The Volvo Juggernaut

Even as international automobile majors trooped in one after the other to grab a share of the much-touted Indian car market only to find themselves in a traffic jam, one player has been smart enough to charter a different route. Sweden-based 28 billion dollar Volvo AB has chosen to enter India in the heavy commercial vehicles segment Leading Volvos challenge into India is 45-year-old Ravi Uppal. The country manager and managing director has all the prerequisites to be in the drivers seat at Volvo India Pvt Ltd, a hundred per cent subsidiary of Volvo "" an engineering degree from IIT, Delhi; a management degree from IIM, Ahmedabad; and extensive stints with BHEL, Siemens and ABB across the globe. Besides, Uppal has lived in Sweden for 15 years and speaks Swedish fluently. Volvo seems to have got it all right at least for now, and Uppal hopes the market will play right too. It is a long haul ahead, he says. As of now, the Indian market has two players "" Telco and Ashok Leyland "" dominating the roads. Uppal, a keen squash player, knows he has a tough game on his hands. But then, he does have solid racquet power in terms of the Volvo brand name and the advanced technology. Says Uppal: We are not selling just a product but a whole new concept in the commercial vehicles segment in India, which is still in a primitive stage. He promises to deliver trucks having a life of one million kms before they require the first overhaul, high levels of ergonomics, and above all, very low emission levels. Work is moving at a rapid pace at Hoskote in Karnataka, and the first of the trucks are expected to trundle out by April 1998, says Uppal. Action, it seems, is finally moving from passenger cars to the heavy trucks business.