[throttleman]

Interesting piece of news:
Carnation ties-up with Fiat Gr co for premium car service- Automobiles-Auto-News By Industry-News-The Economic Times

Is this a game changer for the industry? What are the implications?

[NutsNBolts]

News for me is, the CEO of carnation, Mr Jagdish Khattar! Now that is interesting.

[StarVegabond]

This is a good news
This would strengthen FIATs after sales service network

Mr. Khattar was instrumental in building Maruti's Sales & Service networks

A more professional Servcie Only Chain would ofcourse focus on delivering what is core to its business. i.e. Product and Customer Service, Which has been a pain point of FIAT business in India.

Magneti would provide the spare parts to the network.

hopefully we see the Carnation-FIAT Service Centers across india in one year's time once the pilot in NCR gets completed.

[ph03n!x]

Originally Posted by StarVegabond

This is a good news
This would strengthen FIATs after sales service network

NEW DELHI: Carnation Auto, the multi-brand car service provider promoted by former Maruti Suzuki head Jagdish Khattar, on Thursday joined hands with Fiat Group firm Magneti Marelli for servicing premium cars in the country.

Along with Carnation Auto, the 5.4 billion euro Magneti Marelli will also foray into India's spare parts aftermarket by selling and distributing co-branded auto components.

"So far we have been servicing only entry level cars. By tying up with Magneti Marelli, we will now start premium car services for cars costing Rs 10 lakh and above," Carnation Auto chairman and managing director Jagdish Khattar said.

I do not see why a Fiat owner should rejoice for this bit of news...

[NutsNBolts]

Well phoenix, you call it rejoicing, i call it optimism. The history is proof about Fiat's lackadaisical performance in providing good service support. I also see it as first step by Fiat in beginning to move towards a breakup with Tata at some stage in future; even if it happens in the service provision, and a more independent Fiat.

Originally Posted by ph03n!x

I do not see why a Fiat owner should rejoice for this bit of news.

I read a piece of news in Deccan Herald yesterday, which is as follows:

Carnation Auto, promoted by former Managing Director of Maruti Udyog Jagdish Khattar, on Wednesday, announced its entry into Bangalore with the launch of its first centre in Marathahalli. The centre is 13 th of its kind in the country and will be fuly operational from December 27,2009. It provides complete solutions for cars which include servicing, mechanical repairs, accessories, insurance, etc. Briefing reporters Khattar said “Our endeavour to start a venture like this was to provide car owners multiple brand auto solutions under a single roof.”

In addition to these services the company also entered into an exclusive colloboration with Dilip Chhabria’s DC design to offer completely customised car solution and semi customised kits across the country. The new facility will provide services for 28 car models that are priced below Rs 10 lakh. Carnation has also plans to start a car exchange programme offering new and pre-owned cars of all most all brands and models.

It is indeed good news not only to the owners of cars of Fiat brand, but also of cars of all brands, IMO.

[RedOne]

Originally Posted by throttleman

Is this a game changer for the industry? What are the implications?

It can be only be good news for FIAT owners!

gears,
Red-One.

[sharma_sanjeevi]

Good News for FIAT owners and for FIAT also, now they will have some what more reach to the customer and hope with the excellent & proven track record of Mr. Khattar, this time they (FIAT) should be able to pull it off regarding the A.S.S fiasco.

Only due to Mr. Khattar's initiatives Maruti is leading the Indian market today in sales as well as A.S.S.

Hope they do well

[REMU]

Now that is something will bring cheers to Fiat owners. Carnation has been catering to entry level car's and they quote
"So far we have been servicing only entry level Cars, By tying up with Magneti Marelli, we will now start premium car services for cars costing Rs 10 lakh and above,"

So does it mean it's only the upper end car of fiat get this benefit in actual???

Also heard that Carnation charge 10% more than the actual service charge of a normal service center. So does this logic transform to fiat owners as well with this tie up.

[Latheesh]

This is interesting, hope this tie-up do good for FIAT

[Nikhilb2008]

See, the simplest way in which this will benefit Fiat owners is availability of spare parts.

I dont know how many of you are aware that Mr.Khattar's biggest problem is not service, labour or anything. It is getting hold of spare parts. NO company, not even Maruti will sell it to an outside agent.

So, till now, whatever spare parts Carnation had were procured at a much higher price than what you could get it from an official service centre. We also recently read news of Carnation tying up with Honda from outside India to import Honda parts(or was it tying up with the manufacturer of Honda parts from Thailand/S'pore?..... something like that anyway).

Now that Fiat is directly involving itself with Carnation, this means Fiat car parts will be easily available and reasonably priced.

[phamilyman]

Folks,

please read the details. They will sell parts for cars above 10L. Which Fiat car today costs above 10L? The 500!

It will mean NOTHING for Punto/Linea/Palio owners.

[ACM]

The press release seems to convey that this tie-up only pertains to Fiat Cars costing Rs. 10L plus - implying currently only the Fiat 500 and the Bravo in times to come and maybe then also the Alfa Romeo.

The Linea too does not fall in this category?

The other mention of cars below 10L pertains to all cars of all brands, and is not particular to Fiat.

Tata has a marketing and service agreement with Fiat for its cars in India and that would imply that while it is on they would be the only guys providing that service, so this could be tri-parte service or fiat has kept the higher end cars out of the TATA network.

[HammerHead]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Folks,

please read the details. They will sell parts for cars above 10L. Which Fiat car today costs above 10L? The 500!

It will mean NOTHING for Punto/Linea/Palio owners.

Does that mean Fiat may look for Carnation instead of TATA to sell their premium (10L+) cars?

[sterlingjames]

dear Nikhilb2008
you hit it spot on! but i am still sceptical on the service delivery quality of Carnation.
check out what i have written about carnation in the past...

Quite recently, i had chanced upon the website of Carnation Auto India P.Ltd. and seeing so much hype being made about it being 'A Jagdish Khattar Initiative' and funded by Azim Premji, i was extremely curious about what Carnation was going to offer new to the already highly competitve Automobile After Sales business in India.


Mr.Jagdish Khattar the former MD of Maruti Suzuki, is credited with kickstarting the continuing successs of the brand(Maruti Suzuki) and naturally enough every investor would have considered this 'intiative' a sound investment when the nationwide 'initiative' kicked off.

Personally,to me, It is also a unique opportunity for entry level & middle managers to see if Head Corporate Managers can cut it out in the real world and if they are really the reasons for corporate success or if it is just invariably cases of being in the right place at the right time...

Real success in Automotive After Sales lies in the product delivery-reasonably good and consistent service and this is one which has eluded every automaker and their band of authorised dealers till date. But for the fact that vehicle warranties are tied to service maintenance, forcing car owners to patronise dealer workshops, car owners seldom pay attention to the infrastructure of the service setups and would rather go for factors like proximity and quickest turn around time and low service and parts costs.

Interestingly enough, Carnation's focus areas are none of the above(proximity,low cost etc.)and they are starting off with such noticeable handicaps like;

1. no warranties.

2. location handicaps.(large scale workshops, like the ones Carnation proposes to have, can never be located in residential areas and it makes no sense for a customer to drive down to the industrial areas where authorised dealer workshops are anyway available! it makes better sense to have small 3 bay or 5 bay tiny outlets in different residential areas focussing on the needs of the small local neighbourhood population, rather than try to cater to the entire city!).

3.lack of up-to-date, trained workforce.(only manufacturer authorised dealers will have regularly trained workforce and even if Carnation regularly poaches trained technicians, it is only going to increase the overheads and lose the competitive price advantage).

4. only marginally lower service costs.(because of the large infrastructure and use of genuine parts only policy-again where the authorised dealer will score better due to manufacturer support on parts pricing!).

With nothing of real value offering for the common car owner/customer, except the most frequently bandied about 'exceptional customer service' statements, and with no distinct service identity or advantage, it seems to me that Carnation is not going to revolutionize the Automotive After Sales anywhere in the near future!

It will also be quite interesting to see how long they can keep the setup running profitably before applying for 'yet-another-authorised-service-centre-and-used-car-dealership' status with any of the many manufacturers!!

Source : http://blogs.siliconindia.com/sterli...v96257058.html