Bosch Ltd. launched its 20-day-long K4000 rally on February 2 in an effort to touch base with its distributors, retailers and garage mechanics. Consulting Editor Sarada Vishnubhatla finds out in an exclusive interview with Mr. S. Srinivasa, Senior General Manager of the Bosch Automotive Aftermarket Division, about the personal touch and its positive impact on its countrywide customers during this campaign. Prior to that, a select group of media persons was briefed on the details of the rally.
You get to see the ‘face’ behind its spark plugs, fuel injectors, unit repair workshops or the wide array of products that have pervaded the market since 1951 when Bosch came to India. Bosch Ltd. launched its pan-India customer drive named K4000 rally on February 2 which will travel from Kanyakumari to Kashmir and from Kohima to Kutch and will conclude on Feburary 22 covering 4,000 km per route and roughly touching 40,000 customers across the country. Hence the name K4000 – referring to the first letters of the four states in India and the number of kilometres in between!
The Face
Trust factor rises when the face behind the products one uses becomes visible. This, coupled with their ‘Feet on the Street’ concept, helps them reach out to their customers personally and take the business forward.
A group of about 10 members from Bosch’s Automotive Aftermarket (AA) division travelled the National Highway 7 in a fishbone pattern to enable their associates from sales offices to contact them as they reached each destination and conduct activities. Mr. Srinivasa tells them: “We are doing mechanic meet, fleet operators meet and we also want to do workshop enumeration. We will collect valuable information from the market and understand the needs of these workshops.”
The sole point of K4000 rally is to touch 1,500 towns in India through its 680 sales offices and engage its each and every customer to introduce their core strategy of ‘Parts, Bytes & Services’.
Mr. Srinivasa shares: “Parts are products, bytes refer to diagnostics and service means workshop concepts. To top this strategy, we offer training in the fast changing technology scenario in India. Due to excessive traffic in the OEM workshops, they are unable to give quick services. So, either the customer has to wait or goes to the street side garage. There is no in-between concept.”
And precisely this is the gap that Bosch’s AA division is filling in utilizing its wide product range, diagnostic equipment, tools and services besides offering an extensive training program specifically to educate the mechanic.
The presence
Bosch’s AA distribution network has established itself as the widest in the country. They have 1,000 authorized distributors, and about 3,000 workshops that perform unit repairs and vehicle servicing. Their direct distribution touches about 60,000 semi-wholesale and retail points. But are all the equipment used in every auto workshop from Bosch?
Answers Mr. Srinivasa: “I cannot say but in unit repair workshop it is. In car service we cover about 70 per cent of the requirement. We supply the fuel injection equipment to the OEMs so we take care of the services that are required.”
The carpet coverage focuses on two-wheeler mechanics and retailers and the common retailer who sells Bosch services, and distributors, reaching out to around 40,000 customers in total in 20 days under the K4000 rally.
Educating, imparting training and inspiring the customers to use genuine parts is part of this campaign. Mr. Srinivasa tells us: “We focus on educating the mechanics, as the technology moves on a lot of electronics is getting into two-wheeler space. Now it is an ECU driven technology, so our focus is getting him onboard, give him some identity, provide him the training, sell our products and hold hands for him and then take him forward.”
Giving solutions
On an average, Bosch has been growing 10-15 per cent annually. To remain the first choice of its customers, Bosch’s AA division is keen to provide user-friendly solutions. Mr. Srinivasa further shares one of the unique things they have on offer for the fleet operators, “If he comes to a Bosch diesel service say in Namakkal and has paid for a full service but his vehicle gets stuck in Guwahati for example, we do not want him to pay again. So through our portal the Bosch diesel service provider in Guwahati can log in and see that this was already serviced in Namakkal, so he provides a free service to the fleet operator,” which comes with a full year’s warranty.
For Bosch “the customer is the most important person”, and as the belief filters through to the last person in the chain – the garage mechanic – the company can take a breather in knowing that their footprints in the streets are leading them to success, continuously.
“We have eliminated the middleman,” says Mr. S. Srinivasa, Senior General Manager, Bosch Automotive Aftermarket.
Talk to us about any experience that touched you during the rally.
We have a customer-binding platform called 3Ps – Parts, Points and Paisa. At a retailers meet in Salem, one wholesaler said that initially he was hesitant because he could not see money coming in. Actually, when a retailer enrolls into this program, he has to wait for one quarter. For every 10 parts he buys he gets points and then he receives the money according to our 10+1 scheme. Then he said suddenly one day he had Rs. 70,000 credited to his account and since then his wife has been insisting that he buy only Bosch. We have eliminated the middleman in what we want to give the customer, finally. If I give a 10+1 through my distributor I do not know how many will get the 10+1. So we are trying to create that kind of transparency at the retail level.
Who is more important to you – the distributor, retailer or the mechanic?
The consumption happens at the garage level. Mechanics do not stock parts. He rushes to the retailer as and when he needs something. So if a retailer refuses to keep that product, the enquiries go waste. Again, the retailer will not keep it unless my distributor does not provide the right kind of service. So for me it is the value chain management.
Why did you feel the need for this campaign?
Unlike a beauty product which you can advertise and get the message across, here it is one-to-one communication. We are in the transition of technology and we are introducing many new part numbers, new applications, upgradations and expansion every day. Also, the moment the OEM changes its design, the effect is felt here so you have to take that message to them. This is one great opportunity to tell the market that under one roof you get much.
How often would you like to repeat this kind of a campaign?
I have asked my teams to develop a K4000 black book to record feedback from the market and then create an open point list. For each sales office, this becomes an action plan for the next 2-3 months to service their customers. Once we do this assessment, we will see how to take this forward.