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Mr Rahul Bajaj (centre), Chairman, Bajaj Auto, Mr Sanjiv Bajaj (left), Executive Director, and Mr Rajiv Bajaj, Managing Director, at the launch of the Probiking showroom in Mumbai on Tuesday. — Shashi Ashiwal

Pune , Sept. 6

PROBIKING is only the tip of the iceberg. What we are planning is to have specialised channels for our vehicles and we have identified four such channels," said Mr Rajiv Bajaj, Managing Director, Bajaj Auto Ltd (BAL), after the inauguration of the first probiking showroom in the city.

He also said that the company is aiming to open 10 such showrooms across the country, he said. Probiking showrooms are designed to give the customer a complete feel of the product they are buying.

He said that the company was all set to restructure its entire dealership network across the country.

Mr Bajaj said that the probiking showroom has been designed for the biking enthusiasts and the showroom offers prospective `probikers' a chance to test-ride the bikes on specially-designed, indoor dynamometers.Asked whether all showrooms would be company-owned or dealerships, he said that BAL would try to understand the channel and then decide on the mode.

Spread across an area of 2,300 sq ft, the centrally-located showroom has a specially-designed, indoor dynamometer for a static test-ride, wherein riders would be able to put the bike through the ultimate driving conditions and check out parameters such as acceleration, time, power, torque, top speed etc, which is not possible on a normal road test, he said.

He also said that technology would be the nucleus of the probiking chain of showrooms with every showroom's local server connected to BAL's central SAP (ERP) system. Interactive computer terminals would provide hassle-free self-service transactions wherein the probiker could also print quotations, book test-rides and order the bike.

He said that probiking would also take post-sales to the next level. A chain of off-site service facilities is being set up for probikers such as smart cards, special vans that would offer doorstep pick up and drop and a lounge in the service area to enable the probiker see his vehicle being serviced.

Commenting on the probiking experience, Mr Bajaj said that the showroom, which was soft-launched a month ago, has seen sales of about 150 bikes, purely on word-of-mouth basis.

"We have realised that instead of spending huge amounts of money on advertising and bringing in sales, it would be much better to give customers the option of having `see and feel'.

We are trying to move from a push-based need, where we tell the customers that we have different products at attractive prices, to a pull-based need, where we offer the customers better products at comparative prices," he said.

Rural channel gets a thrust

Giving details about the rural dealership network being set up, Mr S. Sridhar, Vice-President, Sales and Marketing, said that the company has identified Nasik as the first project to be kick-started in this segment.

The idea is to reach the grassroots level since the penetration level in the rural segment was quite low.

The company would be developing a framework and have a training mechanism for rural mechanics and would concentrate mostly on high-potential rural districts.

He said that the concept was not to develop the company's market share, "but to make two wheelers affordable to many more," he added.

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