The Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL), Shinzo Nakanishi, has to shoulder two huge responsibilities. He has to ensure that the largest car maker of India can offer stylish yet fuel-efficient cars to middle class families of the country while enhancing its presence in the global automobile arena.
The 64-year-old has a challenging road ahead of him as the company is going through its worst phase in recent times. Its sales volumes have gone down as it was not able to meet consumer demands due to the labour strike that affected its Manesar plant in 2011. The sales figures also reduced because the auto maker has a deficit of diesel engines in a market where the demand for fuel efficient diesel cars is rising steadily. The manufacturer's sales have been hit quite hard in 2011, due to which it will sell lesser number of vehicles this year than the previous one for the first time in its history.
Between April-December 2011, the sales volumes of MSIL were 17 per cent lesser than 2010 on Year-on-Year (YoY) basis. Nakanishi believes that the company will not be able to make up for this loss in sales by March 2012. On this, he said, "My immediate priority is to minimise this gap, to bring it down from 17 per cent to single digit. We cannot cover up in such a short span. The demand is higher than what we can supply.”
Maruti Suzuki needs to increase the production rate of the diesel-powered Swift and Swift DZire. Presently, buyers have to wait for as long as 105 days for delivery of their Swift DZire after booking. However, Nakanishi has said that he is looking for ways to eliminate this waiting period altogether. He commented, "There is no waiting period for our petrol cars; the only problem is for diesel cars. Suddenly, the demand for diesel cars has gone up. Recently, we have increased the output of diesel engines and our tie-up with Fiat for supply of engines will help solve this problem."
In the past few months, the aggressive strategies of other car makers in the domestic market have affected MSIL. It used to control as much as 90 per cent of the market at one point of time, but holds only half of that now. Notably, the manufacturer had sold its 10 millionth car in the domestic market in February 2012; it has sold half of that figure since Nakanishi started heading operations in the country.
Nakanishi, who has been working with Suzuki since 1971, has started focussing on introducing several cars in the Multi Utility Vehicle (MUV) and Multi Purpose Vehicle (MPV) segments. It has no models in both the segments presently, though it is all set to launch its Ertiga MPV this year. The Utility Vehicle (UV) segment accounts for 14 per cent of the Indian car market. Nakanishi will be responsible for rolling out fuel-efficient, trendy and compact MUVs in this segment at competitive prices for improving its prospects.
Since his wife lives in Japan to take care of her parents, Nakanishi lives alone in India, though he travels to his homeland each month for work as well as to see his family. A golfing enthusiast, he unwinds by visiting the golf course each Sunday.
