Bajaj Auto has completed the dealership expansion programme and these new dealerships will commence temporary operations by end of March 2011 with final operations commencing by June 2011. Bajaj had recently announced that they would add 130 new dealers, largely in small towns, taking the total numbers to more than 600 dealerships across India. The selection of the dealers was completed by end of December 2010 and letters of intent issued in the first week of January.
The company is also simultaneously upgrading its service centers to enhance the quality standards required to support the advanced DTS-i (Digital Twin Spark ignition) technology used in Discover and Pulsar. Around 1100 service centers are being upgraded at an investment of more than Rs 18 crores to enhance the service standards. S. Sridhar, president, motorcycle business, Bajaj Auto said, "The target of appointing 130 quality dealers, a task which usually takes around 9-12 months will be completed in the short span of 4 months with the use of Internet and delegation through a layered selection process with extremely tight deadlines for both company personnel and applicants. This was the first time we used our website for such an application to reach out to so many prospective business associates and so successfully. Instant decisions on field by senior management was key to the quick selection process"
He further added. "The objective for this exercise is to rapidly cover key emerging markets, strengthen existing markets and also to increase sales and market share. These new dealerships will help the company to increase the share in the smaller towns like Chalisgaon, Sangamner, Hingoli, Ichalkaranji, Bhandara, Akluj, Phaltan, Usamanabad, Buldhana, Pandharpur and Karad are today inadequately catered to by only the secondary network." According to company, over 4000 inquires and 2700 completed and quality online applications being received on the bajaj website from across the country. This expansion in 130 towns would therefore create 7,000 new jobs in the country.