Karl Slym took over as the Managing Director of Tata Motors in September, at a time when the company’s profits and sales were not doing well. The company’s global vehicle sales fell 4 per cent in September from a year ago, while sales at its key Jaguar Land Rover subsidiary also fell 4 per cent. Slym talks to Business Line on his priorities at Tata Motors, the company’s plans for the Nano, and plans to increase market share. Excerpts from an edited interview:
What are your immediate priorities at Tata Motors?
I don’t know whether you can call them priorities, I would say that the company has a lot of pillars of strength. We have pillars of strength in engineering, manufacturing capabilities, and we have a commercial vehicle business which is dominant in the market place. We have new friends in Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). Our disappointment is not delivering the Tata Motors passenger cars to the market place and not getting the volume and success they deserve. So, really my priority is to make sure that we pull all these pillars together and the vehicle that comes to market represents that strength.
Nano, the world’s cheapest car, which the industry expected to replace two-wheelers, is not doing well. What are your plans for the Nano?
I don’t think Nano is the new two-wheeler. It’s a little bit of an exaggeration (Nano will replace two-wheelers), a mistake that people thought that it would be. We do want to provide value for money mobility solution, but we also wanted this to be a niche product. We will do what we have to do with any other product. Now we are seeing the sales coming to 9,000 a month, it’s only better. It’s certainly not where we would expect it to be and it’s certainly not where the capabilities are…It is going to take additional changes to make sure it meets all the demands. We are going to bring in the CNG (compressed natural gas) version, and eventually the diesel version down the line. It is not just stripping down the car to give you a low price point, but actually, still giving you a sizeable experience of driving the Nano, but it’s growing.
At present, about 70 per cent of your revenues are from the commercial vehicle segment. Are you looking at changing the ratio, and passenger cars bringing in more revenues?
We would obviously do a lot more of passenger cars than what we are doing today, but that doesn’t obviously mean that we are switching the emphasis. We are an expert in the truck business and will continue to be so, and we intend to keep current volumes in trucks.
You have being launching vehicles — Prima range of trucks earlier, Manza today, and Safari Storme . Is the economy in the country right for an array of launches?
There is never ever a wrong time to launch a new car in India. We got the festival season from now to Diwali, Christmas and then New year, so introductions are things that drive sales. People are looking for new things, and we need to make sure we keep offering them new things, and continue to refresh our vehicle portfolio.
The company’s profits were down in the last quarter, while sales also fell. How are you tackling it?
This is a cyclical business we are in. If we are looking at last quarter from a commercial vehicle point of view, then it was a growth quarter. However, our market share is the key. We want to look at market share, and in some segments where we were not able to grow, the market share in the right way, that’s where we need additional activity.