, who understands India better than Indians. We will excite the market, engage with the market. A lot of things need to be done, but it wont be a cakewalk. After almost 8 months, we showed 16% growth. While the number is small, we are moving in the right direction. Acceptance of Tata Motors may be good amongst the 40-60 age group, who have seen the brand evolve, but somehow the youth does not connect with the Tata brand, and go for rival brands. India is a young country, with almost half its population born after 1990, coinciding with the time when the economy was being liberalised. Their ethos was different and thats something we are addressing with our HorizonNext strategy. Under the product segment, there are three key pillars -- DriveNext, a car which should be exciting to drive; DesignNext -- they should be attractive to look at; and the third is ConnectNext -- which is very directly related to the youth. Todays youth is connected, a guy may buy one shirt less, but he wants top-of-the-line mobile phone features. So with Bolt, despite being in the compact car space, we are offering something like Harman Kardon system, the whole idea is to connect with the youth. You are right, most of our youth were born later, they have not seen what Tata Motors is. The initial profile of Zest buyers is of young families, which is what we are talking about, we need to connect with them. Till now, cars like Sumo, Safari were catering to a different segment. Now we have adopted an aggressive strategy of two products every year, which is actually directed towards the youth with extremely exciting design cues, high on performance and continuity with connectivity. I completely acknowledge the challenges you are stating. What steps are you taking to engage with the youth? Its in my mind -- to start a big youth connect programme, want to catch the pulse of the youth. This would involve engaging with campuses, getting into youth festivals - the idea is to be a brand of choice and not one of compulsion. Go to all the places where these 20-25, 25-30 kids are there, corporate campuses, Tidal Park at Gurgaon, IT parks in Pune. We are going to start youth connect, big time.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 15:46:12 +0000
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