Monday, July 23, 2012

What's missing at Maruti Suzuki?

As seen in old Hindi movies, trade unions, on back on militants, are creating problems for businesses to grow. This has been phenomenon in Gurgaon for quite sometime. The violence at Maruti Suzuki's Manesar factory, which killed one senior employee and injured close to 100 others, bodes ill for the future of not just Maruti but also the industrial hub of NCR.



Last year it meant a loss of over half a billion dollars and this time even more as a life of employee has been taken which cant be counted in monetary terms. Delhi is great city (by far the best in India) and sadly surrounded by Noida and Gurgaon which have not been able to take success humbly. This prompted me to seek reasons of what is missing in Maruti Suzuki.

The Japanese way
Maruti made key changes in senior management to include a Japanese, Shinzo Nakanishi, the current MD of Maruti Suzuki though RC Bhargava, who was a director, was made chairman. 
Maruti is major contributor to Suzuki global profits and hence it wants to seek complete control of it using age old Japanese way without understanding ground Indian scenario. Culturally, Indians and Japanese are far apart.
Running mechanism has changed in Maruti. It has been under lot of competition with companies like GM, Volkwagon, Tata, Hyundai changing Indian landscape and on other hand costs, wages have soared. Here comes the Japanese solution of keeping 40% workers on contract and paying half of regular workers.

Gurgaon region
There has been complete change in lifestyle of Gurgaon. Land prices have risen multi folds overnight and people have become super rich. I know a person through a friend who owns Rs. 1100 crores which he made by selling his land to developers and as per Haryana government policy, land acquisition does not attract tax. With these changes around, expectations have also increased exponentially. Young workforce wants to be at par with peers. Poor wage hikes, inflation, Congress government, competition are few factors resulting into aggressive workforce.
This region is also known for "Jatts-Gujjars" and rapes. People have made killer money but have not received education at that pace, resulting in gaps. Few "Jatts" on back of money power break the laws and have proved to be mess to healthy society. Sonu Gujjar, the leader of the labour unrest at Maruti plant last year, represents that generation.


Burning colleague is a brutal act and can not be justified under any circumstances. I feel the community is still premature to digest Gurgaon success (only because it is adjacent to lively Delhi). If "Jatts-Gujjars" society, government continue to do nothing about these situations, there are little chances of making corporates stick to this part of the world.

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