Yamaha Motor is moving towards greater consolidation of leadership across key functions in India.

Motofumi Shitara, who took over as Chairman of Yamaha Motor India group of companies in the beginning of this year, will now be Managing Director of India Yamaha Motor, the manufacturing entity. He assumes this responsibility from Takashi Terabayashi who wrapped up his tenure here recently.

Shitara is already MD of Yamaha Motor India, the regional control company responsible for corporate planning and strategy, where he took over from Hiroaki Fujita earlier this year. He is also MD of Yamaha Motor India Sales, a position held by Masaki Asano till some months ago.

With this consolidation of leadership, Shitara is pretty much the overall head of the Indian operations. The exception is Yamaha Motor Research & Development India whose MD, Yasuo Ishihara, has been here since 2015 and is playing an important role overseeing the company’s transition to Bharat stage VI emission norms.

Shitara took charge in January 2018, the same time headquarters in Japan saw a change in leadership, when Yoshihiro Hidaka succeeded Hiroyuki Yanagi as President & CEO of Yamaha Motor.

Diverse functions

The fact that there now is one individual overseeing almost all key functions in India (barring R&D) is a clear signal that the Japanese parent is keen on greater convergence of teams and responsibilities. This perhaps, has to do with the fact that a business model, which has a host of leaders for diverse functions and locations (Delhi and Chennai) could find it tough to achieve the desired results, especially when it means taking everyone along.

Yet, the whole idea of splitting Yamaha into different companies in India some years ago was intended to improve organisational efficiency through better focus across key functions. Hence, exclusive verticals for manufacturing, sales and R&D were created to help out the cause of a common goal of excellence.

Whether these objectives have been realised is something that Yamaha’s leadership team in Japan is better equipped to decide. However, the fact that it is putting in place a structure of greater centralisation of authority is a clear indication of its preferred model for the future.

The new recast is also a clear signal of India’s importance in the Yamaha roadmap. It is now its third largest producer of motorcycles and scooters after Indonesia and Vietnam. By 2020, India could emerge tops, but Yamaha would ideally like to increase the pace of growth over the next couple of years.

It has two plants – Surajpur (near Delhi) and Chennai – and is keen on increasing its R&D count which could see India overtake Taiwan which has nearly 250 people on board. This will take some time given that the present numbers in India are barely over 100.

On the manufacturing side, there were big plans to service Africa with commuter motorcycles made and shipped out of the Chennai plant. This was the genesis of the 110cc Saluto, but then, the African market went into a tailspin.

Yamaha will now be keen on pulling out all the stops in India where it is up against established players like Hero, Honda, Bajaj and TVS. It will also have to ensure that it holds its own against a resurgent Royal Enfield and Suzuki. This is where Shitara will have his work cut out in the near future.

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