The loss-making domestic operations of Tata Motors Ltd., having completed its business transformation exercise, has embarked on its turnaround phase by targeting bottomline improvement of ₹1,500 crore, a top official said.
The company did not specify any time frame, but is hopeful that the domestic arm will turn profitable by the end of this financial year. “Now we have entered the turnaround phase of the domestic business. Our target is to improve the commercial vehicles market share by 5%, to have a bottomline impact of ₹1,500 crore through various cost reduction and performance improvement measures. And we aim to achieve significant improvement in brand perception,” Guenter Butschek, MD & CEO, Tata Motors, told reporters.
‘Aggressive strategy’
He said the company had embarked on an aggressive sales strategy to achieve its objectives. As against the earlier laid back approach, the company is now conducting rigorous month-on-month review of performance and sales target. And performance is closely being monitored by the executive committee headed by chairman N. Chandrasekaran.
“From a functional organization, we have become profit and loss oriented. We have changed from a headquarter-driven organization to a front line sales approach, so that decisions are made fast at the spot. Now, a majority of the people are in the front line to achieve higher sales targets and this will change the game completely,” Mr. Butschek said.
He said the company was rolling out new products in the heavy and medium commercial vehicles segment and new passenger vehicles were in the pipeline. He said the company would invest ₹4,000 crore in new product development. This includes ₹2,500 crore in the passenger vehicles business and ₹1,500 crore in the commercial vehicles division.
The passenger vehicles business of Tata Motors will be introducing Nexon, an SUV, to complete its product offering for customers.
The company on Monday unveiled its brand promise — Connecting Aspirations — to better represent itself as “an interconnected system of mobility solutions that are intelligent, perceptive, warm and expressive.”
