Classic Legends, which resuscitated the iconic motorcycle brand Jawa in India after more than two decades, is ramping-up production with suppliers to meet the demand for the motorcycles, which is sold out till September 2019.

It is also planning to increase the dealership count for the Jawa from the current 105 to 120 over the next three months.

Ashish Joshi, Chief Executive Officer, Classic Legends Pvt, said that those who have made online bookings for the Jawa will be getting it by September 2019, irrespective of it being sold out. The online booking option was stopped from December 25, 2018, but customers also made bookings at the showrooms. “Currently, if one has booked the Jawa at a showroom, he/she will be told that there would be a 9-10 month-long waiting period,” said Joshi.

Ramping-up production

“There is a lot of effort going behind ramping-up (production) with suppliers, and that is showing us very positive results. We are overwhelmed with the response, and we have now come to terms with this kind of response and we have worked very hard towards the ramp up. I think over the next few months, people will start realising that there is a steady stream of motorcycles coming through and (that) people are getting their machines,” Joshi told BusinessLine .

Classic Legends, which is 60 per cent owned by the Mahindra Group, relaunches iconic marquee motorcycle brands in the market.

Also read:Jawa rides on three-pronged plan to accelerate growth

Talking about the delayed deliveries of the Jawa, Joshi said,“With about 2,500 components in the bike and over 700 suppliers supplying them, we are only as strong as that. It’s not about building up your capacity, but it’s about building up supplier capacity as well. And here we are, with a resurrected brand, a completely new motorcycle (with) a completely new set of suppliers supplying it to us — it takes a little while to get everything up to scale.”

Classic Legends is working “very hard” to address the issue of delayed deliveries, he said, on being asked if such delays can dampen customer sentiments. “The long wait period is not ideal. We are working very, very hard to see how we can shorten that. We understand that once you have made up your mind, you want your product or your motorcycle quickly, and we are striving very, very hard. There is nobody here in this organisation who is taking this easy.”

Expansion mode

Even as the company is ramping-up production to tackle the issue of delayed deliveries, it had clinched more than a hundred dealerships within a three-month timeframe — leading up to the launch of Jawa on November 15, 2018 — starting from mid-August. The first dealership was opened on December 15, 2018 in Pune. The deliveries began in March 2019.

“Jawa is currently present in 105 dealerships, panning 82 cities, out of which 101 are currently operational, with the remaining four to be operational in the next 15-20 days. Classic Legends is also eyeing an expansion into the other cities that the Jawa is not currently present in,” said Joshi, citing Bhopal and Ajmer as examples.

After expanding the dealership footprint to 120 in the next three months, Joshi said that the company plans to wait for 12-15 months to let the dealerships consolidate and turn profitable. The second phase of expansion — which would involve further dealership expansion — is set to happen during the second half of the CY2020.

‘Emotional outpouring’

Talking about the strategy that Classic Legends is following for Jawa, Joshi said that the emotional experience, conflated with the element of nostalgia that is associated with the Jawa’s legacy panning 90 years are some of the factors that it keeps in mind, when it came to offering an experience at the showroom, the customer experience in terms of ownership, as well as the experience when it comes to service.

Also read:Jottings of a Jawa junkie

Joshi said that it is this same “emotional outpouring” that made the dealers sign up for the Jawa — a decision which involved paying the dealer deposit as well as committing to an investment — without knowing any details about it.

He said that the dealers also got the first glimpse of the Jawa during the press meet for Jawa’s launch in November, which also marked the first time details like the pricing and the segment were made known to them.

“I don’t think there is any other organisation which would have been able to get 100-105 dealers signing-up without knowing about the product, its pricing or telling them what category or segment it would fit into,” he said.

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