Maruti Suzuki to Customise Cars

Maruti Suzuki is opening logistic centres to stock the essential accessories for customisation and also working on to make the logistic centres as customisation centres for the vehicles.

January 17, 2012: Maruti Suzuki has always tried to make cars that would appeal to masses and very often received appreciation as well as sales satisfaction in India. Out of 5 top selling cars in India 4 cars are of Maruti Suzuki. However, Maruti Suzuki India is now planning to focus on customising cars. This may sound unbelievable knowing the popularity of the company’s cars in the mass market, but it is true.

“Finally what is going to happen is that buyers will go for customisation of vehicles. It’s a long-term plan (for us). The thought process is changing. You really have to respond to what the customers need quickly. If somebody wants his or her vehicle to have specific features, then we would have to be in a position to deliver it,” said Mr. R Dayal, executive director in charge of production engineering at Maruti. Customising the vehicle is not new for Maruti as it had customised its multi-purpose vehicle Versa in 2007, to recover from its sagging sales, for those who wanted to use Versa as taxi. The company partitioned the driver compartment for making it to be used as taxi. Considering this, Mr. Dayal said that the customization would become a standard practice in future.

“What you get from the factory might be a standard vehicle. Logistic hubs are being set up and we are also thinking how to make these hubs as customisation centres for our vehicles. We have set up one in Bangalore, where we had taken 120 acres; we are now doing it in Nagpur. The third centre would be in Siliguri, West Bengal and another one in Panagarh, also in this state. Then we will go to somewhere in Gujarat,” Mr. Dayal added. These logistic hubs will be used to stock all the required parts and accessories for customisation, which need not be available with the dealers at all.

“Some customer may want something with the steering, while others may want different looking wheels. The dealers don’t have to stock the parts, particularly the slow-moving ones, which we will provide ourselves,” he said.

“The company should be able to deliver within, say, 24 hours, or even 12 hours. Customers wouldn’t have to wait for the car. We can do the customisation wherever required. When we send our cars to our dealers, it takes 6-8 days. But we need to respond to customisation demand within 24 hours,” Mr. Dayal said.

He feels that the idea of customising cars is a win-win situation as it would please the customer, company and also the dealer. “Customers would be delighted to get fast response from us. The dealers can free up their money locked in spares and use it in more productive purposes while the company would become better equipped to serve its customers,” he explained.