We have to prepare as our customers are upgrading: Shinzo Nakanishi, MD Maruti Suzuki

Shinzo Nakanishi, managing director of Maruti Suzuki, speaks on the key issues his company is dealing with. Excerpts from the interview:

On competition

Toyota and Honda are giants but earlier they were not too focussed on India. Now everyone has started noticing India, emerging markets.

On Maruti’s weaknesses

10% of the Indian car market would be in MUV segment, where our share is zero. We don’t have smaller engines for diesel and bigger ones in petrol. Suzuki is also trying to develop hybrids. We have 1,000 engineers in R&D , 700 were hired recently. They must gain quick knowledge and experience so that they can contribute to the company. We have become too big — because of which we are not slim. Our movement is not sharp.

On Kizashi launch

Maruti is a people’s car. We wanted to show we have bigger ones and enter the top segment. We have to prepare as our customers are upgrading.

On Suzuki’s global presence

India is the largest. Hungary is second — we sell 3 lakh cars per annum. In China, we are present through a JV (where Suzuki has 49% stake) and sell 2.5 lakh cars a year.

On VW’s 20% stake

One thing is very clear — synergy in sales and marketing is never possible. Where one can have synergies is engineering and production. GM too had 20% stake but it was never in sales and marketing.

On VW taking over Suzuki

It is not possible. 10 years from now? I don’t know.

On his retirement

You want me to go? (laughs). If my performance is bad I will go. My chairman is 81 years old and yet he believes that he is young — probably only 56 years. He simply multiplies his age by 0.7. Going by that logic, I am only 44.

On his successor

There are three choices for my successor — internal — Indian or Japanese; or an outsider. Most likely, it will be from the first two.