Thomas Kuehl To Script New Chapter For Nissan India
Thomas Kuehl, who was recently roped in to helm the Indian operations of Nissan Motor Company, has already opened up exciting vistas for his company. Being the first German to join a Japanese automaker in India, he has a gargantuan appetite not only for numbers but also for groundbreaking technologies and innovative products and solutions. Having his second stint in the country after Skoda Auto, he is heading multiple verticals such as Marketing and Sales, Manufacturing and Research and Development of both Nissan and Datsun brands. Being always optimistic, he is quite confident that the company ’s arsenal of next-gen products and solutions can be paradigm busters.
In a roundtable meeting with a battery of reporters from various publications (including BW Businessworld), Kuehl said, “Look at what is happening in the (Indian car) market. Two major players (Maruti and Hyundai are) actually owning one big slice (67% market share) of the pie. But the rest (37% market share) is all challenging (for other players) and is not actually improving even from volumes. We have a strategy to break (into) this. To have the expertise in engineering with Indian people in India is the biggest power you can have as a manufacturer here. At the end, your product needs to be special. That is done by the people. I think what Nissan did to invest in intellectual property and into people was the right strategy.”
“In engineer-manufacturing (sectors), Japanese have a little bit of edge to the West. I have not seen a better adaption of Indian people in factory ever before. Because I know the set-up from my previous time. Although there is a lot of automation, but we have a lot of Indian people working inside. And how they are working, I have to say fantastic. Because we made our homework in getting a complexity a little bit down by having more products, hats, more technology but defining the platform strategy and taking actually the best what is coming off from the (assembly) lines. Because what we are taking in India is you have to understand. We are not taking discontented (from global markets) but are taking actually the best and putting it here and making it for India,” Kuehl further added.
When asked about the USPs of Nissan vis-à-vis other brands which are struggling, he affirmed, “With (brand) Nissan, we have the global portfolio and want to take more from that and obviously the new versions from that. But we may also take what is already available (in other markets) and put it into India. We will modify for India because we have the power here in the form of an R&D and a design centre that we can do something extra.. What is happening in the Datsun world is out of my point of view is something I am extremely excited about. That is the reason I am saying that we have an edge over others. We now have a distinct strategy for both and that will also cater very much to the profitability of the network because not everybody is capable of getting into the whole area because nobody has a Datsun (sub-brand). We are bringing in technology basically ‘Nissan Intelligent Mobility’ where we have an edge to others. And we will have something in this segment what is not seen.”
Harping on the technology wherewithal at its disposal and which can actually disrupt the market, “In the next 5 years, I want to see an SUV product where we have an e-power (developed by Nissan). Because I think for the SUV, we all know it is a right product to give you a peace in your mind for any kind of road conditions and floods (but) it is not good in terms of fuel efficiency. When you want to be sustainable you have to put something into this that gives you an edge. And for that reason, E-power would be the first great thing. And that is why I am saying I have the same dream and that is why my team and I are pushing (for) this and I hope the govt is also seeing this. Because we will not stop the SUV trend in this country. You will see the announcement even in the micro-SUV segment. So there is a need of having these more robust cars for the conditions for what we are facing in India even when the infrastructure is getting better.”
When quizzed as to what the primary mistakes that were company by the company and how is planning to rectify them, he maintained, “Before that, we were very confused. We tried to cater to all the brands everywhere. And nobody could understand what is ‘Datsun’, what is ‘Nissan’. Now we have a super clear (focus). We are a volume mass and we have a mainstream premium (brands) and we are catering to them and we are putting that into a network development. For the mass market, we are positioning with Datsun and you saw a lot of good news and also changes what came now. So now there will be more coming not only SUVs but looking into mass electrification with this brand.”
When asked to shed some light on the company’s medium-term plans for India, Kuehl revealed, “With the Kicks (SUV launch in Jan’19), we are kicking off a new Nissan strategy in India. That will be our core model in the next (product) offensive because we said in our positioning we are going into the premium mainstream. We will bring our global strengths in India because that was not really done. That was also the feedback from Indian consumers even from our business partners (dealers). And now we want to speed it up because now with the reforms (coming in). Even having a flexibility of little bit of CBUs, we are expecting how to speed it up. Now what you will see is you will have a focus on SUVs in the premium segment (on) how we can have a proper line up with all our strengths what we have globally we have to see what fits.”
“What we will also do is electrification (of our portfolio) with the Leaf (electric car) not for the mass (segment) at the moment because as you know the (charging) infrastructure in India is not there. If you want to be mass competitive, you have to have local (component) sourcing otherwise it is not possible from a price point of view. So we will start on a B2B (basis) with Q4 of this fiscal year and then we will see our future line-up with electric cars from Nissan. Being the leader today, we don’t want to give up on that and that we will put into that strategy,” added Kuehl.
Talking about exports, he said “At the moment for the exports strategies, I am discussing it. We had announced this strategy three weeks back. Saikawa san (Hiroto Saikawa, President and CEO of Nissan) was here. We will announce that when we have more clarity about the total modal line-up. So what we were trying to do is now to have more clarity when we are launching the Kicks in January that will also give clearer indication (on) what will happen when and what we also do with the exports point of view. That will take some more time. “
