Fiat coming up with standalone showrooms

Globally, Fiat is known for its immaculate design and stupendous engineering. However, its India subsidiary has failed to replicate the global success in the domestic circuit time, again. After losing the race to Maruti 800 in the early 80s, Fiat tried its luck with products like Siena, Palio and Uno in the 90s but the auto major yet again struggled to sell the desired numbers. After launching Linea and Punto in 2009, the company is in the process of making its third stint count in the Indian market in a 50:50 JV with Tata Motors. However, the efforts are yet to deliver the desired results. During the April-November period, the company has sold 10,351 units filing a negative YoY growth of 30.79%. Edited excerpts: 

Starting with the Padmini to the Linea, Fiat has had a long association with India.  However, even in the current phase, the sales have not been up to the mark and there have been customer complaints both in terms of service and sales processes. How are planning to address these issues?

Till now, we have been selling our products in the same showroom with our JV partner, Tata Motors. However, as the portfolio of Tata Motors’ passenger cars is getting bigger and Fiat also wants to touch new skies, we are in the process of setting up separate showrooms for Fiat products. We will come up 22 such showrooms in 2012. To start with, we will be launching one in Delhi followed by Pune with a view to cover 20 major cities in the country. Some of these showrooms will also have service centres solely for Fiat cars. For these new showrooms, the dealers are the same which were selling Tata & Fiat cars but the idea of setting up a separate showroom is to get more space for displaying the brands and products at the dealership. We are also in the process of finalising a deal with Tata Motors wherein the standalone-workshops of the company will also service Fiat cars which will enhance the touch points for the consumer. In addition, we have just launched the new variants of Linea and Punto, in which we have included features like extended wheelbase, enhanced ground clearance and better air-conditioning based on the consumer feedback from the predecessor.

As you are coming up standalone Fiat dealerships, will you be looking at changing the entire dealership structure of the company wherein all the joint showrooms will only sell Tata Motors products now and Fiat will have its own dealership network?

It does not make sense for us to convert all joint dealers to sell the products in two different showrooms. The dealer also needs to make money and it comes only against a certain volume. We will be doing it in the major Indian cities where the dealer can showcase the brand and products properly. However, the remaining dealers will continue to sell products of both the brands under one roof.

Fiat is also in the process of manufacturing a car below Punto i.e. below the Rs. 4-lakh range, by when are you planning to bring the product to the market?

We have been working on this project for the past few years and we will be introducing it shortly. Although I can’t put a date to it at this moment, all I can tell you is it will be car below Punto which will be an India-specific product. We believe it should be able to expand our volumes very aggressively.