The country’s leading utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra, which has recently completed the acquisition process of bankrupted Korean automaker SsangYong, is planning to take 100 of its top vendors to South Korea in the month of May to integrate sourcing operations and launch Ssangyong's Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV’s) in India.
A person with direct knowledge to the matter said in a statement given to ET, "We will explore business opportunities and look for communization of parts to improve production practices." He added, "We will be looking into areas where we can source common parts for economies of scale."
The company already sent out invites to its top vendors for an interaction with component manufacturers of this South Korean firm. The invited vendors include Sona Steering, JBM, Lumax, Lokesh, Minda, Varroc, Visteon and Delphi.
As per the industry reports, Ssangyong is planning to focus on developing the brand so that the product development can be kept at the highest priority. It will invest about Rs 960 crore on product development and brand building in the current financial year. The company aims to sell about 1.2 lakh vehicles in 2011 as compared to 82,000 units sold in year 2010.
