Maruti aims to sell 2 mn cars in 2020

Maruti Suzuki is changing the way its car salesmen used to lure prospective customers. With changing needs of buyers, the company is replacing printed brochures with tablets, in its showrooms, which can showcase various combinations of accessories in its cars and all its products at one go. The move is part of initiatives it is taking to sell two million cars a year by 2020.

Recently, Maruti joined hands with US giant HP for the supply of tablets and turn-key solution including servicing and maintenance of products.

While, earlier Maruti tried and failed in a similar venture where it allowed its dealers to purchase and maintain tablets for such usage. "But now HP provides us with complete solution. Thus, we no more required to manage a separate team to manage these devices", Rajesh Uppal, executive director, IT, Maruti Suzuki said. It also helps the company cut costs as Maruti does not have to purchase the devices from HP.

"Our latest offerings, which we call HP DaaS (Desktop as a Service), works on an operating expenditure format instead of capital expenditure model. Enterprise customers don't buy out the devices. Rather the entire solution comes at a pre-fixed rate", Rajiv Srivastava, managing director, India, HP Inc. said.

Earlier in November last year, HP split it enterprise and desktop and printer business in to two entities, to focus on its declining PC and printer business (now HP Inc.) due to stiff competition globally.

Currently, some 5,000 salesmen from Maruti has been provided such tablets. "We intent to provide these devices to all of our 24,000-odd salesforce soon. It helps to showcase your products when you have a number of them which can't be remembered by salesmen at one go", Uppal said.