[RavenAvi]

Tata Motors will undergo a massive organisational "cleaning" drive for it's commercial vehicles and passenger vehicles divisions. Initiated by it's newly appointed Managing Director, Mr Guenter Butschek, the organisation is seeing it's spare-parts suppliers base being cut down "significantly" and vehicle platforms are being more rationalised - there will be lower number of platforms but more vehicles based on them will roll out.

Under Butschek's leadership, the "newly-transformed" Tata Motors organisation and compensation structure will go live from January 1st, 2017.

"We had a flat supplier base which we will transform into a pyramid structure and there will certainly be significant decrease in the number of suppliers," Butschek said.

The India's automobile major currently has about 1300 suppliers, which include small child parts makers as well. The move is also seen as an effort to improve ease of doing business by reducing number of interface.

"We will have only the complete system suppliers rather than every individual parts."

According to him, suppliers will stay or go based on three basic parameters -technical knowhow, financial condition and everyday actual process.

"When these vendors were appointed the technology standard was different, mostly being built to print but now the time and requirement has changed," Butschek said.

Tata Motors, which is the largest commercial vehicle maker, is also looking at the pushing itself in the passenger vehicle space. Though, it will lower the number of platforms but have more products.

"We want to be present in as many customer segments as possible," he said. In recent AGM Cyrus Mistry said: "this company is on a turnaround and the results are for all to see."

ET

[Sawyer]

This will be a classic Can the Elephant Dance epic!

Unfortunately for Tata, not all is their hands. One of the top 4-5 have to also do something very stupid to allow Tata to overhaul them because all that a dancing elephant is likely to do otherwise is to not fall further behind.

[tushky]

Originally Posted by Lazy Driver

Hi Everyone,

My first post here and what a better thread than the one about the company which manufactures The Safari- my childhood dream vehicle.

IMHO, Tata needs to move away from Indica and Indigo as soon as it can. Even their newer models (Kite, Tiago) look like long lost twins of the Indica.

Can you please elaborate more about how Tiago/Kite look similar to Indica/Indigo? I feel that there is no single design element common in Indica and Tiago.

[soumobakshi]

Displacing Mahindra from No. 3 Slot should not be that difficult while holding on Thrust from Renault, Honda and Toyota; and more so as the Volume drivers are in the B and C Segment than what Mahindra has mostly in the 10L + Bracket.
Renault will be a Tough force in days to come with the swelling numbers from Kwid 800 and the newly launched 1.0 at just a meager premium of 27k.

The task for Tata Motors is cut out, bring in footfall to their showroom and drive events in Malls to ensure that they are fresh in the minds of their prospective buyer, who should not look down to buy a Tata but dream to own One!

The Current Line-up with Tiago is looking promising and with sleuths of new launches just before the festival season can ring the bell of a Brand in the Uprising mood. What is key is to ensure that all these launches are done within a short span of time and each and every product should be niggle free from day 1.

How many of us feel let down to see an Indica / Indigo arriving at our door step to pick up while you book an Ola or Uber ? That speaks in itself on why Tata should move on from the 3 old work horses to something new and relevant.

[BeantownThinker]

Perception management and brand strategy is the need of the hour if TATA hopes to make any headway.

Why Perception Management?

Enough and more has been said about the perception of the TATA Cars brand. They need to hire a spin doctor and paid promoters who will endorse the brand in mass media as well as on social media. Someone like Messi is just not going to help as he does not have the right connect with the mass market like SRK had when snagged by Hyundai.

Why Brand Strategy?

I feel that TATA has forayed into too many segments without investing time in building a particular brand. Mahindra were smart enough to learn from the Logan fiasco and are now concentrating on the UV market (whether it be micro-SUV, compact-SUV or full-SUV). Maruti has stuck to its strategy of being the dominant player in the hatchback segment. Honda has put its might behind the City. In this context, TATA's brand strategy appears to be confused as to what space they want to occupy.

[RavenAvi]

As a part of Tata Motors' organisational restructuring drive, Mr Girish Wagh, senior vice-president of project planning and programme management, will move to a new role within the company in "margin expansion", one of the 10 so-called “impact projects” identified by managing director and chief executive Guenter Butschek to make the company "future-ready".

Also, Mr Ashish Dhar, currently national sales head of passenger vehicles, will move to a new role of “sales conversion”.

This comes on the heels of Butschek naming Mr Shailesh Chandra, formerly an executive assistant to Tata Group chairman Cyrus Mistry, to head the "corporate strategy and business transformation".

In an office circular dated 6 September, Butschek, formerly a top official at Airbus Group, touched upon some of the changes. The circular also had a mention of new passenger vehicle platforms which will underpin the future model strategy of the Mumbai-based firm. One of them is referred to as Q5, is a utility vehicle platform based on the Land Rover. The others, code named X0, X1, X3 are car platforms. Of these, the Q5, an all new compact SUV will be the first to roll out in the beginning of 2018.

In an email, a Tata Motors spokesperson said one of the core initiative in its transformation journey is the “strategic alignment of the entire organization leading to a company-wide restructuring and optimization exercise.”

Meanwhile, even as the spokesperson declined to share names of individual project leads, he pointed out the company has identified the impact projects to bring greater focus on the effectiveness of the execution. The onus to track the projects will rest with the executive committee.

Live Mint

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Ah! The usual TATA Motors transformational press statements that happen before every major launch season. Last time it happened was before the Zest and Bolt launch. There was a lot of talk on positioning of products away from commercial segment, influence of design, driver centric products etc.

End result - After declaring Zest and Bolt won't be offered to the commercial segment, now they are mostly into commercial sales, especially Bolt. Tiago might not follow this trend due to the small dimensions. But Kite, Nexon etc will eventually end up there.

[Latheesh]

No doubt about Tata Motor's new products but they need clear launch plan for each. They did a mistake of showing 'production' version of new products bit early.

Let the naysayers nay!

[RSR]

Well, one has to say these are not just empty words from Tata Motors.

The company have indeed walked the talk, first under the late Karl Slym, who set off the process by making key changes to the direction in which they were headed (through his HorizoNext initiatives). The products that came out after his HorizoNext policies were put in place managed to halt the alarming sales drop for the company, and actually managed to set them on the path of growth (even if the Tiago was launched by Günter Butschek, it was developed during Mr. Slym's tenure).

So Herr Butschek had a solid base to bring about his own changes. And smartly, he has set his sights on further improving what was already built by his predecessor. His ideas of cutting down their large supplier base in order to favour quality & accountability over quantity & price, shortening product development times, building more vehicles on fewer platforms and striving to change market perception are all excellent moves in the right direction!

Tata need to stick to this path of radical change and improvement they have embarked upon, first under the leadership of Slym & now Butschek. The results and improvement in marketshare will surely follow. In fact, they're already visible on the monthly sales charts, where Tata are only a few hundred units behind Honda. And unlike Honda, Tata have several new products in different categories lined up for launch!

[RavenAvi]

Pursuing it's goal of becoming number 3 in India by 2019-20, Tata Motors is lining up a number of new products in it's portfolio, which includes a compact SUV, a premium hatchback and an executive sedan. These will help the company plug the gaps in it's product line-up and they will have offerings catering to all segments in the Indian passenger vehicle scene.

Going ahead, Tata Motors is also said to have lesser number of platforms to reduce cost and make product development a more simpler process.

Tata Motors President, Passenger Vehicles Business Unit, Mayank Pareek:

"We have finalised our product plan for the next five years. Today, Tata Motors covers less than 60 per cent of the total market and one of the things which we focused during the product strategy is to increase our footprint in the 100 per cent of the market.
The move would naturally help the company consolidate its position. It brings in new customers, it also helps us keeping customers in our fold. This is one big transition.

The 40 per cent space that we are not in constitutes some of the very obvious segments. We are not there, for example, in the premium hatchback segment. So that's one obvious wide space for us. Similarly, in the executive sedan segment and compact SUVs we are not there.
Plans are underway and many of these are in advance stages of getting developed. For some we are already planning capacities.

Our vision is to be number three by 2019-20.
We have already invested a lot of money. We have redrafted our product plan to reflect future and one of the big decisions in that is we will have less number of platforms but more number of cars. This helps us in reducing complexities, helps us in managing the change much better. It improves cost structure."

ET

[RSR]

Our vision is to be number three by 2019-20.

Considering the fact that the current No. 3 has already got 3 EVs in its portfolio (with more under development) and that genuine hybrids and all-electrics are the future, Tata would do well by putting their EV projects on the fast track.

When one thinks of a Bolt EV, it's Chevrolet which comes to mind. But Tata have developed a Tata Bolt EV, which (if put into production) might be a good way of giving their Bolt some much needed sales boost:

https://youtu.be/_DxP2LLGM3M

Even better than a Bolt EV would be a Tiago EV - lighter, more affordable and based on a hit product. A Nano / Pelican EV would simply be fantastic!

The earlier Tata put all-electrics on sale in the market, the easier it would be for them to achieve their podium spot.

[RSR]

Originally Posted by RSR

one has to say these are not just empty words from Tata Motors.

The company have indeed walked the talk...

The results and improvement in marketshare will surely follow. In fact, they're already visible on the monthly sales charts, where Tata are only a few hundred units behind Honda. And unlike Honda, Tata have several new products in different categories lined up for launch!

Well, the results have surely followed!!!

Tata is the new No. 4 in PV sales!

October 2016 was a good month for Tata Motors, which has seen a good market response to the Tiago hatchback. The company sold a total of 16,311 units last month...

(while)

Honda Cars India, which sold 15,567 units in October 2016

Source: Autocar Professional

It's certainly quite a herculean task to claw one's way back up the table in such a highly competitive market.

Well done, Tata!!!

[nkrishnap]

Originally Posted by RSR

Well, the results have surely followed!!!

Tata is the new No. 4 in PV sales!

Source: Autocar Professional

It's quite a herculean task to claw one's way back up the table in such a highly competitive market.

Well done, Tata!!!

The blip in sales was with the increase in sales of Zest which is now made some ground with the yellow boards. Heck, even the Innova Crysta costing a bomb is selling with yellow boards, why not the zest. They are seeing constraints with the capacity for Tiago. A dealer I know has 180 bookings for Tiago and TATA is rationing supply. First priority for TATA is to increase production for Tiago to capitalize on the current demand. The number will then sustain to remain at the 4th spot.

[Balaji31582]

Originally Posted by nkrishnap

A dealer I know has 180 bookings for Tiago and TATA is rationing supply. First priority for TATA is to increase production for Tiago to capitalize on the current demand. The number will then sustain to remain at the 4th spot.

Very rightly said. Even my brother who booked the top-end tiago, just cancelled the booking after waiting for a month and is going now for a swift petrol lxi variant with safety package. Its infact cheaper by ~ 70K. This is just for the time they are taking for the delivery of tiago. We were mentioned that the topend with alloys will take a longer time and so opted out the alloys too. Still the car couldn't be delivered in a month which I don't think will help them to show numbers.

[CarguyNish]

Originally Posted by Balaji31582

Very rightly said. Even my brother who booked the top-end tiago, just cancelled the booking after waiting for a month and is going now for a swift petrol lxi variant with safety package. Its infact cheaper by ~ 70K.

Are you sure about this. Carwale shows Swift LXI(o) costs 5.59 lakhs On Road in Chennai while Tiago XZ Petrol Costs 5.71 lakhs. And if you go by features, the LXI spec doesn't have anything apart from AC/Power Steering & off course the Safety Pack(ABS/Airbags). Am I missing something here ?