With five straight months of falling sales, Royal Enfield’s decade-old dream run has come to a screeching halt. Here’s how Siddhartha Lal plans to get the Bullet maker firing on all cylinders again
The ritual starts at 9 am every Wednesday. The 18,000 sq ft building on the bustling National Highway 2 in Uttar Pradesh (UP) is packed with a boisterous bunch of young ardent ‘devotees’ from the adjoining village of Maholi. The crowd, which includes over a dozen turbaned middle-aged men in their early 40s, has come for a glimpse of the main ‘deities’ enshrined at Aryaman Enterprises, around 2 km from the temple city of Mathura.
The chatter ebbs suddenly as Krishna Singh enters the sprawling edifice. The bulky ‘priest’, dressed in brown leather jacket with armour pockets on its shoulders, greets the crowd as he walks down towards the sanctum sanctorum, where an aesthetically designed Classic 350 is displayed on a wooden platform. Singh, 28, lowers his Ray-Ban glasses and glances at his Apple Watch. At 9 am, he presses the electric start button, and revs up to full throttle with a slight twist of the right wrist. “Rotating the wrist towards oneself increases the amount of gas that feeds the engine,” he informs the pack, atop a fleet of Bullets and Thunderbirds, who duly repeat the ritual.
Aryaman Enterprises, the only Royal Enfield (RE) showroom in Mathura, reverberates with a loud thumping sound. The crowd lustily cheers the show that Singh conducts every week to build excitement and connect with potential buyers. A few students from Maholi, enrolled in Agra’s Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar University, inquire about the price of the recently launched Twins—Continental GT 650 and Interceptor 650. Others are curious to know about the delivery time for a new Classic 350. A troop of agents from top banks and NBFCs— HDFC, Tata Capital, Cholamandalam Finance and Hinduja Leyland—starts hunting for prospective buyers, wooing them with tantalising loan deals. Some even go to the extent of offering 100 percent finance on the on-road cost.
Denne historien er fra April 26, 2019-utgaven av Forbes India.
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Denne historien er fra April 26, 2019-utgaven av Forbes India.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Home-Cooked Meal Is Now Greatly Valued
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Paytm 3.0 - Reaching Near Breakeven In Two Years
As of 2020, Vijay Shekhar Sharma’s super app for financial services had run up losses in thousands of crores. Now, as digital payments gets yet another boost courtesy Covid-19, he’s hopeful of reaching near breakeven in two years
THE PANDEMIC HAS CAUSED WOMEN GREATER LABOUR PAIN
Covid-19 has shown that women are more likely to face the brunt of job losses than men, and find fewer opportunities when they want to resume. That apart, several have to deal with increased hours of unpaid work at home and even domestic abuse
LEADERSHIP WILL BE ABOUT SEEING THE BIGGER PICTURE
Leaders must not only guard their teams first during a crisis, but also deal with stakeholders with respect and dignity. And apart from pursuing business goals, they should remain committed to our planet and the environment
PHILANTHROPY SHOULD BE HUMBLE, BUT NOT MODEST
Apart from building a flexible and resilient framework for the future, philanthropists, civil society and the government must work in tandem so that every rupee is absorbed on the ground
INTEGRATED HEALTH CARE, TECH WILL DISRUPT SECTOR
While clinical research will get a boost, having a skilled workforce and public spending on health care will be challenges in the near term
DIGITALISATION WILL HELP IN VALUE CREATION
As the pandemic brings technology and innovation to the core of business and daily life, the next decade will see about 150 million digital-first families in India
Industry 4.0: Climate Revolution?
Augmenting sustainability alongside digital capabilities is an economic, competitive and global opportunity for India’s businesses, but regulations need to reflect intent
EV Dream Still Miles Away
Electric vehicles have remained a buzzword in India for years. But not much has moved on ground due to high upfront costs, range anxiety and charging infrastructure
Living Waters
A virus has caused us to scramble for oxygen but our chokehold on the environment is slowly strangling the very waters that breathe life into us. The virus is a timely reminder: We are merely consumers, not producers of life’s breath on this planet
