Mahindra SA opens new training centre

Mahindra South Africa, a fully-owned subsidiary of Mahindra & Mahindra of India, has opened its new training centre for Africa to grow its footprint in the continent.
Located in Centurion, near the company's head office, the facility has training bays that are fully equipped with a two-post hoist, diagnostic and measuring equipment and a full range of hand tools, a company official said.
"Both Mahindra in India and SsangYong in Korea are intent on growing the footprint of their brands on the African continent and the training centre in Centurion will have an important role to play in training dealer staff from other countries in the future," Mahindra SA Chief Executive Officer Ashok Thakur said.

The training centre has working, sectioned examples of the Mahindra M-Hawk diesel engine, as well as manual gearboxes, automatic transmissions, a power take-off unit and rear axles, he said.
The facility has a training expert from Mahindra India employed permanently who is assisted by two local technical trainers on occasion. Most training will take place at this centre, with a few people selected for specialised training in India and Korea, he added.
Trainers from these two countries will also be brought to South Africa when major new models are introduced.

"Our growing dealer network - we have 60 Mahindra and 30 SsangYong outlets at present - and the increasing level of technology in our products, necessitates ongoing training as we aim to grow our volumes in the local market significantly.

"Last year we invested 650-man days in training and we expect this figure to rise substantially in 2013," Thakur said.
Mahindra SA has dealers in all nine provinces of South Africa, which are full-fledged facilities that handle sales, service and spare parts.
The company has also expanded into other sub-Saharan countries, currently exporting vehicles to Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Swaziland and Namibia.