Indian auto maker Tata Motors, according to sources, is not going to stop its plans of making future investments despite the kind of situation prevalent in the Indian economy. In the recent past, a lot of companies have tracked back from their plans of growth and expansion due to the poor condition of the market, which has been hit by slow demand and price rise. However, sources close to Tata Motors have claimed that the company is going to go ahead with the planned investments and see how things develop. Earlier, reports had stated that the firm allocated an investment worth Rs. 3000 crore for the current fiscal year.
Ankush Arora, the Senior Vice President for Commercial Passenger Vehicle Business Unit at Tata Motors, spoke about the scope of investment in the future and the firm’s thoughts of the economic slowdown. "As of now, there is no change in our plan. We will continue with our game plan of investment that we had planned during the beginning of this fiscal and we will continue to stay with that investment," he was quoted as saying.
In the past few months, the business of Tata Motors has not been up to the mark as sales dropped significantly in the past few months. According to sources, the Indian auto maker has decided to rethink its investment strategies to cope up with the unfavourable economic and market conditions. Commenting on the same, Arora said, "We will certainly tighten up our belts and try to be smarter in our investments. We will not be delaying any of our projects which we are working on, which calls for such investment. Market is extremely challenging and economic situation is not something great, we are also facing same challenges. We are in a very very dynamic and volatile market situation, we need to rally live for the day and week, ....we are going to be fine tuning our business, adjusting our business every day to make sure that we stay ahead."
The company is hoping to deliver the kind of performance it had showed last year. Sources suggest that the firm is undeterred by the current woes and is pretty confident of making a strong comeback pretty soon. Industry experts feel that Tata Motors is a highly experienced and intelligent firm that knows how to adjust to market conditions. Due to these reasons, it has been one of the leading companies in the Indian auto market. Analysts suggest that Tata Motors, in the past, has faced similar situations, only to bounce back stronger because of their strong business model and popularity.
Arora also elaborated on how South India is critical to the operations of Tata Motors, stating numbers that confirmed the same. "Close to 55-60 per cent of our volumes come from south and our performance in current fiscal from April to July specifically from Karnataka and AP, where overall industry has dropped by 1.6 per cent- but we have grown our business by close to 12 per cent," he said.
According to sources, Tata Motors is going to launch the diesel version of Nano hatchback in the Indian car market soon. Industry experts feel that given the kind of crisis the economy is in, combined with the rising fuel prices, the Nano has the potential to do really well due to its aggressive pricing and high fuel economy.
