Omni-channel sales and marketing strategies in Indian automotive (car) industry

Abstract

In one of the most established industries in the world, India is set to become the fifth biggest car market in the world in the next couple of years, overtaking Brazil. This is possible because of the 3.6% predicted growth forecasts in the country from 2015 through 2017. The outlook in the medium term also seems to be pretty healthy for this segment within the country. Boom in car sales have been driven primarily by increasing primary household income. The market has been dominated by small cars, and the potential for growth in Tier-2 cities has been highest, attracting a spurt of new players entering the market in India, for a share of the pie. . The emergence of multiple foreign players has brought with it innovations at multiple levels, and the average India car customer has been carefully studied to identify different opportunities for sales conversions. The incumbent OEMs in the country such as Maruti Suzuki Ltd. have also been subsequently forced to evolve their strategies to suit the needs of the Indian consumer, in order to remain relevant in the consumer’s perception and ultimately successful. The advent of internet penetration has opened up multiple avenues of touch points for companies to reach out to their specific target consumers, both for building product and brand awareness (marketing), and also potential opportunities for sales. Figure 1 represents the impact of digitization in the world, in the near future. Aggregator sites in developed countries like USA, such as Cars.com, Autotrader24 have successfully proved as platforms in the online space to provide complete user and consumer experience, from information search to sales conversion to post sales value added services. The potential for such a trend in developing countries in India is quite exciting. The aim of this study is to understand the potential for these services in India, to analyze consumer perceptions and attitudes towards purchase of a very high involvement purchase such as a car online, and to provide recommendations to original equipment manufacturers in India to successfully adopt such platforms in order to reach out to their consumer more effectively.