It is just a little over a month since Venkatram Mamillapalle took charge as country CEO and Managing Director of Groupe Renault in India.

Yet, he has been doing his homework extensively since January this year while poring over customer complaints online and trying to better understand what these are all about.

After all, it has not been hunky-dory for Renault in India with numbers falling steadily even as it has created two key brands in the form of the Duster SUV and Kwid compact car. As the company now gets set to launch its new product, Triber, in the coming months, Mamillapalle is keen to fix all the inherent problems first.

Prior to taking over as MD in March, he spent time with the marketing and sales teams at the Gurugram office near Delhi before making his way to Chennai where the Renault-Nissan plant is located and which is now his home/work base.

By his own admission, the searing heat of the city was a bit of a shock initially as it was in stark contrast to the cold conditions of Russia where Mamillapalle spent nearly five years spearheading the company’s operations.

The Chennai heat, though, was the least of his worries. The top priority was to reach out to the huge workforce spread across the plant as well as the R&D and engineering teams. “My style is not to follow hierarchy but reach out to everyone. I believe this is the best way to solve problems,” says Mamillapalle.

According to him, it is important to talk to people while ensuring that motivation levels are constantly high. “This is a large organisation and connection with employees gives them confidence and a sense of strong cohesiveness,” explains Mamillapalle.

This was more than evident during a recent town hall meeting with over 4,000 employees where the new Renault India chief spoke to them in Tamil.

Importance of communication

It only convinced him of his belief that 80 per cent of problems are solved with communication which, in turn, helps people get completely involved and aligned with the company’s objectives.

Today, the workforce at the Chennai plant have a better idea of what their counterparts at Gurugram are up to as well as the challenges they face on the field. This becomes an important part of the effort to converge as teams so that there is a single voice within Groupe Renault.

Mamillapalle is as concerned about issues on quality to the point of near obsession. He makes no bones about the fact that this is absolutely critical if the company has to hold its own in this intensely competitive market. This means that everything will need to be perfect from start to finish when the product is delivered without a scratch to the end-user.

“I have started telling people to constantly ensure quality levels,” says Mamillapalle. The hard truth is that there are many occasions when companies sometimes miss the “last finesse stretch” which is what leads to customer complaints.

For instance, a car that is despatched from the factory in perfectly good condition can face the rough end of the stick during transportation. This is precisely the reason why Mamillapalle is keen that every operator in the plant is aware of the nature of complaints. Not only does it bring him/her closer to market realities but also helps in ensuring that these do not recur.

“I am upbeat about Renault in India and the first positive is the people who are serious about understanding issues. I have been seeing their own observations on quality and it is my belief that those at the plant are doing a very good job,” says Mamillapalle.

Once the quality foundation in the plant is stronger, the Renault boss is keen on replicating this exercise across the dealerships where customer complaints should be responded to quickly. For now, there is clearly some work to be done in this direction and when this is also fixed, Mamillapalle is quite confident that things will be in place to take the story forward.

Building volumes

The other top priority is to grow the Renault-Nissan business and build volumes. Right now, barely 45 per cent of the capacity of 4.8 lakh units is being used and this clearly is not sustainable in the long run. The Chennai facility was the first of its kind for a Renault-Nissan manufacturing alliance and the goals were spot-on in terms of sharing platforms and optimising synergies.

However, despite promising starts, the momentum has just not picked up and Mamillapalle is keen on setting things right.

As part of the mid-term plan for Renault, he is striving to double volumes to 1.5 lakh units by 2022. Exports to right-hand-drive markets will also be an integral part of this plan and this will be true for Nissan too.

As part of this exercise, Renault also wants to increase its market coverage in India from 24 per cent to 50 per cent over the next three years. This is where new products like the Triber as well as the one to follow, codenamed HBC, wlll play a big role along with rebooting successful brands like Kwid and Duster.

Mamillapalle is also keeping a careful eye on optimisation of costs. This means that some waste needs to be eliminated so that as Renault marches towards its mid-term goals, the costing structure is minimal. “Greater costing efficiencies are always welcome,” he says.

It is going to be a lot of work ahead and Mamillapalle is only too aware that this will not be a walk in the park. Yet, he is confident that there is no reason why the goals cannot be achieved because it is a matter of putting things in place first before aiming for the sky. It is also obvious that, from his point of view, there is no point putting the cart before the horse.

Russian saga

Mamillapalle then narrates his experience with Renault in Russia where he landed up on a cold snowy day in April 2014. At that point in time, things were quite tense since Russia had just annexed Crimea from Ukraine and had raised the hackles of the international community.

Mamillapalle had landed in the thick of the crisis where everything just seemed to be in a stage of collapse. Sanctions had been imposed on Russia and the Rouble was skating on thin ice. Auto-makers like Renault found themselves hit by a double whammy of high costs and a collapsing market.

Yet, as Mamillapalle recalls, this was the time screws were tightened and a stronger supplier base was created. The company weathered the storm and as the economy recovered, Renault was also back on its feet. After grappling through such a severe crisis, the Renault India chief will have reasons to feel confident about his India tenure.

There are different challenges in store though right from the very nature of the market which is essentially a two-horse race comprising Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai. Other strong brands are in the arena but have little to show in comparison even while they are determined to hang in there and fight it out.

For Mamillapalle, the good news is that Renault is not an alien brand and has pulled off two significant success stories in the Duster and Kwid. However, these were only short-term in nature and the challenge is to put them back on track along with the new offerings.

He is keen on putting the house in order first before the next product blitzkrieg begins.

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