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Old 10th April 2014, 07:10   #1
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Cyrus Mistry looks to turn around Tata Motors

A fairly long report in ET talks about how Mistry is actively involved in shaping Tata Motors future after Karl Slym's death. He is reported to be betting heavily on the upcoming Bolt and Zest. The search for Slym's successor intensifies even as Mistry is revamping the top management set up.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...w/33523335.cms
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Old 10th April 2014, 11:34   #2
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re: Cyrus Mistry looks to turn around Tata Motors

Thanks for sharing.

From the article, i noticed few points. highlighted in bold.

Mistry outlined three priorities:
-Put winning and cost-effective products to the market fast;

Winning and Cost effective often do not go hand in hand.
-Institutionalism a culture of collaborative and disciplined product development;
Tata doing this
-Improve quality and customer experience.
Ohh my god! Quality. I hope they do not have it in their dictionary.

All three beg for a new CEO with strong execution skills.

Yes & NO. They need a new CEO. They don't need a managerial CEO. They need a CEO who is an architect/designer. They need someone with good taste and who is obsessed with quality.

Two problems have plagued Tata Motors in the past few years: product pipeline and talent pipeline.
Yes. What did TM do to rectify this? Asked employees to leave. And they didn't hire the appropriate ones (Enough).

Mistry is also taking tough calls, aligning production to demand and putting workers on the bench.
Meaning. Currently, there is No demand for tata cars. So *No production*. Bench in manufacturing. Where is TM heading ?

The company has outlined plans to invest Rs 1,500 crore in its passenger vehicle business in 2013-14, half of it in new products. It is planning to launch 8-10 new major products by 2020.
Not at all sufficient for R&D. with this amount, what we will see is Zest with 8 models and 4 different engines. Bolt with may be 6 different engines. 14 Models together. Target reached. Oops! Target Exceeded. Good job TM.

In short, this article is not worth a read.
Money is not what drives Auto industry. Its the passion for excellence and obsession to quality. Go and find an appropriate guy.

Last edited by gemi_kk : 10th April 2014 at 11:40. Reason: Removing a line. URL
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Old 10th April 2014, 12:16   #3
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re: Cyrus Mistry looks to turn around Tata Motors

Hi Tata Motors,

Good quality products and good quality service is all we want and that we believe is not rocket science.

Yours Truly,
Customer
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Old 10th April 2014, 12:55   #4
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re: Cyrus Mistry looks to turn around Tata Motors

There is more to Tata motors than their PCBU right ? I wonder how their other divisions are doing ? JLR seems to be doing well, PCBU is in the dumps, but I wonder about the others.

Is the PCBU really key to Tata Motors survival ?
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Old 10th April 2014, 13:03   #5
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re: Cyrus Mistry looks to turn around Tata Motors

In my opinion, one of the causes for Tata Motors decline was the Nano. They originally priced the Nano based on 2 assumptions
- It's going to sell huge numbers - in the ballpark of Alto etc.
- They thought t will sell on it's own without much spend on advertising, promotions etc.

But it didn't. So they had to spend a lot of money on advertising, promotions to get it to non-embarrassing numbers. Even after this money spend, it didn't reach huge numbers but only passable numbers.

I think this screwed up their calculations badly - i.e. because of the low numbers, they weren't getting the economies of scale they assumed while pricing it and also they had to add more money for advertising and promotions.

Another thing was that because it was the pet project of the CEO, they couldn't dump the project or keep it low - I would think that a lot of time and effort was spent across the company to make it a success.

Now without Ratan Tata out of the picture, it would be easier to make more rational decisions and turn the company around.
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Old 10th April 2014, 14:16   #6
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I guess they should work on their branding.

Perhaps create a new brand that doesn't remind people that they are buying a passenger vehicle from a truck maker.

Atleast for me... The tata brand image in passenger car market is the single major reason why I stay away from their otherwise okish products.

If reliability is considered as a major factor none of the skoda cars would even move out of the showroom.
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Old 10th April 2014, 15:04   #7
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re: Cyrus Mistry looks to turn around Tata Motors

Tata's product designs are fairly decent. In my view the priority for Tata Motors is:

1) Ensure excellent QA/QC in their own manufacturing process & with their vendors.

2) Don't compromise on product design for costs. Why doesn't the Aria have any bins/storage space in the center/gear console? Where is someone supposed to keep their mobile phone? In one of the 100 roof bins???
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Old 10th April 2014, 16:12   #8
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re: Cyrus Mistry looks to turn around Tata Motors

The other day a friend of mine said that Tata Motors use their initial customers as guinea pigs. This person had one of the early Indicas and he spoke from bitter experience. There is probably some ironic truth in that statement - their vehicles always suffer from niggles initially (some serious, some minor) which get ironed out in their later production.
I think they need to move partially out of the value/space positions and focus more on quality/design/safety. And of course make sure that their ASS is customer friendly and impeccable.
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Old 10th April 2014, 16:30   #9
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re: Cyrus Mistry looks to turn around Tata Motors

I've always mentioned and I'll reiterate this here again. The brand "Tata" immediately resonates with cabs or trucks in almost every Indian's mind. They need a new brand name. Use "Tata" for trucks and something snazzy and upbeat for their passenger cars. And please, stop cross-selling to taxi segment.
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Old 10th April 2014, 16:38   #10
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re: Cyrus Mistry looks to turn around Tata Motors

This is really a joke - Everyone Including Karl Slym seem to have good vision but no one wants to tackle it at root level.

Tata has a good base to start as they have an A.S.S in every city, which is probably on a high level say on par with Maruti and Hyundai (Coverage wise and not Count wise).

All they need to do is strengthen the A.S.S and in parallel work to increase the Quality. I dont think Zest and Bolt will fly off the showrooms. Just for the tata brand and the negative market perception people have, they would move on to buy say the Grand i10 Sedan in lieu of Zest.

Even if market sees a good response for the automatic diesel version, Maruti and Mahindra will accelerate and launch AMT on all their product lineup and price it aggressively owing to economies of scale. There may be a temporary spike in sale for Tata Zest diesel Auto box but will soon die down from the competition.

Survival Formula: Decent (not good) QC and outstanding A.S.S (Mahindra purple ??) to start with and slowly reach good quality.
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Old 10th April 2014, 16:53   #11
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re: Cyrus Mistry looks to turn around Tata Motors

I walked into a MRF franchisee in Hosur (a small town south of bangalore) today morning in search for a 3.50*10 tubeless honda Dio Scooter tyre.

It was 9:15AM, I was the 1st customer, He did not have the stock. He explained in brief that MRF was facing some labor/production issues and its difficult to find the tyre in hosur.

Simple story?!

No...

He picked up the land line, called the other 2-3 dealers in hosur and directed me to the guy (a competitor) on the other side of the town so that I can get my tyre.

I was lost for words, these things are just not found in any TATA showroom/after sales center. I had a new Maruti for 5 years in the same town, every time I visited the MASS I had a smile on the face. Last month I got a used Maruti, visited the MASS for a checkup - same smile!!

In between had 2 TATAs for around 4 years combined - DEFINETLY no smile!!

Now you cant clone a Iacocca or a Henry or a JRD or a Sumanth or a Ratan or a RSSLN - But what TATA needs is a miracle!!

Lets Pray for the only Shudhh Desi Car Maker!!
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Old 10th April 2014, 16:55   #12
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re: Cyrus Mistry looks to turn around Tata Motors

Quote:
Originally Posted by wilful View Post
The other day a friend of mine said that Tata Motors use their initial customers as guinea pigs. This person had one of the early Indicas and he spoke from bitter experience. There is probably some ironic truth in that statement - their vehicles always suffer from niggles initially (some serious, some minor) which get ironed out in their later production.
I think they need to move partially out of the value/space positions and focus more on quality/design/safety. And of course make sure that their ASS is customer friendly and impeccable.
Yes, agreed, but as they do that too many of us will bash them and be sarcastic about them based on old exaggerated perceptions that become unshakeable through the solipsisms of herd ('public') opinion.

For example: are you even open to considering the claim that the vista-manza-aria-storme and soon zest, bolt and nexon have ALREADY upped the (what you call) 'quality/design/safety' levels? I suspect not.

It is no wonder then that the Indian car market is increasingly an oligopoly of 2-3 East Asian firms! And with even Mahindra which enjoyed immunity all this while from competition by the global firms, sure to slip hugely as the latter bring small and smaller SUVs like the terrano and duster to market.
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Old 10th April 2014, 17:28   #13
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re: Cyrus Mistry looks to turn around Tata Motors

Its now time for execution. Karl Slym has redeemed them a good chance with the Zest & Bolt and TaMo should use these offerings to the best possible way to resurrect the brand.

IMO they've just got to formulate a strategy for the maintenance and ownership experience such that people think of it as a joy to own a TATA.

Pricing will be the most complex & tricky equation, but they should be ready to take the bitter pill regardless of whether they actually have to or not.

What they could do is price their offerings high and have some kind of value-added offerings that come of use to customers when they use the car. Something unconventional.

OR

They could even use the classic "Customers come for value & stay for service" strategy, which could be simpler to execute but may get the company good returns only after a year.
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Old 10th April 2014, 20:33   #14
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re: Cyrus Mistry looks to turn around Tata Motors

Do we really need a thread to bash Tata Motors based on a TOI article of all things? Keep it classy folks.
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Old 10th April 2014, 21:04   #15
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re: Cyrus Mistry looks to turn around Tata Motors

Reading about the pipe line, I am flabbergasted! Three sub 4m sedans in the next 3-4 years?? What's TATA planning to do with these?

Last edited by swiftnfurious : 10th April 2014 at 21:30.
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