Maruti's rural push

Maruti goes rural: The company has hired people to exclusively service villages.

Maruti Udyog (MUL) has grown sales by 17.1 per cent in the first quarter of the current financial year to 169,669 units and Jagdish Khattar, Managing Director of the company, attributes at least some of this success not just to peppy sales of the Swift and SX4, but also to the company's push into semi-urban and rural centres. "Earlier, our dealerships used to send a salesman to outlying towns and he used to visit such towns once every month at best," says Khattar. "Now, we have hired 1,500 people to exclusively service small towns and large villages." The salespeople, hired by the regional dealerships are all local, which according to Khattar helps in two ways: they know who potential buyers are and the potential buyers trust them. It has also written to 95 regional rural banks with which it is keen on tying up to finance these cars.

"In June, we sold 2,800 cars this way," Khattar acknowledges. A majority of them were Maruti 800s and Altos. As far as servicing vehicles in outlying areas is concerned, Khattar points out that MUL has over 1,500 service points across the country. "You are never too far from a Maruti workshop," he quips. The scheme has been so successful that Khattar says he is planning to extending it further to another 500-1,000 points.