We are ready to go full steam ahead: Guenter Butschek

Tata Motors Managing Director Guenter Butschek said on Monday transformation plan for the company was in the works and would be rolled out in the coming weeks.

"We presented our overall transformation plan to the board. It got approved. We discussed brand repositioning and brand identity. We can now go full steam ahead," said Butschek.

The Tata Motors board met on Monday to consider the fourth-quarter and full-year results for the period ended March 31, 2016.

In maiden interaction with the media a few months ago. Butschek had mentioned about his plans to get a more sure-footed brand identity for Tata Motors, which will define the attributes of the company.

The Mumbai-based firm is gearing up to launch new generation cars including a compact sedan, a compact sports utility vehicle (SUV) and a lifestyle SUV in the coming months.

The new make-over plan will be rolled out to give a boost to new launches. Tata Motors has failed to generate volumes even with brand new products such the Zest and Bolt.

Butschek also said he was surprised at the response the Tiago received from the market, which was beyond the company's expectations.

"Tiago has gained great momentum and exceeded our expectations. We have received 20,000 confirmed orders for the Tiago and around 140,000 enquiries since its launch eight weeks ago," added Butschek.

This has forced the company to add a second shift at its Sanand plant in Gujarat, which has been running in single shift and thus has remained heavily underutilised since the start of production with the Nano a few years ago.

"We will see significant increase in the output of the Tiago in the coming weeks and this will lead to a much larger exposure of the car on the roads," added Butschek.

According to the company, 85 per cent of the buyers of the first lot of 100 Tiagos chose the petrol variant with 15 per cent going for diesel. This comes at a time when activism against diesel is gaining momentum across the country, creating an uncertain business environment for automakers who have to make quick adjustments to their production lines to avoid losing sales.

"It makes us review our current capacity set up where we might have to shift petrol though we have predominantly been a diesel player. No doubt, there has been an impact of this. We will review our model line-up as far as the engine displacement is concerned," added Butschek.

Tata Motors had spoken about its plans to downsize its large diesel engines (above 2,000cc) used in Safari, Sumo and Aria, to meet the current norms in the Delhi national capital region.