May 23, 2013: The second edition of Autocar Professional’s Automotive Forum, which took place at The Trident BKC in Mumbai has been a success and drew a good number of delegates from various sections of the automotive industry.
The forum, based on the theme of innovation in the Indian automotive sector, both at the back end and front end, was addressed by two high-level panels with a cumulative experience of over a 100 years.
The speakers were:
Session 1
Nandkumar Khandare, CEO, Nissan Ashok Leyland Technologies
Dr Aravind S Bharadwaj, Head - Technology, Mahindra & Mahindra
Ashok G Joshi, Senior General Manager, Vehicle Attributes & Technical Services, Tata Motors
Session 2
K Srinivas, President – Motorcycle Business, Bajaj Auto
Anup Sable, Senior Vice-President & Head, Automotive & Allied Engineering, KPIT Cummins
Dr Arun Jaura, Board of Directors, SAE International & Chairman, Automotive Board, SAE India
The speakers broached a variety of issues from the perspective of their own companies as well as their cumulative experience in the auto sector. In his opening remarks, Nandkumar Khandare, CEO, Nissan Ashok Leyland Technologies, said that the essence of innovation is not to look at failure in a negative sense. He added that without knowledge, there can be no innovation.
Dr Aravind S Bharadwaj, Head - Technology, Mahindra & Mahindra, said that customers typically want 90 percent of the features at 50 percent of costs. He drew on Mahindra’s cumulative experience and ended up showing the audience a slide with research that suggested that only 17 percent of all innovations are brought by the customer.
Ashok G Joshi, Senior General Manager, Vehicle Attributes & Technical Services, Tata Motors, spoke about how the Tata Group is trying to align its innovation initiatives across various segments. He said he sees no dearth of innovators and that it is the funnel that is a problem but the need to encourage more innovations.
K Srinivas of Bajaj Auto spoke about his company’s journey into its current innovative phase and said that with innovations, it is important that a company makes money. He said that the basic philosophy should be not to just serve a market but create one. It is important for a company to leverage its first mover’s enduring advantage.
In a reply to one of several questions from the audience, Srinivas said that for someone keen to know his market, he recommended that time be spent in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities where women’s mobility has become a force of change. He quipped that a successful Indian company should be Japanese at the back end and American at the front end.
Arun Sable of KPIT Cummins said that the importance that his company attaches to innovation is best exemplified by the fact that it set up an innovation council at the board level.
And, finally, Dr Arun Jaura, who recently was with Eaton, rounded off the proceedings with a few key comments. Innovation, he reiterated, is a contact sport and it is important that an organisation be committed to innovation. He said companies must align with young minds and spoke about how Eaton encourages its staff to make suggestions for innovation which can be done online and in a secure environment.
The full report on the Automotive Forum will appear in Autocar Professional’s forthcoming June 1 issue.
BRIAN DE SOUZA
(The Auto Forum was presented by JK Tyre and the associate sponsor was NKH Hammers. The TV channel partner was Bloomberg TV)