The curious case of No.7....

What is common to David Beckham, Eric Cantona, Cristiano Ronaldo and Bryan Robson?

Of course they are all legends, but beyond this, they all own same jersey number while playing in Manchester United...The famous No.7...

So what is No.7 for United??
A usual No.7 is a playmaker who may or may not score goals. But for United, a No.7 is a person who creates passes, gives movement and creativity, scores goals very often, takes exceptional spot kicks and corners, defends well if needed, gives width and depth to the team; in short, a person who is able to dictate the game properly. And if you see the number of goals scored by all these four players, all of them were simply ruthless goal scoring machines.

When Cantona left United in 1997, Beckham inherited No.7 jersey and when the latter left United in 2003, it was Ronaldo who was destined to wear the famous No.7 till his departure in 2009. While Cantona revamped the significance of Captain's armband and lead from the front even in United's tough times, Beckham made almost 200 assists for United and netted 100 goals, mostly from free kicks (Beckham played a crucial part in United's treble season of 1999). Even Ronaldo was no different from the other two and helped to bring 10 titles including three Premier league titles, one FA cup and one Champions League to the Red part of Manchester.

2009-2014 (An era without a distinguished No.7)
Ever since Ronaldo left in 2009, United seriously lacked the pace and creativity in the midfield and so was in a desperate pursuit for finding a suitable heir for this jersey. Alex Ferguson's (who was then Manchester United Manager) next attention was to keep on gambling by giving No.7 jersey to different players. First in the lot was Michael Owen who was brought from New Castle and then was Antonio Valencia. Fergie even offered this jersey to Shinji Kagawa, but he denied because of too much responsibilities and pressures. Though Owen and Valencia scored some goals in various games, they both hardly make any impact (both on the pitch and off the pitch) unlike other No.7s' created in their own tenures and both requested Fergie to find other alternatives for No.7 shirt.. Even the fan base of Cristiano Ronaldo and Beckham (when they were playing for Manchester United) were more than the fan base of all the players in half of the European teams combined. Even David Moyes (in his short term of 10 months) who succeeded Ferguson was not able to find a suitable No.7. Since Ferguson somehow managed to bring League titles to Old Trafford within these five years even without great players, the Reds fans weren't missing No.7 so much. But United's miserable run in Premier league started as soon as Ferguson left and this was enough and more for the hardcore Red Devils fans to scream for a better manager and a better team with a distinguished No.7.

Angel Di Maria
Even before commencing World Cup 2014 in Brazil, Louis Van Gaal has been appointed  as new Manchester United Manager, in a mission to rebuild United team completely and getting back their old winning ways, which they lost during Moyes' tenure. "King Louis" was virtually unaware of the significance of No.7 shirt upon arriving. While eagerly rebuilding the team by buying new players and sell unwanted players, the Dutch Master Manager entered into an expensive adventure by bidding Angel Di Maria for a British record fee of £59.7 M from Real Madrid which was hugely criticized by football pundits and even the fans because of "value-for-money", and gave him No. 7 jersey.

Angel Di Maria becoming the Real Angel of the Devils
But slowly, the Argentine was getting fit into Van Gaal's jig-saw puzzle by either scoring or creating goals in virtually every game for United and showed justice for the No.7. For Maria, United is a good platform for building his career forward. And for United, Maria will be a great value addition in the left wing who brings pace, power, supply and creativity which United was heavily lacking ever since Ronaldo left in 2009. This symbiosis would be a key factor for the Red Devils always.

Let Manchester United win or loose titles, but surely...surely, Di Maria will be their crucial man in the coming years...

Can Tata Zest really zest Indian consumers?

It has been quite a while that TATA Motors (formerly Telco) was out of the competition in almost all segments from entire Indian passenger car industry. Not only automobile pundits but also every Indian (who drives/owns/aspire for cars) can't still digest the irony that the mother company of Jaguar-LandRover is struggling hard in the Indian market just because of poor quality and design specs.

Almost all their products (NANO, which launched as world's cheapest car, their old hatch back, "Indica", which launched a decade and half ago and its sedan version "Indigo") failed to convert into numbers that clearly leaving n-number of questions to world's seventeenth largest motor vehicle manufacturing company (Courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Motors).

TATA Motors has revitalized their product portfolio by launching a new car, TATA ZEST on August 12. From the style, design and interiors to the power, handling and performance, it is quite evident that their engineers have spent fairly decent time in order to create a "wow" factor in the minds of Indian customers. The response, as expected, was overwhelming with more than 7000 bookings in the inaugural month of August.

This initial response for Zest was more of a matter of necessity for sustenance in Indian market than getting back their lost 4th position (in terms of sales volume) in Indian car industry. Zest has got stiff competition from other companies like Hyundai (Xcent), Honda (Amaze) and the class leading Suzuki (Dzire). Though the initial bookings surprised everyone, September sales has shown even Zest doesn't make any impact on sales.

So where does the problem exist??

Zest has refreshing appeal in looks (both interiors and exteriors), good performance and with a decent delivery lead time. And we know, Indian customers are least bothered about the unexpected demise of former MD of TATA Motors, Karl Slym in Thailand hotel room, which also cannot be the reason by any chance. So where exactly does TATA fail?. If it's the general perception of the Indian customers about Tata products, then how come they received 7000 bookings in August.

So there must be an explanation...A very..serious explanation!!

Decoding TATA.....
Indian customers are always admirers of high quality diesel cars for which Tata seems to give least preference which resulted in under performed diesel cars (except Vista which has got reasonably better performance). Besides, after-sales-service of Tata has progressively degraded year after year in the recent past. Usage of poor quality spare parts forced the customers to visit the service centers more and more often. But all these points have now been seriously taken care by Tata and working hard to use better vendors for quality spare parts in order to improve "CRM" part of Sales. And when we come specifically to Zest; its the Diesel Automatic version (which is reported to be the world's cheapest diesel automatic car), that actually amazed the riders, but unfortunately has got a lead time of 7-8 months for delivery. So as of now, its a waiting game for Tata, inorder to have a change in all these above points including the customer perceptions. Tata's plan of launching a dozen new models in the coming years will surely complement Zest in TATA's growth path.

These new models which are launching in completely new platforms and using new advanced technologies, many of their current weaknesses will soon get converted into opportunities. BUT ONLY TIME CAN TELL THAT!!! YES..TATA HAS TO WAIT AND SEE THEIR FUTURE AHEAD....