Maruti’s rural drive pays off

Maruti Suzuki India’s foresight in tapping rural markets has helped the country’s largest carmaker beat slowdown blues. ‘Ghar ghar mein Maruti’, a rural sales scheme launched last year has helped rural share in overall car sales climb to 8.5% this fiscal from just 3.5% in 2007-08.This means a little over 60,000 cars have been sold in rural markets between April 2008 and February this year. Mayank Pareek, executive officer (marketing and sales) said, “There are around 6,00,000 villages in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Punjab that we have identified as high-potential. We have an understanding with regional rural banks for car finance to push sales.”

Maruti’s pan-India presence, with service stations in more than 2,000 cities and a strong dealer network, has helped in establishing the rural connect. The company has over 3,000 rural sales executives (RSEs). “These sales executives are the key elements in generating demand for us. They educate the rural buyer about the EMI (equated monthly instalment) scheme and how purchasing a Maruti product will give them value for money. Our dealers have started appointing RSEs in villages from among locals. The idea is to strengthen interaction with potential customers and convert them to buyers,” Pareek added.

Maruti’s game plan was this: it began by targeting the opinion makers or panchayats and then went on to segments such as primary healthcare members, teachers and regional rural bank members. Pareek said the rural markets have scope as penetration there is one car per 1,000 people against 10 cars in urban areas.
The company has tied up with public sector banks, several regional rural banks besides existing car financers like Mahindra Finance and Magnum for easy vehicle financing.

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Source:http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1236302

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