[9thsphinx]

Fantastic writeup GTO!

Nissan is known to make good cars globally. Me and my extended family own/owned atleast half a dozen different Nissan's including the Maxima, Altima, Pathfinder, Serena and the Quest and they've served us ever faithfully! We still like it as a brand. Ask most of Nissan owners worldwide and they wouldn't differ in their opinion of it as a brand.

If the parent company is confident of making good, reliable cars, why this half-hearted attempt at selling them? Nissan India needs to re-work their Sales strategy from grounds up. Everything they've done here is/has been half-baked and left it at that. If Nissan needs to gain that 10% market share they're talking about they need to up their ante and change the rules of the game they've been playing along since their entry in India.

Amongst many, one thing that tops the lists of to-do's is a very simple tip that Nissan India needs to mark in bold on their Sales guide, plaster them at dealerships and diligently follow is "Customer is GOD".

[PetrolRider]

As always a master piece from GTO.

As a Nissan customer, I can say the confusion, frustration and bitter experiences are there with all the Nissan owners. Among us who-ever bought a Nissan car has done so solely, because they loved the beauty of the machine and with a hard fact "Ignoring" the dealership experience. And they still love their car just because of the car and again "Ignoring" the after sales experience. Sometimes I doubt Nissan will make another Fiat story in India.

May be it is a problem with global strong brands, that they assume their product will be a run away success on the point of lunch. I have felt this with the attitude of VW / Nissan / Fiat. And the overconfidence on their product is the main culprit of the sales chart.

Or may be they consider the Indian market as cheap labored export hub or may be the global chiefs think Indian market as same way as we saw US in 90s (whoever goes there gets millionaire), as who ever comes here will sell a product.

[veyron_head]

Someone told this to me 'If you are a grass, even the deer will eat you alive'. Nissan is the grass here, every other manufacturer including fiat is ahead of them.

Nissan's turnaround in India is going to be a herculean task because its not just one factor that needs focus. They need to fix everything - Products, Identity, brand, USP, marketing, supply chain, after sales service. I don't know how a global brand like nissan managed to get everything wrong in India.

The same goes for Renault too. Duster is successful because it has the early bird advantage. Except for the quanto and that Chinese-Premier car (oops, forgot the name!), there was no other mini-SUV in the market. There was no formidable competition. Would duster have seen the success it did if it were launched after ecosport?

Now, the terrano is not an early mover in its segment and doesn't have any USP of its own. I will go on my limb and say it will not sell.

The Micra is a good car and its feminine looks are obvious. Why not position it as a women's car, like SX4 did for men? Dont see anything wrong. Sure, the percentage of women buyers could be lesser but Micra is not selling anyway. I would rather they tried positioning it as a women's car. It would at least have a USP that way.

[niranjanprabhu]

The other point I would like to express here is, the flawed feature lists for the Micra initially before the refresh. For the diesel Micra, Nissan removed the ABS and Passenger airbags in the name of cost savings and then tried to bring in some joy by adding 15 inch alloys into the package! This has been a great setback for customers when it comes to making that choice between a Swift and a Micra and obviously the former won. Today all these new models and MLKs are coming in a market which is very downbeat and shrinking month on month. Its sad for a Japanese company producing such high quality products to fall by the way

[gaurav_3000ad]

Great write-up GTO. Aptly covering the points and areas where nissan has put the wrong foot forward, which sadly seems to be the entire smorgasbord. I hope they take heed and start taking concrete steps to overhaul their branding, marketing and sales otherwise the only "Chamatkar" for nissan will be their swift disappearance from the indian car scene.

[nik_kapur]

I think the secret lies in trying to learn from Hyundai. Hyundai was not as well known as Nissan and we hardly ever saw an imported Hyundai in our country before they launched the Santro. The SRK Ads with Mr. Kim and the consistent way in which they communicated with the audience made them a very well known brand. Nissan needs to do the same, they need to position themselves as a quality brand and they need to be more visible. The Nissan showroom at Mohan Cooperative shut down recently and i dont know of a single showroom where i can pick up a Nissan? What im trying to say is that i see Hyundai Showrooms in every corner of the city. Nissan must launch there Patrol and make a mark with the super rich who buy Landcruisers, this will make the brand more aspirational. Maybe Toyota Fortuners are picked up by customers who perceive them as a poor mans Prado/Landcruiser.
I dont think there is too much wrong with there lineup of cars in India, the Sunny is by far the best chauffeur driven sedan and the new Micra is very decent to look at. The Terrano too could do well if they were to consider an automatic transmission and price it close to the Duster. I dont understand the comparisons with the Ecosport which is clearly a Hatchback on stilts (no offense meant to owners).

[Top-Gear]

Great analysis, GTO!

I wonder why Nissan does not talk about their legacy of building great driving machines with an affordable price tag! World over, they are known for that, only in India they are unknown or worse, have a bad name because of their dealers, as you rightly pointed out!

[siddarthbh]

Waiting for the day when Nissan launches a car that makes me go "WOW" and by the looks of it, none is coming any time soon. No offence meant to Nissan car owners, but i have found none of their cars to be good looking. Hoping the Terrano will change that opinion.

It must have been evident to both Renault and Nissan that cross-badged products are not working for them. However better late than never and the Terrano will be the last cross-badged product. Hoping this will lead to greater focus on fewer but good and aspirational cars from the Nissan stable.

[aravindwarrier]

Quite an interesting thread! There is another crucial piece of information about Nissan's India business model that's not so widely publicized (not hidden either), and could be relevant to this discussion.

NMIPL is just into manufacturing. Rest of their India business is in the hands of an entity called Hover Automotive India !!

We all know that functions like sales and marketing, dealer development, customer relationship management and after sales service are so critical that they can make or break the fortune of an auto company, irrespective of how good a product they churn out from the plant.

In automobile business, dealers are normally controlled by the manufacturer directly. Introducing a third party, a countrywide distributor is a rare strategy, that might payoff, but is still a hell of a lot risk that Nissan is taking by putting their faith in a third party to manage their entire India business. It also makes one to think twice about the commitment the company would have to the Indian Customers/Dealers.

Sources:

From: http://www.nissan.in/en/web/header/header_4385.htm

Together with its global Alliance partner – Renault, Nissan has made a long-term and large-scale 45 Mn INR investment commitment in a manufacturing plant at Oragadam, Chennai. The Alliance has also invested in a state-of –the-art global R&D center with more than 2000 engineers to support product innovation and customization. NMIPL has appointed Hover Automotive India (HAI) as their sole distributor for India to handle sales and marketing, dealer development, customer relationship management and after sales in India.

From: http://www.hai.net.in/corporate-info.htm

Hover Automotive India (HAI) is the partner of Nissan Motor India Pvt. Ltd, to operate the Sales, Service, Parts, Marketing, Training & Dealer Development functions in the Indian Market for Nissan range of products.

HAI has therefore assumed the role and responsibility to select and establish a network of Dealers across the country with a view to enhance the presence of the brand in India and also to achieve an ambitious share of the growing automotive market in India.
Hover Automotive India is the creation of three global entrepreneurs. Mr. Moez Mangalji from Westmont Group, Mr. G.M.Singh and Mr. Kevin Whalen form the partners and board of directors of HAI. HAI Board of Directors has a proven track record of aligning with world class brands to deliver unmatched speed to market and uncompromised customer service.

[kaizanfan]

Originally Posted by aravindwarrier

Hover Automotive India is the creation of three global entrepreneurs. Mr. Moez Mangalji from Westmont Group, Mr. G.M.Singh and Mr. Kevin Whalen form the partners and board of directors of HAI. HAI Board of Directors has a proven track record of aligning with world class brands to deliver unmatched speed to market and uncompromised customer service.

aravindwarrier,
It would be great if we could find out the details of their proven track record. Do you happen to have any details of the HAI directors' success stories? Please share.

[aravindwarrier]

Originally Posted by kaizanfan

aravindwarrier,
It would be great if we could find out the details of their proven track record. Do you happen to have any details of the HAI directors' success stories? Please share.

I have no idea. If you have read my post carefully, you would realize that I am also skeptic of this sort of an arrangement.I don't know much about Hover other than that they used to be a hospitality group before this.

[nskumar]

nissan is head on with google self driving cars

The Japanese automaker plans to offer self-driving cars within the next seven years, according to what one senior Nissan executive said to the Wall Street Journal.

"Nissan Motor Co. pledges that we will be ready to bring multiple affordable, energy efficient, fully autonomous-driving vehicles to the market by 2020," said Executive Vice President Andy Palmer said during a presentation in Southern California.

selection of products being sold by nissan in india is the biggest problem.
they should bring in crossovers and suv's like juke,rogue and murano or sedans like altima

[Jaggu]

An excellent analysis, for me just the dealership and service experience, rather the lack of it is the biggest downer. All the brands that are successful in India have a great set up of dealers and service in their initial years. This combined with a slightly aggressive pricing and financing option is all that is needed for the market like India.

Nissan is a complete mess with the basics of selling the car in India.

[double]

My friend and myself has very bad experience when we tried to buy the Sunny Special Edition.

1.My friend is native of Erode(Tamilnadu). We have booked sunny special Edition with local dealer, and after a month , dealer said Sunny Special edition has been stopped and he suggested to take XV edition and asked us to put all extra accessories comes with Special Edition. We refused and asked for factory fitted Special Edition. I have shown him the advertisement that keeps coming for special Edition. Finally came to know from a person who has links to dealership for loans, that, the dealer has only xv stocks and he wants to clear it away and NO ORDER HAS BEEN placed for Sunny Special Edition. But when ever we called the dealer, he repeatedly said the order has been placed. Two months have gone and there is no sign of delivery from dealer and we have cancelled booking, and it is almost six months now, we are yet to get the booking amount.

2. Next, We went to nearest big city for another showroom. The same story repeated here for our surprise. Till we book our car, they talk like anything. Ten days after the booking is made, this dealer also started asking us to take , XV or else the the Display CAR which has done about 1000+KM ( Later we came to know that, This is the only car used for display in showroom/Malls/any auto fairs/Road show and it was driven to all places inside city and that was the only Special Edition car available with the dealer). That also we refused and we asked him to deliver new car and dealer refused and again we had to cancel the booking.

Point to be noted is, My friend was ready to pay the downpayment of 5L and rest is through loan and it has been sanctioned as well.

Though He was ready with the complete money, he was not able to get one.



The Result:
------------
Went to the Ford showroom, Test drove FIGO/Classic. He liked FIGO and booked it. Car has been delivered in 3 days. In additon he saved ~3L for buying small car, as it met all his requirements.( he is family of 3 only).

A. Nissan Has Lost the customer
B. He is so happy now with the current car.
C. I have forwarded the link to him.
D. Now , he is the happiest person in the world.

Dear Nissan,
Want to say something to you.

1. We tried to buy your car.

2. But You forced us to go out of your showroom even after waiting 3 months. Please note that , it is not because of demand of car. Almost all your cars are available off the shelf.

3. If this continues, you will be forced to go out of business by your dealer itself, though we like your cars.

Please take proper measures to rectify these kind of issues, We as customer, will/can talk only with dealer and not to any of your management officials.

If that interface does not work well, whatever heck of good car you produce, It all will go waste and you can not establish your self in Indian shores.

[pacman2881]

Originally Posted by double

Though He was ready with the complete money, he was not able to get one.

That's a very sorry state for a company that isn't doing well.
Was the first dealer hoping that your friend would convert the booking to XV variant if he simply delays the delivery? I don't understand dealer's behaviour here.
If I were a dealer I would atleast make money by giving my customer what he wants rather than loose him altogether!
One possible issue could be (just guessing) - the link between dealer and the company is so bad that they couldn't arrange what the company advertises / customer asks for.