Mayank Pareek, president of Passenger Vehicle Business Unit, Tata Motors, spoke about the strategy behind the launch of its premium sports utility vehicle (SUV) Harrier, expectations from the vehicle and urban and rural play during an interview with Swati Khandelwal of Zee Business.
Tata Harrier is the first premium SUV of Tata Motors. Tell us about the strategy for entering this segment and expectations from Harrier?
Tata Motors has an intent to provide new vehicles to Indian consumers. It has been almost seven years when the concept of compact SUVs came into existence in India and it came into a demand with time. The best part of that concept was that a false SUV, which looks like an SUV, was being served to people. However, industry data suggests that 59% of the customers think of changing their car after a gap of five years. This means that most of the customers of the segment, which started somewhere in 2010, look forward to a change and go beyond the compact SUVs. They don't have an option and we want to end that search with Harrier. In fact, this is the first time, when we are creating a segment and trying to shed the Tata Motors's image of being the last entrant in the segment.
Harrier's look and performance suggest that it will cost around Rs 16-20 lakh ...
Especially not, but it will be sold at a premium pricing.
Do you think that people will accept Tata Motors at premium prices?
My answer would have been different if the question would have been asked three years back, but now the conditions have changed and people are accepting us. Tata Motors has outperformed the market by 3X since the past 34 months. In fact, we have grown despite demonetisation and GST among others, and can promise our consumers that we will continue to outperform in future also. Harrier is the first vehicle on Omega platform, and the first car on the Alpha platform will be launched in the next 6-7 months. In fact, we will launch 12-14 new nameplates by 2022, and these cars will be available in all formats – electric, gas, petrol and diesel.
You have a focused strategy to increase your market share. Is there any change in the targets?
I am confident that the consideration and a good showroom experience will enable us to sell our cars. In addition, people have stopped reaching showrooms and we want to reach the places where customers are going. This can be encashed by creating an artificial/augmented/virtual reality by creating showroom experiences at such places. It will help us in expanding at a better rate than a brick and mortar expansion.
What process/strategy will be adopted to make Nano viable after BS-VI norms are enforced?
We always try to adhere to the new norms. At the same time, we also look at an equation to calculate the investment that will be made on implementing the norms and look forward to its viability. Same goes with Nano. The process is on and the technology is being developed.
What are expansion plans of Tata Motors amid launch of several products?
We go for de-bottlenecking and focus on improving production, which is a reason we are okay with the present capacity for another few years. We have a vision of Win Sustainably, where winning is important but in a sustainable way.
When it comes to Harrier provide a number that will make you happy?
In the next three years premium could be 15-20% of the SUV segment, or 7-8% of the total market of 3.5 million vehicles.
