[car love]

Rajiv Bajaj took a dig at them (albeit he did not name them but it was obvious who he was mentioning). In the hugely complex auto business, you gotta have laser like focus in just a narrow segment or what will happen is that you will quickly be beaten in all the segments that you are in. Even mighty BMW pondered with closing down the 2 wheeler business at certain times in the past because it felt the focus on cars could be off.
They have spread themselves too thin and there is a risk that the whole thing could collapse because of it.

[rulerofsun]

Passion and lust are two things that most mistake for love. I think this was what Mr. Mahindra felt for the two wheeler market. Honda breaking with Kinetic was a unfortunate divorce .

The Kinetic Honda was what forced Bajaj to force exit the Scooter industry. That time it was either the KH or the Scooty from TVS and Sunny was being left behind. though I think the Sunny did good business.

IMHO Mahindra should not have moved their brand to the Scooters and stuck with Kinetic for a few more years.

Their two wheeler products are good but their weird designs and the public opinion based on their 4 wheel products and a bad marketing plan never caught up with the masses. The two eyed Mojo was ahead of its time like the Libero from Yamaha.

In retrospect if they could have done a Hero Honda fill it shut it forget it kind of marketing they would have fared better.

I hope they do good with the Jawa brand.

Their intentions are good but they need to up their ante in advertising and marketing for the two wheeler section.Like they did with the live young for the 4 wheel vehicles.

I do not think it was a mistake at all it was just a little before their time. Mr. Mahindra if you are reading this. Let me tell you you did not make a mistake.

Just bide your time and do good products and research the market. Take decisions from the head rather than your heart. If Siddarth Lal can bring back RE from the grave you can certainly do that with Jawa. Just keep the Mahindra brand out of it.

[AJITHAAA]

The problem I feel with Mahindra is even though Anand Mahindra is ambitious, the lower rung product leaders are a totally unimaginative, oblivious to popular tends bunch. Their design team is a from another dimension totally, don't know which direction to take or when to stop designing. Products like the Xylo, Quanto, KUV should have never even left the initial sketch stage, yet it was approved, pursued, produced, bombed and were still being upgraded, bleeding the company. Also Mahindra has been flogging models that were supposed to be long dead, case in point the Thar and the Bolero. Just milking them for their popularity value. Driving these vehicles today is a bone jarring experience and luckily they are at least redoing the Thar. Somewhere in this part of the blame has to be attributed to Anand Mahindra too.

[Sasanka_Sanga]

As a proud Mahindra Thar owner (only with the performance not with their service line), the main reason for people to step away from buying can be because of

1. Service line (my personal experience from the automotives). I have been giving my vehicle to my local mechanic who does it much faster, cheaper and reliable.
2. Customer Centricity is always a miss.
3. They didn't market their produce well.
4. A good scooter/bike with exorbitant pricing (way ahead than their competitors).
5. Failed to reach the masses because of the missing WOW factor.

All in all, I should say it takes guts to admit the failure and Mahindra is always admired by me because of their transparency and honesty.

Proud Mahindra Thar owner.

[anjan_c2007]

A very late realisation by the CEO. It was a non starter from Day One ! The venture that Mahindra took over from Kinetic (Kinetic Engineering or KE) located in Pithampur, Dhar dist M.P., earlier had an excellent run, starting with the Kinetic Honda scooters (1984-1998). With Honda getting out of the joint venture, KE continued to manufacture these as Kinetic scooters. The Japanese four stroke scooters grounded the two stroke and later four stroke or 4 S Kinetic (Honda) scooter. They later introduced Kinetic bikes and also scooters including Kinetic Boss 115, Kinetic GF 125, Kinetic GF 170 Laser, Kinetic Kine, Kinetic Zoom ZX, Kinetic Zing 80, Kinetic Velocity, Kinetic V2, Kinetic Stryker, Flyte, Kinetic Nova 135 and Kinetic King 100. Nearly all of these were either unheard of or mediocre sellers.

Mahindra first entered the venture in 2008 and by 2014 took over this two wheeler arm of KE investing an 80 % equity. M&M had seen the mediocre and lacklustre sales performance of KE during it's later years and by 2008, the destiny was well known. Unless Mahindra did some very good homework and restructuring, it could have never succeeded with it's two wheeler business in the face of the very tough competition. What M&M did was find some newer bike models and launch them and also rename the scooters with some cosmetic changes aided with some minimal technical upgradations. These are built with Taiwanese technology. There was a Flyte that was later perhaps discontinued. The Kinetic Nova became the Mahindra Gusto and we got the new Centuro and Mojo bikes. The market response was lukewarm. There was an almost NIL marketing effort by M and M.

Even now, as it proudly proclaims that it has acquired a 51% stake in Peugeot Motorcycles (PMTC) that has a range of 50 cc to 400cc two wheelers, we are not sure about what lies ahead for M&M, given it's track record in the two-wheeler business since 11 years !

M&M should follow the simple logic that it is totally new to the two wheeler business and unless it gets experienced Managers and Marketing Executives from other established companies on it's rolls, it may continue to own a non-performing arm.

Two wheelers do not have the 4 X 4 option (where M&M excels), the company and it's CEO needs to learn.

[amoghchaphalkar]

Originally Posted by AJITHAAA

The problem I feel with Mahindra is even though Anand Mahindra is ambitious, the lower rung product leaders are a totally unimaginative, oblivious to popular tends bunch.
Somewhere in this part of the blame has to be attributed to Anand Mahindra too.

In my opinion, the blame lies only with him. He hired those people, he allowed those products.

He either needs to make his ambitions realistic or hire people who can deliver on them without having to worry about anything else. He seems to be wanting it both ways going by the murmurs in the industry that most Mahindra Group companies are focusing on reducing costs and boosting bottom line.

I might be wrong on this one but I do not recollect seeing anything path breaking or disruptive coming out of the whole “Rise” initiative either.

[landcruiser123]

Think of it:
Do you ever see Toyota entering the two-wheeler market?
BMW 2-wheelers is only focused on the performance market segment.
Does Bajaj make cars?

Two wheeler markets are difficult to crack and the dynamics are different compared to car markets. Mahindra is barely finding its feet in the car market with the XUV 500 and Marazzo. Takes a lot of time to engineer and enter an entirely new segment in which the nature of competition is completely different. Would love to see M & M make some good hatchbacks and sedans.

Customers at the lower end are mostly going to buy Splendors, Discovers and Activas. Customers at the higher end aren't going to easily trust a newbie. A Chinese motorcycle brand is less likely to be accepted compared to MG.

[Sebring]

Mahindra has a good thing going with Jawa, and I think this needs to be the only two wheeler they need to have. That's it. Even if they launch scooters it needs to be Jawa, but the product needs to have all the attributes of this brand.

[adityadeva]

When you launch a flagship bike into market, it should first look like a bike that you yourself would fall in love with and should be a thing to drool about. Look is the first attraction, once that's accomplished, then it should hold the mettle. And throw in a reliable ASS. That product becomes a good seller. Its a basic game. If a buyer gets a confusing product which he cannot justify before the crowd, it's finished. Standing out has to done in a stunning way, not an confusingly ugly way

[tchsvy]

Their commuter motorcycles, Centuros alike were unreliable and looked like they were designed by school kids. Mojo has a very good engine, the pros end there, almost 5 years in the making and it came out like that!? They were confused from day one, initially they wanted to build a street naked that can perform well on the track, but later changed their mind and built a highway cruiser, along the way they lost their plot completely. Ugly looking , front heavy bike that hates the corners is what they managed to build.

Coming to Jawa, they are losing the plot again, initial hype has died down, their potential customers are now talking about the reported issues rather than the bike itself. From the October and November two wheeler sales numbers, its apparent that Jawa's impact on Classic 350's sales is slowly but surely going down.

[VJ05]

They are the jack of all trades, master of none. They had the headstart in UV segment with Scorpio and Balero in early 2000 and they are not able to milk it. With the kind of expertise they possess in UVs like strong diesel engines, multiple platforms, Mahindra UV's should be in top-selling model in each of the SUV segments like Compact, Mid-size, Large and Premium SUVs instead what we see is only 2 decades old Scorpio, Balero and XUV5OO sell in good numbers.

[Sebring]

It was the Honda Activa actually. The Activa was launched in 1999, and Chetak fought long and hard for customers. Honda even launched a geared scooter to destroy the Chetak, but had no takers since the era of geared scooters was over. So finally, in 2005 Chetak ceased production after a 5 year long fight.

Originally Posted by rulerofsun

The Kinetic Honda was what forced Bajaj to force exit the Scooter industry. That time it was either the KH or the Scooty from TVS and Sunny was being left behind. though I think the Sunny did good business.

[kiku007]

Confession#1 done. Well done. What about the remaining dozen Mr.Mahindra?

I can't think of any other company that has gone and recklessly bought so many companies, partnered with so many companies and has consistently failed in most of them. They don't seem to have learnt anything useful from these experiences either.

Is there any history of a car maker joining hands with their erstwhile partner who dumped them?

Even after partnering with Ford, Mitsubishi, Renault and that Korean carmaker, I don't think there's one Mahindra product that they can proudly say is world-class and is niggle free. They don't even have the confidence to look beyond the legacy of the Jeep. It was desperate to sell the Roxor in the USA. Yet another example of trying to cash in on past legacy is the Jawa. That'll blow soon.

They need to focus their resources on utility and lifestyle vehicles with go-anywhere capability.

[marcussantiago]

tl;dr it wasn't a "mistake" to enter the two-wheeler market. It was a mistake to enter it half-assedly.