30% of GM India's business would be from exports: Arvind Saxena

Interview with President & MD, GM India

Struggling to increase its market share for the last few years, GM India is putting in place a new strategy to double its share in the next five years. This includes new models, more exports, high volumes and better customer experience. Arvind Saxena, president and MD, GM India, in an interview with Hrishikesh Joshi reveals his plans. Edited excerpts:

The company is struggling to sell its vehicles in India. How do you see Indian operations moving ahead in near future?

We are planning a completely new strategy for India. We are investing $1 billion in the next five years for expansion and product development. We will be launching 10 new models in the next five years and all these products would be across the segments of the market. To begin with new models, GM India will introduce Trailblazer, a premier SUV for India market.  It will be rolled out around October this year and will be imported from Thailand.  GM India's range in India includes hatchback, sedan, compact sedan, SUV (sports utility vehicle), compact SUV and MUV (multi utility vehicle).

The new car launches will drive growth for the industry as well as for GM India in the domestic market. We are also focusing on improving customer experience in India to make sure we improve quality, make sure we give the customer the right experience through our service centres and showrooms.

With new models coming up for launch, what role will exports play for GM India? What percentage of manufacturing capacity will be utilised for exports?

Up to 30 per cent of our business would come from exports. Last year, around 1,000 cars made in India were exported to Chile. This year, with exports to Mexico the numbers would go up to 20,000. The cars for the Mexican market were earlier being sourced by GM from its plant in South Korea but now those will be sourced from the plant in India.

Currently, which models do you export; what has been the growth and to which countries those were exported?
We are looking to identify additional export markets. As of now, we are exporting to countries like Chile and Mexico. We are also exploring the African market. From India, GM is exporting only Beat.

What will be the level of localisation for export models?

The localisation percentage varies from model to model. It gives us a good cost advantage and more flexibility in manufacturing schedules. We are trying to source up to 80 per cent of components locally.

How many dealers do you have in India?  

Currently, we have 232 dealers across India.  We do not have any plan to increase the dealer network. The number is sufficient and is steady for the last two years. For us, it was not very difficult to retain dealers across India.

Has brand Chevrolet lost its bite with competition being stronger than it ever was?

We are in this country for a long period of time and learnt a lot from the market.  We clearly want to be one of the preferred brands in India. Clearly, it would not happen the way we have worked so far. But now we have planned a strategy in each part of our business. And that is why GM Board is investing $1 billion in India.

For better market share you need products, higher volumes and good customer service. We have focused on exports because it builds volume which is very critical for our business to get better economies of scale both for us as well as for our suppliers.

The demand for quality is very high on exports and changes behaviour of the organisation.  We recently launched Chevrolet Customer Care programme, which is more customer-centric. It is a different offering for our customers with a different mindset. It is more of a behaviour change.