The car Logan, is a a joint venture production between mahindra and mahindra and Renault car company. The car was initially pitched as a wide bodied car for marketing purposes. The company recently changed its campaign and started pitching it as "why can't your your first car be a big car" and they also brought in Kunal Kapoor as its brand ambassador.
This is to the background to what i have to say, now coming to the main part of the story, I recently went to Bangalore and was disusing with my friend about the various brands of car. I told him that i was contemplating buying a car in the next 6 months or so , during the discussion when i mentioned the car Logan , his reaction was "its a taxi" , why do want to buy it .
I was not able to understand his reaction initially. later i found out that, after the new international airport came into operation many taxi operators have started their operations in the town, and most of them have bought Logan and have been operating them to ferry passengers to and fro from the airport.
This reminds me of my own reaction towards Indica car by TATA motors , nearly all the cabs in Bangalore are Indica and that's the reason why i didn't want to buy Indica. Now the same is being repeated for Logan. the car which was positioned for young executives is now is now the favourite for the cab operators. Its not that the brands like Merc and BMW etc are not used as cabs , but the difference here is that they are not used on such a wide scale the brand Logan is aimed at 'mass marketing' and its not a 'niche product'.
so how will be the company affected ? do they really care ? , well these will be good questions, the marketing and the sales managers would be very happy owing to the increased sales of cars , but what will happen over the long run , would logan become the next 'taxi car' in India ?
Should company do something , as introduce new variants aimed to cater to this section and differentiate on others. Well its only left to the senior executives of the company to take a decision , its only left to them that what do they want their brand to become .
4 comments:
What a great moment of reading blogs.
gud one man...!!!
To all the knowledge i have, i still have a hint in the back of my mind tha t India predominantly is a needy country in terms of finances. The things which hit people and work in their favor are:
1. They opt for performance which is cheaper
2. The more out of less theory.
Also to add and not to offend, we proudly abuse ourselves by terming different professions at different cadres which in the developed world ( which we seem to be striving for) is just a "Profession" and people are proud.
The comments are just in wake of word "Taxi" but we forget that at the end of the day, someone bought it because it was cheap, efficient and gives more value for money.
I seriously feel the comments are just in view of car being used otherwise and not as a overall view of "Why".
Hi Devraj,
To put your Logan discussion in perspective, I must share an interesting experience I had when I visited Germany on an official visit. A German colleague of mine asked me which car I drove in India. When I told him I didn’t own a car, he was shocked. His observation was that how could I do a sales job without a car. This was also because it was typical of our company’s operations in most countries to provide cars to their sales force. India was obviously a notable exception. Later, he asked me how I visited my customers. When I told him that I used to take a taxi and get it reimbursed by the company, he was suitably impressed. In Germany, this was an absolute status symbol restricted to the top brass of the company.
It is only in India that a taxi is looked down upon (legacy compels us) as a sub-standard vehicle. Since you are an MBA, let me pose a couple of questions to you.
In cost accounting parlance what is a self owned private vehicle?
Ans: A cost centre
Now what is a taxi?
Ans: A profit centre
I like the sound of the second answer any day of the week. Hence, I rest my case.
Cheers
Arun
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