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....