It's not necessary to build an empire like Mittal Steel and become a billionaire like Azim Premji to make to the Forbes magazine; a corporate thesis as basic as excelling in your business can also take you there  just like -- Rajiv Bajaj.

Buland bharat ki buland tasvir- Hamara Bajaj

Earlier which was the slogan, now has gone for makeover as with the time thus stressing the importance of “Change is the mantra”.

Bajaj Auto is now back in business, ready to take on new challenges & weaving the dreams of toppling the market leader in 2 wheeler auto-mobile industry.

As the world has changed its gears & hard work is taken over by smart work, policies by strategies & products by brands the companies claiming for the leader had to walk with the changing impulse of the consumers. Bajaj was unable to track the road ahead which caused the downfall of its fortunes and was slow to react to these shifts.

Now the company is recognized by its delivery time, response time, differentiated features, marketing strategies & above all customer relationship management.

Bajaj Auto has been a turn around story and is poised to do well under the helm of Rajiv Bajaj, Managing Director of Bajaj Auto Ltd. who is quite ambitious and aggressive in his approach and has steered the company well. From a position where all the two wheelers of the company made a loss around five years ago today the company posted net profit of 238 million dollars with sales of 1.9 billion dollar last year, ensuring it a place on the Asia’s Fab 50 list. The company enjoys a market share of about 30 % and this enables them to have cash reserves to the tune of Rs. 5000 crores.

However, it has been a long and not so easy ride for Rajiv Bajaj.

In 2001, a year after Rajiv unofficially took the rein of the family-run business; he has seen Bajaj Auto losing its lead in the two-wheeler market for the first time in 45 years. Motorcycles took over the market and Hero Honda's dominance was so great that such bikes, regardless of brand, were known as "Hondas".

Scooter sales shrank by 38 per cent and Bajaj Auto, so far concentrated on that segment, saw its operating profits plunge 48 per cent and its stock price drop by a third.

The turnaround…..

At time when everyone was blaming each other instead of rectifying their mistakes Rajiv Bajaj emerged out to lead the company from the front by accepting the problem laid within the company not on outside.

After identifying the problem Rajiv went ahead with various measures like cutting the supplier ranks, headcount reduction and closure of plant.

He initiated the transformation by:

1. Making the company to shift it from a stodgy scooter manufacturer to a tech-happy motorcycle maker in a country.
2. Correct positioning & pricing strategy.
3. Establishing BRAND image by differentiating its products, services & offering.
4. Change in mindset of the workers. The new plant set up at Chakan has got around 800 employees whose average age is 24. This was a deliberate step to let go of the baggage that the older generation at Bajaj had.
5. Vendor development and rationalization - to ensure that the vendors should be partners in the process. This way the cost comes down because of reduced cycle times and lead times and better management of inventory of the parts that go into a product. More and more parts are also outsourced which enables the company to focus only on the core areas of operation.
6. With a focus on research and development the company has been able to come up with new products that are hot sellers like the Pulsar. This focus has also enabled them to bring down the warranty costs, which currently stands at Rs. 18 per vehicle. In a scenario where the volumes are quickly growing to the extent of 41% in fiscal 2004, the reduced cost of warranty is quite significant. Otherwise the profitability of the company would suffer and more importantly if the warranty has to be used by consumers the brand would suffer. And referral sales will come down, which would mean that the company would have to spend more on marketing.

The road ahead is one, which is paved by ambitious plans of taking the company outside India, and explores the markets of China, ASEAN and Latin America. Bajaj also plans to introduce the next generation of scooters, which promise to be more stylish and technologically advanced than what they currently have to offer.

“Visions weaving dreams into reality, Commitment leading to results”