With Maruti Suzuki going on full swing and on a spree launching desirable cars back to back for the mass Indian market, we caught hold of Mr. Shashank Srivastava (Sr. Executive Officer - Sales & Marketing ) at the launch of the all new Fronx. In this conversation we understand how Maruti Suzuki is paving a path for itself and how the leadership is shaping the future.
Ramesh Somani:
Tell us something about your Professional journey. How it all started and where are you headed in the future?
Shashank Srivastava:
I joined Maruthi Suzuki almost, in fact, more than 30 years back. I joined as a management trainee, and that was in the year 1989 and just out of college from IIM Ahmedabad. Just out of that, from campus, I got placed in Maruti Suzuki. It's been quite a fruitful journey. I have had some really varied experiences in the marketing, sales and the logistics divisions. Here I am after more than 30 years.
Ramesh Somani:
Some of the most challenging times you had, some of the most life changing experiences. Have you ever thought that as a management trainer, you'll really go up the ranks and become the man in Maruti Suzuki one day?
Shashank Srivastava:
Actually, of course, it's providence also. There's a lot of luck involved, but also obviously you have to work very hard as well. I was quite clear that if you enjoy your work and you are passionate about it, you are sincere and you put in hard work and smart work, I think you will reach somewhere.
Ramesh Somani:
As you say that if you are the hardest member in the room, then you can also beat talent.
Shashank Srivastava:
Absolutely. You don't have to be talented. If you are just a hard worker, a lot of people just work hard. Yes. But it's also about passion. It's also about working smart and you have to constantly update yourself , upgrade yourself because this is a very fast changing field, especially if you see the last few years have been really different both in our case, in fact, from the time when we joined in the late 80s and the work environment, the culture, the economic climate, the technology, everything was like it has really changed for India.
Ramesh Somani:
Since we are sitting in the Maruti Fronx, we won't be talking about it as we discuss this unless you tell me the price point which you’re not going to. But what are your expectations like? This is such an important segment today.
Shashank Srivastava:
Yes, absolutely. Actually, if you see the compact SUV segment is the biggest sub segment in the industry it is now 22.5 % of the total industry. We have one product already here which is the Brezza. And Brezza is the leading SUV in that segment, as you know. But when the segment expands, any large segment, when it becomes as large as the compact SUV segment today, we have always found that there is an emergence of subsegments within a large segment. And we saw an opportunity here with the emergence of the more, I would say, younger, urban, tech savvy people who want a lot of features, etc and also they want to have something which is fresh and modernistic and yet an SUV. And that is how the concept of fronds came through. And we are expecting good volumes because this is a fairly large segment. And in fact, let me tell you that with the Jimny and the Fronx in this segment and the Grand Vitara which we have in the mid SUV segment along with the Brezza already, we hope to become the number one manufacturer in SUV as well.
Ramesh Somani:
But don't you think somewhere down the line, Brezza is 1.5 litre. At this price point of course, Brezza would have more GST around 28 %, and the Fronx would be lot less at 12%
Shashank Srivastava:
So obviously it will be priced differently from the Brezza. But it has a component. It's got a 1 liter turbo also, and turbo is inherently expensive. Of course, it gives you all that thrill and performance, etc. And that option is available in the Fronx today. In fact, the bookings that we have got, almost 54 % is for the turbo variant.
Ramesh Somani:
Oh, really? So this is clearly a segment which is appealing to the more enthusiast.
Shashank Srivastava:
Yes, it looks like. But I'm a little wary of saying that this is going to be the long term trend as well for two reasons. One, we haven't yet announced the prices. Correct. Turbo will be expensive, obviously. And secondly, I also found that every time you introduce a new product, it is actually the more exotic variants which get booked first. And then the demand stabilizes at a little different level in the long run. So I think that's probably going to happen with the Fronx as well.
Ramesh Somani:
So many launches are happening, and Maruti has been on a roll ever since last year. How do you manage change and how do you manage all this leadership because there's so much happening?
Shashank Srivastava:
I think one of the most important things is to always be focused on the consumer. And in Maruti Suzuki there is an absolute paranoia about, are we missing a trend? What is new happening? Are we losing something somewhere? And we have this, I think, great quality amongst our employees is that we don't want to give you an inch. And I suppose that's the reason why Maruti Suzuki has been the market leader ever since it came into existence. Actually, we've been market leaders for more than 40 years now. And it's largely because of this, I would say, almost paranoia that people have that we should be on top of things. And I talked about changing technology, changing economic scenarios, etc. Lots have changed. And because we have always been consumer centric, we have also changed a lot. And accordingly... I like to tell you there is one best seller book, mid '90s, it's called The Innovator's Dilemma. And there it says the market leader normally cannot handle disruptions because one, they don't want to have the status quo.
The reason they want to have the status quo is that they are market leaders in the status quo, and they are good at it. That is why they are the market leaders. So if any disruptions come along... It has to come from the outside and people... We have actually all our employees go through these training courses where we tell them that we have to be really mindful of changes and be careful because it's a researched phenomenon that market leaders care about. Kodak, for example. If you don't change with the times and the change can come anytime, you would have a problem, no matter how big you are. So you have a process in place to handle the change.
Ramesh Somani:
Some inspirational quotes from so many leaders that you look up to?
Shashank Srivastava:
My most favorite quote for the leadership aspect is that a sign of a good leadership is not how many followers you make, but how many leaders you make. That is something which inspires me a lot. You should measure your success as a leader by how many leaders that you make. That gives me the biggest satisfaction when I see a lot of people whom I have worked with who have worked under me and they have now become leaders in their own right.
Ramesh Somani:
What advice would you give to young professionals who aspire to work in Maruti Suzuki and to grow up in a career or anywhere, how do you think they should start their career?
Shashank Srivastava:
Yes, of course the first thing is that you should really enjoy what you're doing. You should be sure that you are in the right place where this is what you want to do. So, it's not just the job, you have to love the work that you do. That's I think the number one credit and I guess it's true everywhere anywhere and so work will not look like work, it would be a pleasure. Second thing is that apart from Passion you must have resilience because you will see ups and downs so resilience is the key and a lot of times, I see really talented people who give up or you know they fall by the side because they don't have the resilience. Finally, you have to really become knowledgeable of what you are doing and that is how you would contribute to the maximum and you must always be on the lookout for what changes are happening around you because sometimes you as you grow older you try to sort of your views which start getting fixed but if you're careful and if you are mindful then you would see that you will get many ideas which are more Innovative as long as you're Mindful and you are conscious of the fact that change is extremely important.
Ramesh Somani:
Which car do you drive personally?
Shashank Srivastava:
I drive the Grand Vitara.
Ramesh Somani:
If you have to buy another company, any foreign brand?
Shashank Srivastava:
From my childhood I always loved the Ferrari. I haven't had the chance to drive any Ferrari yet but it seems to be in my mind that if at all there is a chance next time, I’m definitely driving it.
Ramesh Somani:
What about electrification and Autonomous driving? Is Maruti Suzuki really prepared for that trend? And how do you plan to invite the electric car culture?
Shashank Srivastava:
There seems to be a consensus in the industry that going forward electric vehicles will become the mainstream um although you know it will not be the only stream because you will have multiple Technologies in order to meet the emission standards which are getting more and more strict across the world because of the concerns to the environment and so on which is right but where the consensus is not there in the industry is when it is going to become insane. So the question is not whether but when. On the when part obviously, it depends from country to Country, the adoption curve also depends on the type of vehicle like two wheeler and three wheeler is going to be faster, passenger vehicle is going to be later and within four wheeler maybe passenger segment is going to get the adoption a little later than fleet so there are segment wise changes and including country wise so there are some countries who are really rich in in energy like Germany and then they will obviously have a much more motivation and push for them for the adoption of EVS but having said that, in for India we project and most of the researchers have projected that it would be something like say by 2030 the market is going to be about 6 million passenger vehicles a year out of which about 1 million will be EVs. Powertrain composition by 2030 expectedly would be about 15% EV and about 25% hybrid and about 60% CNG-ICE combination.
Ramesh Somani:
Are you also looking at other biofuels like hydrogen or alternative fuels?
Shashank Srivastava:
Yes we are looking at a few Flex Fuel options. We showed one vehicle at the Auto Expo, the WagonR which works on flex fuel. Let's say ethanol mixed fuels then biogas is the other option which we have and our CNG portfolio is pretty large. Actually CNG portfolio now comprises almost 20% of our sales. We have almost 75% market share in CNG and it's been showing good growth despite the fact that the CNG and the gasoline prices are mostly the same.
Ramesh Somani:
Tell me something, do you think that the adoption of Maruti as a premium brand in the premium segment will be able to break into that cluster of 25 lakh plus cars?
Shashank Srivastava:
A mix of things and let me explain our view about this thing. See we were always looked up to as a reliable, value for money, fuel efficient and good quality with low cost of maintenance type of organization and that is because at that stage of the development of our economy, people had more criteria of functionality in mind when they chose
cars and over a period of time there came a segment within the Auto consumers whose criteria for buying became not just functional but transformed to aspiration and they were looking for design and performance and features and so on and so forth at that price point and there is I think in India still both types of consumers. There's a large chunk maybe you can call it Bharat. Bharat doesn't mean Geographic but generally speaking it's a mindset so there is still that functional type of customer and then there is the aspirational type of customer. We did seek to address that by launching the Nexa channel in 2016 which was for a more aspirational customer and we have actually done very well in fact it is the fourth largest brand in the country in the automotive thing and next year we are hoping that it will become the number two brand in the automotive space and just for your information you know while Maruti Suzuki has a 60% plus market share in the less than Rs.10 lakh vehicle segment. Also Maruti Suzuki is the market leader. When you talk of more than 20 lakh, the market is anyways very small and we do not have products in that category at this time so when the time comes and surely because our market share Target remains 50%, we would also have to operate in those segments as well and we will have to think of how to command that type of Premium pricing going forward.
Ramesh Somani:
How do you Foster all the time that you know everybody in the organization is pepped up because you have a considerably large workforce who have been loyal to Maruti Suzuki for a long time. How do you get people to come join and do you believe that people should because for this generation some of the nuances that you have to keep shifting. Do you think personally that's a good take or bad take?
Shashank Srivastava:
Actually we have a very robust system in place for recruitment itself, so once people are here obviously you have to take care of their basic requirements and then also give them avenues for continuous development. How do we do that? One is of course training constantly but also you know giving them opportunities to work in different areas and that is something which always spurs the different perspective and a different thinking which is great because people can think out of the box, people can think in a much wider perspective and that is something which as a culture we have. To tell you about one recent initiative that we have done is that we have established a separate unit which is called the mail program. Mail program is about mobility in automotive. It's called mobility in automotive labs. We see that this is specifically a division which encourages the thinking of new Mobility Solutions and there are a lot of startups which are working on this division. We also had an idea where we said listen if you are an employee and generally you know you go in the mornings do the work assigned to you and you have your own KRAs and you just work for it and not really think out of the box, but here is an opportunity where people if they have an idea even if it doesn't pertain to their line of work, for example I am in marketing and sales but I have an idea about let's say how the material inflow should be there in the organization or let's say an idea related to production, I can actually go to that division and be specific. It's a very nice sort of a free-flowing environment. It’s an incubation and you’ll be surprised we had almost 6 000 such ideas which were being generated over a period of time and some of them of course really were good and we run a contest as well where the best ones get an opportunity to be funded and such things encourages people to think and that's so important you know some of the best ideas by the way also come not necessarily from the people who are working on it but who have a sort of an outside view of the thing.
