Monday, March 04, 2013

Ford's new outlook towards India

Ford India President & MD Michael Boneham has worked tremendously hard on his India basics since appointment. In an exclusive interaction with sanchit verma, Boneham talks about Ford's new outlook towards India

B&E: How is Ford applying its One Ford strategy; do tell me about the brief given to you about the strategy while coming to India?
MB: The brief was all about ensuring that the products we are going to deliver to the Indian market are sourced through the global market platform, global product engineering, global development strategy that also meets local needs. And some of the local needs we see with Ford Figo are to provide outstanding value for money, great fuel economy, great technology available to differentiate the product from the competition. You must be seen in the 70% market in India because if you are not, you are not a major player in India. We utilized the resources of the Ford global team; the one team which we have had, to deliver an outstanding launch of Figo and put together a strategy that we use in the global platform as we move Ford. We are not going to have legacy brands any longer for India. We will have the V-car platform, C-car platform and we are going to utiize them across the globe, utilize the economies of scale to get the costs down so that we can price it efficiently and use outstanding engine technology to give outstanding class leading fuel economy. In India, that is a tremendous selling point and if you don't have fuel economy, you are not in the race. If we look at the Ford global strategy, it fitted beautifully with India's strategy plan. The better India plan!

B&E: With major players like Maruti, Tata already having a major share in market, what are Ford’s plans to become a major player?
MB: Firstly, we are going to be 'in' the segment. Secondly, we will be delivering outstanding value for money. This is not something which happens overnight. It is something which grows when customers start to accept your products in this segment in which we have just got in. So you have to ensure that you have great value for money. Cost of ownership is a positive story where we needed to work and we have done a lot of work. Cost of ownership for Ford Figo is very light as compared to big players. We have worked very hard on component cost, part cost when there is replacement, we have worked very hard on what we call the ‘child part’ strategy in which you can buy one small part rather than buying the whole assembly. For instance, you can buy the skin of the door panel if you meet with an unfortunate accident and someone winches your door away. You can just change the skin without changing the whole door. It’s the 1st in the Indian market and no else does that. Unfortunately, accidents are a reality of life in Indian roads, so that was an unbelievable level of creative thinking. So we worked hard on that body strategy to ensure what could we do so that the vehicles were in the great quality range while retaining low cost of ownership.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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