India, is now one of the topmost and important auto hubs in the Asian continent. This has now been realized by most of the auto companies. So as a departure from the past, Ford has already started their manufacturing unit for small car in our country and is also planning to bring all their models what they have to the Indian market, attempting to catch up with the rivals and gain greater traction in the red-hot Indian car market that is setting new sales records every month.
What FORD has done earlier in INDIA was that they had rolled out escort cars in the nineties in a joint venture with the Mahindras even though it was a hit, they didn't realize the importance of producing a right-sized and right-priced car for the Asian markets. This is where they gave space to its Asian rivals like Hyundai and Honda which came up with appropriate models.
That is what FORD has realized and going to do now, and FORD Figo is just one part of their larger vision. Out of the small car market the 50% of the demand is for the hatch back segment and so they came up with the right model FORD Figo which is rightly priced and will be taking on Maruti Suzuki's Wagon R and Swift and Hyundai's i10.
The reason why FORD has chosen INDIA as their location for small car manufacturing is because, Allan Mullaly CEO of FORD motors is a fan of India's Frugal Engineering capabilities, where a complex process would be broken into basic components and further developing this basic components to final process economically. They have chosen Chennai especially because of the favourable governmental policies, tax benefits and the TN government is further going to improve the conditions for the manufacturing industries there.
The main strategy for FORD from the time when Allan Mullaly has taken charge from 2006 which he calls "Laser Focus on the Mother brand", because its a brand that people recognize and appreciate and we want to grow it and be focused on it, CEO said. This is the main reason why they have sold one of their premium brand Jaguar Land Rover to TATA recently, and even they are in talks to sell their another brand VOLVO cars to a firm in China.
The future implications will be from the FORD point of view they could gain a greater traction of the small car Asian market which they are lacking now and from India's point of view our economy would be benefited as FORD is going to export the car from our country to other places and it will also help the local component manufacturers of our country.
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