Blurring boundaries

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: Goodyear India's chief impresses Uttar Pradesh's far-flung Hapur with a personal visit to a dealer's family.

Antonio M Capellini eats, drinks and breathes tyres. He joined Goodyear as a payroll clerk in 1976, and has been with the company ever since.

Now, as the chief of Goodyear India, his current posting, he's giving his job the sort of personal touch that surprises onlookers.

Some months ago, when Deepak Garg of Dass Agricutural Store, Goodyear's Hapur dealer, asked him if he would care to visit this town in western Uttar Pradesh to meet dealers, their families and local consumers, he readily agreed.

Two weeks back, Capellini ventured out to make good his promise. He went to the Garg's for lunch, and then invited the entire family over for dinner at a heritage hotel just outside Hapur.

Goodwill generation, Goodyear style. In the process, the very presence of the company chief in this remote location was enough to send buzz waves around "" with consumers left suitably impressed with the brand Goodyear.

Uttar Pradesh is one of the biggest markets for Goodyear's farm tyres, the state's western region being in such close continguity to the fertile farmlands of Punjab and Haryana.

Besides, Goodyear has a 32 per cent share in the UP farm tyre market. After the market for tractors turned around in 2002 (there was a downtrend from 1999 to 2002), tractor tyres have shown a sharp pickup in sales.

As part of the hype creation activities, Capellini invited people over to Dass Agricultural Store for a public hearing and lucky draw.

"The whole idea of travelling in this 45-degree plus temperature to meet clients is to show that I am accessible to my clients and that Goodyear is a people's company," says Capellini, a Brazilian who claims customer contact as a passion.

"I have travelled a lot in the interiors of India to meet my dealers, one of my favourite places being Alleppe in Kerala," he adds, always ready with a namaste for elders he might encounter.

And for most practical purposes, Garg is an elder in Hapur "" and as a tyrewalla, having signed up with Goodyear in 1968, more than eight years before him. Making the time for this blurring of boundaries, thus, sounded natural.