With local car production back on track, Honda is now putting in place an aggressive strategy in an attempt to sharpen the focus on its car business in India.
This includes two top-level management changes effective from April 1, apart from a shift in the mandate of the President and CEO of Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI) that will help bring in increased focus to his primary role. Also, the previous post of a single head for Honda's various domestic businesses (two wheelers, gensets) has been done away with.
Mr Hironori Kanayama, the erstwhile Chief of Taiwan operations and with eight years of experience as a top executive in China, has been appointed as the new chief of HSCI. Unlike his predecessor Mr Takashi Nagai, Mr Kanayama will focus only on the local car business and not look at Honda's other interests —Mr Nagai had been heading Honda's overall operations in the entire South-West Asia region apart from component arm, Honda Motor India.
Also, Mr Shigeru Yamazaki from Asian Honda will take over as the marketing head — as the new Senior Vice-President and Director, Sales & Marketing — from Mr Seki Inaba. “Honda is entering a new phase of growth in India and there is a focus on HSCI from the headquarters. A need was felt to appoint executives with experience in handling volumes,” a source close to the development said.
Double volumes
The Japanese firm aims to double volumes by 2012-13 to about one lakh units. Consecutively, it hopes to become one of the largest players domestically aided by mass segment models (Brio, Jazz) and the two new diesel engines rumoured to being developed for India (1.6 litre from City, Civic and a smaller engine for the hatchbacks). “It has been decided that for now at least there will be no overall head for Honda, but the individual business heads will manage by themselves. At HSCI, the plan is to completely use the 1.2 lakh annual capacity at Greater Noida and see how the second Tapukara car facility can be activated,” the source said.
HSCI's sales took a hard hit in 2011 (fell 27 per cent to 32,771 units between April and December) on the back of multiple production issues — a component supply shortage issue following the Japanese quake in March last year, followed by a similar challenge around September 2011 after the Thai floods. Full production resumed only from this month (February).