In a giant step towards market expansion and rural development, Suzuki Motors Corporation has declared setting up a fund for India of 200 crore. The endeavor explicitly targets improvement of business environments in the rural area, a critical segment of the company subsidiary Maruti Suzuki.
PC: ABP News
Rural India has been an important market for Maruti Suzuki over many years. The company, a wholly own subsidiary of a Japanese giant, Suzuki Motors Corporation, which started its business in 1983 with Maruti 800, has sold more than five million units in rural areas. Presently, close to 40% of Maruti Suzuki’s overall sales come from this part of India. Realizing the distinctive needs, desires, aspirations and likely potential in rural customers, plus serious business concerns toward them, Maruti Suzuki has heavily invested in putting up a large network of more than 1,700 retail outlets in these areas.
Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Director (Marketing & Sales) of Maruti Suzuki, stated, “As an organization, we repurposed the drive towards gaining a deeper insight into the aspirations of the rural consumer. This attitude has been adopted in the form of training of 12,500 specially trained dealership people, known as Resident Dealer Sales Executives trained in local customs and cultures.
The $40-million fund that Suzuki has just announced recently attests to the company’s strategy of deepening engagement with rural India. This could be fundable for a series of initiatives stretching from improving the distribution network to service infrastructure to nurturing local entrepreneurship. In doing so, Suzuki will ensure a more inclusive growth model that works as well for the corporation as for rural communities.
The fund is expected to help in creating ancillary industries and service providers, thus generating employment and boosting the local economy. Moreover, this helps to complement Suzuki’s broader goal of attaining a production capacity of around 4 million units by 2030 in India.
Now, Maruti Suzuki is bringing the same focus into the rural markets along with its aggressive expansion of the overall footprint in the country of India. It will be looking forward to increasing further in the Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, which will further help to increase its reach. This expansion of the network will be supported by the addition of new models and new technologies, which clearly meet the requirements of the Indian customers.
In recent years, Maruti Suzuki has been giving a big push to hybrid and CNG vehicle segments, to give a clear reflection of its commitment to sustainability. More than 2.1 million units of hybrid and CNGs have been sold by the company, thus reiterating the fact that the eco-friendly vehicles drive has been getting acceptance by Indian buyers.
The announcement follows the 40th anniversary celebrations held by Suzuki in respect of its association with India. The events included the symbolic brick laying ceremonies of new plants in Haryana and Gujarat, further confirming Suzuki’s sustained investment in the Indian automotive industry. The history of such investments may have been politically influenced by enabling stiff import bearing walls. The new plants are likely to perform an extremely critical function in addressing the likely future automobile demand in the country with the objective of integrating its production capacity by Suzuki.
Suzuki’s initiative in rural India is a strategic move and a classic example of how underutilized potential can be exploited. Through the improvement in business environment and the subsequent support for local development, Suzuki is in a stronger position of market leadership while driving sustainable growth. This increases the group’s ability to work toward long-term vision for inclusive growth while continuing to meet changing consumer needs in India.
