KUN Capital, a high-profile LCV dealer of Ashok Leyland, is on the overdrive, opening more outlets to expand service reach and striving to usher in a passenger car-like dealership experience in the segment. Mr. U. Arun Kumar, Director, KUN Capital, Chennai, speaks about the company’s initiatives to meet the market demands in the path ahead.
Honestly the year 2020 in this digital age is a long way off and to talk about the likely developments and plans in a market evolving rapidly is going to be a difficult task, says Mr. Arun Kumar. He adds: “Though it will be difficult to indicate about the no. of outlets as our targets in the future journey, we want to ensure manufacturer’s targets are met and customer expectations exceeded; and whatever it takes to achieve the same will be our company targets. LCV space is picking up in the last few months and looking at the encouraging M&HCV trends, we expect good times ahead for the LCV segment too. Also with the other positive factors like stable Govts. both at the Centre & State and GST getting thro’, logistics sector should get the much needed impetus. Our outlets may not increase exponentially but capacity to service will definitely grow. Currently we have the service capability of about 100 vehicles per day considering LCV space per se and by 2020 expect this touch around 250 vehicles per day”.
“Both KUN and LCV business-AL feel that SCV business should have more of semblance to passenger car space than to topical CV space in terms of customer care, service standards, service turnaround and the processes. We want to leverage KUN’s two decades passenger car experience and 5 years LCV experience to effect that transformation.”
KUN deals with the LCV range of Ashok Leyland (AL), viz., Dost 1.25 ton payload SCV model, Partner 4 ton payload LCV model and Mitr 27-seater bus positioned for school/corporate segments. Dost coming under the SCV sub-segment of LCV has been the flagship model for KUN and as well for AL. KUN established in 2011 with 3 outlets sold a few hundred vehicles during FY12. During FY13, they sold around 2,500 vehicles from all their outlets. However the sales dipped with the downturn for the auto segment during next 2 years but it has picked up since then; and KUN hopes to clock around 2,100 units this fiscal. In their endeavour to service the customers effectively, KUN recently opened 3 more outlets; and currently have totally 11 outlets, all dealing in sales & service and covering North Tamil Nadu.
What drives the demand in this SCV segment and how is KUN gearing up to meet the opportunities unfolding down the timeline? Mr. Arun Kumar responds: “SCV growth is closely linked to both national and local economies doing well. During the peak demand period of FY13, local conditions propped up the nos.; and we would expect the future demands return back to that level and even better it, considering the logistics space getting redefined with the hub and spoke model. We expect the SCV nos. to be 3 to 4 times that of M&HCV nos. when the market picks up and matures. Growth accelerators are not only linked to product technology but to the environment as well. App-based aggregators like in taxis segment have entered the scene augmenting the demands. We see corporates buying vehicles in nos. to meet the E-commerce needs. Apart from supply of Ready to Use Vehicles (RUV) of AL, we are also involved in the body building work to meet the diverse customer application requirements”.
Commenting on the road map for the journey ahead and top 3 priority areas Mr. Arun Kumar states: “We want to look at the customer needs for the next couple of years and as well understand where the logistics space is headed; and that will drive us to where want to go. That could be a combination of process, technology and people but we will stay ahead to reach our goal. The top 3 priority areas are customer satisfaction, producing solutions for the customers and expanding the geographic reach. We want to see that vehicles of our customers are plying on the road for maximum time by providing quality service and faster turnaround time at our workshops. Our objective is to ensure customer is the centre of our world”. With clarity of goals, focussed approach and commitment to service, we could well see KUN expand its reach further and elevate the dealership experience to a totally new level.