Indian customers adapt to any new technology quickly if it is provided at an affordable price, according to a senior Maruti Suzuki India official. The country’s largest carmaker has been among the busiest original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in CY22, launching at least five new models across various segments.
“We keep customers at the center of all our work, in terms of product development, services or anything else, and our focus is on how we can meet their requirements. Over the past four-five years, we have seen the customers becoming digitally savvy and getting used to more features,” Maruti’s chief technology officer CV Raman told FE.
Raman said that the auto industry is constantly churning, in terms of styling, design trends and product development side. “You need to continuously study that and keep moving. Whatever you are seeing today, this must have started maybe at a concept stage four years back. So, it is a constant endeavor to understand the customer,” he said.
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The company has not only added several features in its new vehicles that are not available in other models of that segment, but it has also updated the existing feature list of many models to take on the rivals. For instance, it equipped the Baleno with segment-first features like a head-up display and a 360-degree camera.
Raman said that from 2017 till 2020, Maruti was working on upgrading its vehicles to meet the BS6 emission norms, which came into effect on April 1, 2020. “We were also working on new engines. A car is an aggregate of many elements of technology. So we need to work on that in parallel, along with vehicle development, to make it into a product that can actually meet the customers’ requirements,” he noted.
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