Can FIAT Re-Establish Itself in India?

[carfreak]

Cheap Interior quality, cost cutting, doing away with bare minimum parts like gaskets, insulation, poor sheet thickness, not so good build quality and taking Indian Customers for granted - all these go to hell. They are selling and they are selling a lot.

Bang on the money! So, in India it is always difficult to explain why few good cars fail and few 'so called good cars' makes hay!

 

[Raja]

Bang on the money! So, in India it is always difficult to explain why few good cars fail and few 'so called good cars' makes hay!

Three things are most relevant and practiced in India and all around the world in my personal opinion .( I myself fall in this trap at times )

1)confirmation bias - when opinions are the result of years of paying attention to information which confirm what you subjectively believe while ignoring objective information which challenge your preconceived notions about everything including religion , sports , fashion , politics and cars.


2) herd mentality -Herd mentality describes how people are influenced by their peers and general perception around them to adopt certain behaviors, make decisions , follow trends, and/or purchase items. Examples of the herd mentality include stock market trends, fashions in apparel, purchase of cars.

3) Argumentum ad populum- (Latin for "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or most people believe it. In other words, the basic idea of the argument is: "If many believe so, it is so."



Source - Wikipedia .

 

[jayadev]

Bang on the money! So, in India it is always difficult to explain why few good cars fail and few 'so called good cars' makes hay!

I never found it difficult why so. even in the case Cinema it is crystal clear.

Reputation and Marketing.

 

[jayadev]

"To err is to Human" No matter what they are they have achievements worth appraisals. it should be poor managements teams whom couldn't lead it right.

http://www.fptpowertrain.com/

 

[Gurrala74]

Dear Gurrala74,

It seems you mis understood Jayadev's post.
He says that Etios/Liva interiors are good for some people based on its Sales figures. People are buying Etios and they are living with it and most of them are happy and defend Toyota.

Cheap Interior quality, cost cutting, doing away with bare minimum parts like gaskets, insulation, poor sheet thickness, not so good build quality and taking Indian Customers for granted - all these go to hell. They are selling and they are selling a lot.

Amit, I differ a little with you here. This is my personal opinion and subjective too that either it is Toyota or Maruti and anybody else, most of the time the sales figures are the babys coming out of half-knowledge buying decisions and most of these decisions are very much influenced by their friends,relatives and reviews on the net which are completely biased most of the times. So by the time they notice that they did a mistake, the product is already bought by them, hence to live with it.

Next, the product is bought knowingly or unknowingly and they cannot reverse their decision immediately which involves financial implications, ego of their selection linked with reputation within their own circles that within a short time they cannot go and say that my decision was bad, so all this leads to a situation called "living with the things" whether the product is good,bad,worst AND since you live the thing what you do you need to praise the product forcefully though you do not like it from the heart and keep saying to your self & others "yeah all is well, excellent, VFM, very good handling" and what not, so obviously to support your own bad decision keep supporting the brand and ending up suggesting the same bad decision to some body else by mouth or with reviews.

Just think how many of us really listen to what our heart says and pen down the same thing either it is good or bad or worst in our writings, you find only very few !!

So this is the real scenario which is happening very much in the market now.

I again reiterate that this is my personal opinion and subjective research and not general statement

 

[autosafari]

I differ a little with you here.

I again reiterate that this is my personal opinion and subjective research and not general statement

We don't have any difference of openion.

You said it in plain words. I was trying to put it in a sarcastic way (It seems I failed here because I could not make myself clear to you.)

I assume that Jayadev also meant that way.


{Inspite of all these, at the end of the day, its the Sales that matters for those companies.}

 

[jayadev]

Amit, I differ a little with you here. This is my personal opinion and subjective too that either it is Toyota or Maruti and anybody else, most of the time the sales figures are the babys coming out of half-knowledge buying decisions and most of these decisions are very much influenced by their friends,relatives and reviews on the net which are completely biased most of the times. So by the time they notice that they did a mistake, the product is already bought by them, hence to live with it.

I dont know what you are pointing to but two of my close friends have Liva (in Calicut) they are quite Happy with it.
Previously they owned i10.
Ofcourse they swear it is not upto the mark of Fiat Punto but far better than Indica.


Living with things, is not by choice but forced. How one can one help in that situation other than improvise,Its a question of survival.If everybody start admitting his wrong moves then the world will look like a loony bin .

We know there are already millions of homeless and starving people in the world do you think they are "living with the things"

 

[Raja]

Amit, I differ a little with you here. This is my personal opinion and subjective too that either it is Toyota or Maruti and anybody else, most of the time the sales figures are the babys coming out of half-knowledge buying decisions and most of these decisions are very much influenced by their friends,relatives and reviews on the net which are completely biased most of the times. So by the time they notice that they did a mistake, the product is already bought by them, hence to live with it.

Next, the product is bought knowingly or unknowingly and they cannot reverse their decision immediately which involves financial implications, ego of their selection linked with reputation within their own circles that within a short time they cannot go and say that my decision was bad, so all this leads to a situation called "living with the things" whether the product is good,bad,worst AND since you live the thing what you do you need to praise the product forcefully though you do not like it from the heart and keep saying to your self & others "yeah all is well, excellent, VFM, very good handling" and what not, so obviously to support your own bad decision keep supporting the brand and ending up suggesting the same bad decision to some body else by mouth or with reviews.

Just think how many of us really listen to what our heart says and pen down the same thing either it is good or bad or worst in our writings, you find only very few !!

So this is the real scenario which is happening very much in the market now.

I again reiterate that this is my personal opinion and subjective research and not general statement

Very good post just 1 huge problem in your post autosafaris name in not Amit kindly do your research joking don't take seriously . You perfectly penned down your thoughts about the psychology of a car buyer and owner .

 

[Gurrala74]

We don't have any difference of openion.

You said it in plain words. I was trying to put it in a sarcastic way (It seems I failed here because I could not make myself clear to you.)

I assume that Jayadev also meant that way.


{Inspite of all these, at the end of the day, its the Sales that matters for those companies.}

Amit

Oh !! nice to note this, so I am glad that there are people in the forum who just think like me but express it differently, no problem as far as meaning is the same. Thanks Amit & Jayadev for your posts on this particular topic

I think we again gone OT, so we get back to FIAT again

One thing is sure, FIAT cannot re-establish just with two models and only one out of them is bit selling good. According to me they quickly need to introduce more models to fight with the kind competition in the country at present !!

They also need to become very very aggressive I repeat very aggressive on their promotion, outlets and they seriously lack a good marketing strategy

 

[Gurrala74]

Very good post just 1 huge problem in your post autosafaris name in not Amit kindly do your research joking don't take seriously . You perfectly penned down your thoughts about the psychology of a car buyer and owner .

Thanks Raja, it was a blunder

Sujith

Oh !! NO, I am sorry Sujith, I was really sorry man

I dont know what you are pointing to but two of my close friends have Liva (in Calicut) they are quite Happy with it.
Previously they owned i10.
Ofcourse they swear it is not upto the mark of Fiat Punto but far better than Indica.


Living with things, is not by choice but forced. How one can one help in that situation other than improvise,Its a question of survival.If everybody start admitting his wrong moves then the world will look like a loony bin .

We know there are already millions of homeless and starving people in the world do you think they are "living with the things"

Jaydev, I agree with you, but

Living with the things due to the situation demands or you can call it there is no other choise left is really pity, but

Living with the things which I told is completely different which by a mistake either knowingly or unknowingly and best part is not accepting the mistake. I am also the victim of this, but only difference is any given day any time I quickly realise and accept my mistake and tell others, hey guys do not follow this, it really make your life miserable

 

[Raja]

I dont know what you are pointing to but two of my close friends have Liva (in Calicut) they are quite Happy with it.
Previously they owned i10.
Ofcourse they swear it is not upto the mark of Fiat Punto but far better than Indica.


Living with things, is not by choice but forced. How one can one help in that situation other than improvise,Its a question of survival.If everybody start admitting his wrong moves then the world will look like a loony bin .

We know there are already millions of homeless and starving people in the world do you think they are "living with the things"

I need understand your thoughts here .I think you are mixing two things in one .

Gurralla if iam not mistaken ( Gurralla kindly correct me if iam wrong ) is not taking about things which are at times "forced "" on us for example - govt rules, taxations , which home you take you'r birth , which school you'r parents put you in .on such things we don't have "control" nor we can exercise our "choice "they are what they are in a way you can call it " forced ". And can say you are living with things .

But how can buying a car be a forced desicion ? ( until and unless your parents are buying a car or your company has given you a car )
Buying a car in today's era is a choice . So many options . What Gurralla is saying is inspite of having choices they buy a car which is sometimes influenced by confirmation bias , and herd mentality . Later the realize wtf I did I should have not listened to any 1 and bought the car which I liked .

Gurralla is trying to say that inspite of having choice they end up improvising and living with it ,which they could have avoided very well in first place .

 

[autosafari]

FIAT is not acting fast is an understatement.

Infact they don't have a concreate plan.

They decided to seperate commercial - Sales, Service - activities from TATA Motors and wanted to establish an all India network. But how? and how soon?

They are just hopping that each of those TATA Motors dealers in 178 Cities and towns of India would come forward and open a seperate (independent, posh and plush too) Show rooms and fully equiped service centers for FIAT.

Are they praying to God to give these dealers good thoughts, fascination and interest about FIAT and then they queue up infront of FIAT office.

@Gurrala74 - No problem

 

[jayadev]

Amit

One thing is sure, FIAT cannot re-establish just with two models and only one out of them is bit selling good. According to me they quickly need to introduce more models to fight with the kind competition in the country at present !!

They also need to become very very aggressive I repeat very aggressive on their promotion, outlets and they seriously lack a good marketing strategy

" I repeat very aggressive"..
I think such perceptions sound too casual to be in a forum .There is no scale for aggression.

If they brings in right product at right time for which market exist ,buyers would automatically get in track.

Punto and Linea is not that bad from market point of view but there are certain Limitations for fiat itself ,we should blame their management.

Rather than Aggression I would like to use term "flexible" here, where Fiats are the least.

Punto was apple of eye for fans and admirers equally . But we know what fans looks for a scorcher a performer. Both fiat cars failed at those ends.

Much much later they tried to buckle up with T-jet when Honda city was having a hayday in India along with Verna. Nobody noticed Linea t-jet just because they were not better but almost equally good cars .
Punto 90 Hp almost never came in frame at all.

Then Fluidic Verna took the market like storm with contemporary in demand features and our Linea t-jet was left in oblivion.

fiat 500 was a good product at i10's price range but they tagged it with niche market and cult car ideas and it disappeared .

I think Fiat should be accredited with worst Blunders in automotive Industry of India and they deserve their position very well.

Fiat have to understand that in modern days people prefer to go with the direction of wind.

 

[Gurrala74]

I need understand your thoughts here .I think you are mixing two things in one .

Gurralla if iam not mistaken ( Gurralla kindly correct me if iam wrong ) is not taking about things which are at times "forced "" on us for example - govt rules, taxations , which home you take you'r birth , which school you'r parents put you in .on such things we don't have "control" nor we can exercise our "choice "they are what they are in a way you can call it " forced ". And can say you are living with things .

But how can buying a car be a forced desicion ? ( until and unless yiur parents are buying a car or your company hasbgiven you a car )
Buying a car in today's era is a choice . So many options . What Gurralla is saying is inspite of having choices they buy a car which is sometimes influenced by confirmation bias , and herd mentality . Later the realize wtf I did I should have not listened to any 1 and bought the car which I liked .

Gurralla is trying to say that inspite of having choice they end up improvising and living with it ,which they could have avoided very well in first place .

+1000, I explained this in my post. A example to avoid this "living with the things" in my own case is buying a Ritz, though I do not have single problem with my car, but still if I would have been a active member on TAI I could have ended up buying a much better car in terms of everything, though my budget was limited still I could have thought of increasing it doing something and bought one which gives me ultimate "driving pleasure", the other one where my decision failed with buying a Suzuki Slingshot+ with some wrong guidance and influence of somebody, but I could not live with it more than 1-1/2 years and to come out of a wrong decision I have to shed some 45000/- more

 

[Raja]

" I repeat very aggressive"..
I think such perceptions sound too casual to be in a forum .There is no scale for aggression.

If they brings in right product at right time for which market exist ,buyers would automatically get in track.

Punto and Linea is not that bad from market point of view but there are certain Limitations for fiat itself ,we should blame their management.

Rather than Aggression I would like to use term "flexible" here, where Fiats are the least.

Punto was apple of eye for fans and admirers equally . But we know what fans looks for a scorcher a performer. Both fiat cars failed at those ends.

Much much later they tried to buckle up with T-jet when Honda city was having a hayday in India along with Verna. Nobody noticed Linea t-jet just because they were not better but almost equally good cars .
Punto 90 Hp almost never came in frame at all.

Then Fluidic took the market with storm with contemporary in demand features and our Linea t-jet was left in oblivion.

fiat 500 was a good product at i10's price range but they tagged it with niche market and cult car ideas and it disappeared .

I think Fiat should be accredited with worst Blunders in automotive Industry of India and they deserve their position very well.

Fiat have to understand that in modern days people prefer to go with the direction of wind.

+100 perfect post .
Couple of pages before I posted my thoughts .
Inspite of having more experience of Indian market even more then maruti they are here with 2 products which are outclassed by the competetion .

Renault as promised got 5 products in India in record time .

Ford has made a statement 8 cars by 2015 .

Nissan saying they are brining small cars to India by 2015 under datsun brand .

Mahindra announcing their plans in uv and small car segment .

Have you heard any kind of a statement like this from fiat ? Only we hear from them is we are studying the market .

What is fiat doing ? Opening cafes and explaining their Italian heritage .
Fiat India is a lazy company period