[vinair]

A probe initiated against TATA Motors' commercial business:

https://www.carandbike.com/news/anti...dtv_topstories

[ObsessedByFIAT]

Silly me kept reading Anti-Trust as Anti-Rust and went through the entire news article thinking how Rust and abusing market position are related!

Though I do not know what the truth is, however, I feel TATA is one of the more ethical companies. If the allegations are indeed true, I would feel heart broken. Not that it matters to me directly, but I do have a kind of respect for this one Indian company.

[vharihar]

The article hasn't clarified what *exactly* is the wrongdoing on TM's part (the exact modus operandi). Simply saying *coercion* doesn't cut it. If the so-called *coercion* was in the form of better discounts if ordering specific models, then there's nothing wrong in that.

It's not a big deal anyway. Anti-trust probes are very common in the developed world (eg. Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, etc have all faced antitrust trials at various times)

[turbo]

Originally Posted by vharihar

The article hasn't clarified what *exactly* is the wrongdoing on TM's part (the exact modus operandi). Simply saying *coercion* doesn't cut it. If the so-called *coercion* was in the form of better discounts if ordering specific models, then there's nothing wrong in that.

It's not a big deal anyway. Anti-trust probes are very common in the developed world (eg. Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, etc have all faced antitrust trials at various times)

Its a news article, not a SEBI report, that they will clarify who did what wrong, and how, or where.

Its just a probe that's been launched.

[pacman2881]

A more detailed report can be found in Bloomberg-Quint

..citing the company’s email exchanges with its dealer Varanasi Auto Sales Pvt. Ltd... The company coerces its dealers to order the vehicles according to its own whims and fancies—by compelling the dealers to copy-paste the list of vehicles provided by Tata Motors on dealer’s letter head and sending it back to the company

So Tata has forced dealers to push it's slow movers.
I'd expect this to be a common practice across industries but Tata probably went too far.

A more interesting restriction-

..a clause in Tata Motors dealership agreement which says that the dealer shall not start, acquire or indulge in any new business of product or services even if it is not related to the automobile industry.

Why would Tata bother about dealers entering an unrelated business?

Another issue which seems to be an allegation and not a clause in the dealership agreement-

The territory, as per the complaint, could be extended or curtailed simply by oral instruction from Tata Motors.

We normally blame dealerships for being unfair to customers. Atleast to me this just goes to show the pressure dealerships face which forces them to behave unethically. I am not supporting such behaviour but the above issues give a different perspective.

We'll have to wait and see where this goes.

[2000rpm]

Tata is the only company which is like a Democracy. No other company allows its channel partners to have a voice. Its Tata hence they provide decent rights to their channel partners and hence they voice they opinions.

Just check out some of the practices or companies like Xiaomi with their channel partners. Even the Japanese ane Koreans keep a tight leash!

[pugram]

Doesn't this always happen in sales. I don't see what is wrong here. Aren't these dealerships an extension of Tata motors and shouldn't they contribute by way of pushing the slow moving vehicles. All companies do this, nothing new about it.

[Raghuwire]

Well in the FMCG industry, we push the stocks which we want to the distributors. Sometimes by discounts, sometimes by bundling with high moving items, and sometimes by coercion too. The reason is simple, as a company we are better situated to know and predict the sales trends. We have all round visibility of policies, changing customer trends, a huge team doing data analysis and qualified professionals doing the predictions. Yes, we do go wring, but no one can deny that they don't work. I don't see anything unethical in this, as I believe if the sales of the company grows, so do the sales of the dealers, and in time, bottom-line too improves. The complaint itself looks very frivolous, and "former" dealers raising the complaint surely raises a stink!!! Who managed to band together these former dealers to jointly file complaint? Out of the blue in a covid affected alternate world, how come the cohort of these ex dealers unified to file complaints? Surely not the betterment of the existing dealers, who would be their competitors now!!!