#ShiftingGearsWithSwatiK: We have launched hope initiative campaign, ‘We Can, We Will’: P.B Venugopal, President, Lexus India

We will expand in four Indian cities, namely Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi and Chandigarh, P.B Venugopal, President, Lexus India. During an exclusive interview with Swati Khandelwal, Zee Business, Mr. Venugopal said, Lexus has started a campaign called ‘We Can, We Will’, it’s a hope initiative to engage our Lexus relationship managers to the guest. He added, the automobile industry was going through difficult times since the last one year and recovery was very slow. The luxury market was impacted a lot much before the COVID incident. The chat was live on Zee Business Facebook page.

Talking about the lockdown effect Mr. Venugopal said, it has been a challenging situation as you all know it is very difficult for the entire world. One good thing is that as a community we are getting better to support each other and health and safety is the most important part. Personally, as well as professionally, we are trying to support as many communities as possible so that we come out of the situation very strong. Coming to the industry as you know that luxury is the most impacted situation and the first two months have been very severe when lockdown started and post-June-July, the situation is getting better. Our focus has been on our guest as well as our dealership team to make things much safer for the guest.

When asked about how things have changed from what it was in March and now and the change in sales strategy of the year as the pandemic has toppled everyone plan to a great extent, Mr. Venugopal replied by saying that before I talk about Lexus, I think I need to speak about the industry a bit. He said as you know that the entire automobile industry was going through difficult times and recovery was very slow. And the luxury market was impacted a lot much before the COVID incident.

But coming specifically about the Lexus, we all know that we made an important announcement in January. So, on the 31st of January this year, we made an important announcement about the local production of ES in India. That was actually a very big moment personally for me as well as for the entire Lexus team both in India and globally, because India became the fourth country in the world to start producing Lexus and among the 90 odd-countries, which are selling Lexus globally. This has happened because of the initiatives in line with ‘Make in India’ as well as the ‘Skill India’.

So, we sent our team in six months in advance to train them and there was a lot of confidence from Lexus International about the skill that was available in India to manufacture Lexus to the global level. So, we had a very good response to the ES. Of course, this COVID was a big dampener for us. We have also announced Lexus Coupe LS 500 H on 31st of January. So, post the lockdown, the two months, .i.e. March-end to nearly to June first week, absolutely it was a very tough time. This was the time when we put our heads together and decided the best way to move forward is to be positive and there is no change on our business strategy from a mid to long-term point of view. We are committed to India and will continue to invest in our country and that’s where we announced the expansion plan in four other cities.

Currently, we are in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore and have also announced an expansion in Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi and Chandigarh. So that plan will also move forward. The only thing is that there will be a couple of month delay because of this COVID situation because of our migrant workers and labours who have moved to the hometown and are slowly coming back to the cities.

To summarize, we remain positive and have started a campaign called ‘We Can, We Will’. It’s a hope initiative to engage our Lexus relationship managers to a guest. Guest is the focal point and no change in our announcement plans, we will continue with the positive note and stay committed to the Indian market.

He added, currently we are operating in all the seven cities and we are already operational with our team in place. So, the facilities which were supposed to come up by the end of this year will get delayed to somewhere during March or to April-May 2021. So, we will see a delay of 4-5 months.

Story Link: https://www.facebook.com/zeebusinessonline/videos/1154719798243230/