iKON Guest Lecture Series: Mr. Rahul Gautam, on Indian Auto Industry and Ford’s Learnings

As part of iKON CxO Guest Lecture series, an initiative of EPGP, IIM Indore – the One Year Full Time Post Graduate Programme in Management, a talk on ‘Indian Auto Industry and Ford’s Learnings’ was held on August 14, 2018.

Mr. Rahul Gautam, Vice President- Marketing, Ford India, was the speaker for the talk. Professor Kamal K. Jain, Dean (Academic) welcomed and introduced the guest.

Mr. Gautam spoke about Ford’s journey of being the introducers of assembly line – T Model, a pioneer in hard top convertibles, sunroofs and the growing presence of Ford in the Indian automobile market.

Mr. Gautam went on to take inputs from the participants regarding what the participants thought moved the automobile markets in the Indian context. Participants were quick to cite the important factors for Indian consumers such as value for money, greater presence across automobile segments, availability of parts and resale value. Mr. Gautam then elaborated the Ford’s strategy in ensuring value delivery at the service centers through strict monitoring of dealerships and shifting manufacturing operation to India at Chennai, Tamil Nadu (the exporting unit of Ford Ecosport to North America) and Sanand, Gujarat to gain presence in the Indian automobile markets.

Further Mr. Gautam discussed the key and upcoming market segment of the post millennials and the need to be technology driven, sharp and focused in delivering communication, to capture the short attention span of the post millennials.

Referring to the dedicated term of the EPGP students on analytics at Mc. Combs School of Business, University of Texas, Austin, Mr. Gautam also elaborated the high relevance of big data and data analytics in devising the marketing strategy and in the overall business scenario.

The session concluded with an interactive Q&A with the participants.