As Datsun celebrated it’s first birthday in India, we sat down with Guillaume Sicard, President of Nissan’s India Operations, to discuss the journey so far, the challenges – and, yes, the Global NCAP crash tests.
You’re celebrating one year of Datsun in India. How has the past year been?
Very good, very busy. There are a lot of things that we’re constructing. When you compare India to some other mature markets, or when you compare us with some of the more mature brands, what we’re doing here is constructing something for the future. There are many challenges, but if you look at what we have in India – we have research and development with 5,000 people, we have 8,000 people in the plant, and then there’s sales and marketing. We can do everything here, so it’s very exciting.
You’re developing a new small car as well. How much of that development is happening in India?
Everything is engineered in India – is made for India – even though we’re working in conjunction with lots of Japanese engineers. So, there’s lot of Japanese engineering in this car. And the Japanese and Indian teams are working together with a few French engineers as well. So, it’s a multi-cultural car. We’re trying to get the best out of all those cultures, but I would say that India is leading this project. But, of course, the Japanese are behind us in in this project.
And what learnings can you take from the year gone by, and your experience with the Go and Go+?
Very soon, we’ll have 20,000 people driving these cars – and they’re really happy. That’s point number one! Point number two is that it takes time to build awareness. Let’s face it, when we launched the brand, no one knew the Datsun name – which is not the case in the rest of the world. So, it takes time to actually get into a prospective customers’ shopping list – and even after you’ve done that, it takes time to build trust. In India, we’re so passionate about our traditions that to bring something new can take a bit more time than in the US. In the US, you can launch a new car or a new brand, and it’ll be accepted very quickly. In India, especially in the car industry, you want to talk with your family and so on – so, obviously, it takes time.
How do you make that penetration? After all, it’s hard to get into the psyche of an Indian family, as you said.
Advertising plays big role. If we miss the advertising with Datsun, it’ll never work. And I think that we’ve had very good advertising so far. We’re connecting with people, and the first tests are very good. Ayushmann (Khurrana, brand ambassador for Datsun) is the right choice in terms of profile. He’s a reflection of progressive India. Not snobbish or fancy, but a reflection of real India – an India that’s looking at an alternative choice, even though there’s huge respect for tradition. And then we need to have happy customers, because if they’re happy, they’ll talk to 100 people – who, in turn, will talk to 100 more. And then we need to develop our network. When I arrived in India a few months ago, we had 140 dealers. By the end of the financial year 2016, we need to reach 300. We need to take our time, as we need to select the right partners. But we estimate that, with 300, we’ll have good representation in India – covering 98% of the country. However, I do not want to make any sacrifices to reach that 300 because we need to find the right partners.
What kind of sales volume do you expect for next year?
If you look at the entry-car segment, which is the biggest segment in India, there’s the dinosaur that’s got 75% segment share. The second one, which is Korean, has 25% segment share, and the third one, which is Datsun, is doing 3% today. But some eight months ago, it was only 1%. Now it’s 3%. So, what we’re going to achieve is 4%, then 5%, and then 6%. This is what I want to see. I look at the rolling average, and I want to see my curve increasing slightly. I know it cannot always be that way, because we need to penetrate the Indian psyche, as you said. And there’s no magic. It takes time.
Do you think Max Mosley, Chairman of Global NCAP, was especially unfair to Datsun after last year’s crash tests?
I’m not supposed to answer yes (laughs)! I think he did what he thought was right. My personal analysis is that, like other manufacturers, we do respect Indian regulations. We are all on par on this test. So, why was Datsun picked out? I don’t know. We are the smallest ones – so, obviously, in the playground, it’s always easier to attack the small guy rather than the big one. But, more importantly, I think those kinds of events do remind everybody – be it customers or manufacturers – that there’s an issue with safety at all levels. So it’s good to have some reminders for the industry in general. And I think everybody gets the message. I regret that it was on Datsun, but from a more general point of view, and looking at India specifically, I’m not against it. It’s a fair practice in itself. But the way it happened, I didn’t say that was fair.
I think it’s a good thing, but to find this equilibrium is a bit complicated – because, obviously, if we put too much safety into the car, then the price will increase and we’ll see more people staying on two wheelers. So, we need to gradually adapt and push it as much as we can. Datsun is about to launch the driver-side bag as an option. So we are evolving. But this was planned before we had this episode – because, to have this in the car takes time. So, it’s part of a normal evolution.
Did it affect your sales?
Yes it did. It did for a few months. It did, because when you read the press and see the kinds of articles that were published, with very big, provocative headlines – then, yes, people wonder. But, thereafter, we did some great communication with our field team. Not with the press. We had to work at the grassroots to re-explain to the field force that this is a great car in terms of safety. So, we are not better – but we are not worse than the average. But, actually, in terms of active safety, we are much better than the competition.
The most important focus that we all should have is to look at how you can avoid being in an accident in the first place. And when you look at the Datsun Go – if you look at braking distance, we’re the shortest; if you look at vision, we have the widest angle; if you look in terms of night vision, we have the most powerful night vision compared with the competition. So, probably, we didn’t talk enough about safety when we launched the car. We talked about the size and the power, but we didn’t focus so much on safety. So, that was a lesson for us.
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