Maruti sets up a 'special group' to coordinate projects

Chief operating officers to streamline cost structures across departments

On the heels of Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) announcing plans to set up a wholly-owned subsidiary to make vehicles in Gujarat, Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) has restructured its organisational structure and set up a ‘special group’ to coordinate new projects and streamline cost structures across departments.

The special group comprises chief operating officer (COO) in charge of human resources, administration, finance, information technology, and legal affairs S Y Siddiqui, COO (supply chain) Sudham Maitra, and COO (production) M M Singh. All have been re-designated chief mentors.

According to analysts, the move is amounts to assigning supervisory and coordination roles to the three senior-most Indians in the company compared with their current roles to run respective verticals. The company has an executive management team of vertical heads, including some directors and the managing director and joint managing director, which does the function of coordination.

Insiders, however, say the position of the three managers will be filled by Indians who are next in line in the verticals. The current structure with one Japanese and one Indian, who together oversee each of the verticals, will continue. They will, however, be designated senior executive officers.

Earlier, Siddiqui, Maitra and Singh had been assigned two designations - of senior managing executive officer according the convention followed by the Japanese parent and of COO as commonly followed in Indian organisations. Sources said the designation of ‘senior managing executive’ has been dropped.

“There are a lot of projects that require cross-functional coordination. The special group will work across verticals and drive such long-term projects,” said a person.

It is, however, not clear whether the special group will have a role in the establishment of and in operations at Suzuki’s Gujarat project as the organisation structure for Suzuki Motor Gujarat Private Limited is yet to be decided. Siddiqui, Maitra and Singh will continue to report to the managing director and CEO Kenichi Ayukawa and joint managing director Toshiaki Hasuike according to established norms.

“Finance, IT, legal and HR departments provide support functions required across verticals. These four areas would now have independent heads who would report to the managing director and joint managing director. They would support operations horizontally across verticals,” said the person quoted above.

Maruti has six verticals, out of which the structure of the other three - research and development, quality, and marketing and sales will remain unchanged.