Team-BHP - Audi India gets a new boss

Balbir Singh Dhillon has been appointed as Head, Audi India. He replaces Rahil Ansari and will take charge from September 1, 2019.

Audi India gets a new boss-audi-india-head.jpg

Balbir Singh Dhillon re-joined Audi India in July 2018 as the head of dealer development. He was the Head of Sales Field Force between 2007-2012. Dhillon has 23 years of automotive experience. He has previously held top posts at Audi Middle East, Porsche India and Honda India.

Rahil Ansari has been appointed as Senior Director, Central Sales Controlling (Global). He will be based at Ingolstadt in the Finance division. Ansari had joined Audi India for his third stint on February 1, 2017.

Link to Team-BHP News

Ansari has overseen what were the brand's worst days in India. Will be interesting to see if Dhillon is up to a fight. Competition in the stratosphere of luxury is very intense, all thanks to Mercedes & BMW.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by GTO (Post 4557364)

At one time, Audi was confident, aggressive & a sales champion. It was also the no.1 luxury car brand in some years - example news item.

The company was on fire from 2012 through 2015, after which sales have fallen off a cliff :Frustrati. 2018 was a particularly brutal year for the brand with merely 6463 cars sold. If things continue this way, I will be hardly surprised in seeing Jaguar-Land Rover (once a niche player) overtake Audi!

Whatever happened to the four-rings? I don't follow the 30+ lakh scene as closely as I do the sub-30 lakh segments, so am really looking for answers.

• Was no one interested in the Vento-sized A3?
• Did customers find the new A4 to be too similar to the old A4 (I sure did)?
• Is the Q3 too old (answer = yes)?
• Have Mercedes & BMW started matching Audi on discounts (Audi was & is the king of discounting in India)?
• Did the North India dealer fraud hit the brand that hard (link)?
• Are VW & Audi HQs too busy with the emissions scandal to bother with their Indian operations (VW hasn't even bothered to bring the new Polo here)?
• Have JLR & Volvo affected Audi more than the others?
• Or is it just a product-specific problem? I mean, I look at half of Audi India's range and I just see L-A-M-E?
• Audi was always strong in SUVs. One would think that, in a market that has moved to SUVs big time, Audi would've grown stronger. That's clearly not the case. A recent ET Prime article said that Audi's sedan : SUV mix has actually changed from 70:30 to 50:50.

I expect to see some growth under his leadership. Partly because most of Audi India's problems will go away once their next generation products get launched.

To give you an idea, here's a list of facelifts that is yet to come to India/due for a refresh at a global level:
A4
A6
A7
A8
Q3
Q7
Q8

As you can see, practically all of their cars are in line to be updated, making them the most recent on the market.

His profile looks good too, seems to be a VAG group veteran. I predict good times for the brand. :)

It's going to be a long while before Audi gets back on track in India. Boring engines, not too exciting handling and a brand equity that's been damaged to associate "weak engined cars" with the brand.

VW Group CEO's in India have had to fight with their hands tied behind their back in an area where winning is tough even with both hands free.

Audi's current strategy seems to be founded on the belief that looks and a (now diminishing) brand pull is enough to succeed in India.

Yes, it's going to be a long while before Audi gets going in India again. You can't win when you bring a knife to a gunfight.

Audi India was sales champion when their dealers were giving hefty discounts. I have seen discounts on an A6 going upto 12 Lacs even at one point.

Rahil Ansari has seen worse days in the history of Audi India when their top sales grossers like Zenica and Sterling in Delhi had to shut down their multiple dealerships due to mismanagement inside the dealership.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...w/65640878.cms

Audi India also lost the plot in one of the key markets like Delhi when they allowed existing dealers to open multiple outlets resulting in cut throat competition and eventually dealers losing revenues.