Tenth Anniversary Special
-
Corporate
Tata Motors: India's own wheels
Raghuvir Srinivasan
A NUMBER of developments changed the face of the passenger car industry in India in the last ten years, but the most significant of them all was the arrival of the Indica. The seeds of the project were sown in September 1993 when Mr Ratan Tata first spoke about his dream project of developing a people's car. He asked an assembly of auto component manufacturers "... Is it at all possible that on a consortium basis, the automobile industry, can consortium-fund the development of an Asian peoples' car? ... Is it possible that India or a group of industries in India... undertake a national task of putting together a product that could stand as India's product in a global market?"
Mr Tata had the answer in 1998 when Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company (as it was then known) launched the Indica. It was a defining moment for not just the company, which was till then known as a stodgy manufacturer of trucks, but for the country itself. It was a vindication of the engineering and product development skills available in India.
The difference that Indica made to the market was in making cars more affordable to the middle-class; not just by its own pricing but also by forcing the competition to lower their prices.
The effect it had on competition was evident even before its launch: Maruti, which then had a stranglehold on the Indian market, dropped prices on its models a fortnight before the Indica's launch.
Tata Motors has since gone on to carve out a dominant position in the upper-end of the market as well with its aggressively priced Indigo, and within five years, it has become the second largest car manufacturer after Maruti.
Article
E-Mail
::
Comment
::
Syndication
|
