In conversation with Mr. Sharad Pradhan- Regional Head, Norther Region, HMSI

On the occasion of Honda Dream Neo launch in Jaipur, we got an opportunity to speak with Mr. Sharad Pradhan, Regional head, Northern region, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter Ltd, in which he talked about two-wheeler segment in India and its potential.

Q.1 HMSI is doing quite well and has outpaced its rivals with increasing sales. Now, when the Dream Neo has joined your brilliant fleet of vehicles as the most affordable Honda bike. What kind of numbers are you expecting from this action packed machine?

Ans. We at Honda have always been tried to targets customers of all age groups and in this bid we have launched the Dream Neo, which is the most affordable bike from Honda. This bike targets a specific group of people between the age group of 32-40, who care more about looks and mature styling . The Dream Neo falls in the 100-110cc segment, which has a healthy 65 per cent of total market share in the Indian biking industry, so it's a mass volume bike and we are expecting to sell around 3 lakh units in 2013-14.

Q.2 Honda's market share is increasing day by day, and you are targeting no.1 spot by 2015-16, so what will be your marketing strategy apart from new product introduction?

Ans. There are 5 simple mantras for this, on which we will focus

1. R&D- We will focus on our R&D, as the innovative technology is the USP of every Honda product. For this, we recently established our 5th Global R&D center in India.

2. Network Expansion- We are doing extensive expansion of our network and would open more than 500 new customer touch points in current fiscal, which means almost 2 per day.

3. Customer Satisfaction- our prime goal is to satisfy our customer, whether it is the quality of the product or after sales services. We always try to satisfy our customer in every possible way.

4. Manufacturing Capacity- With increasing demand, we will also expand our manufacturing capacity, currently we have a manufacturing capacity of 40 lakh units/year.

5. We are trying to improve our sales network as well, we have recently established zonal offices and will improve this further. We will soon open a zonal office in Jaipur as well.

Q.3 What numbers is coming from northern region and what are your future expectations?

Ans. Northern region includes Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana, Chandigarh, Rajasthan and Delhi. The region is very important for us as a good 20 per cent of our commutative sales come from this region. In June'13, we sold a total 1.80 lakh units in India, out of which 36,000 units were sold in northern region.

Q.4 What are Honda's plans for dealership expansion in the northern region, today you have dealerships and service centers in all big cities and towns. What about the rural areas?

Ans. We are planning to expand our dealership network to semi-urban and rural areas. We intend to open 500 new customer touch points in these areas by 2013-14.

Q.5 What kind of investments can we see from HMSI in years to come?

Ans. I am unable to share the details at the moment, however Honda has invested Rs. 4150 crores in India till date and our turn-over in fiscal 2012-13 was Rs. 10,720 crores.