Slow and steady

Nobody would liken volkswagen to the hare, but as thierry lespiaucq, head of vw group sales in india, tells tg’s amaan ahmed and girish karkera, being the tortoise in a market like ours is the wise thing to do.

What does Lespiaucq love most about India? “Back home in France, one needs specific channels, but here, you just switch on the TV and watch MotoGP”

“A Volkswagen will never be a cheap car”

VW doesn’t play the numbers game. We know it. It sells a few thousand Polos and Ventos, but it’s really not doing great in terms of domestic sales. Progress, to put it frankly, has been glacial.

That doesn’t faze Thierry Lespiaucq.

Speak to the head of VW Group sales in India, and you’ll first notice how measured he is with his replies. Crisply dressed, mostly guarded in his responses, Lespiaucq plays with a straight bat. He doesn’t evade questions on the past, doesn’t dodge any on the present and is pretty clear about what he expects from his brand in the future. He admits VW’s delayed arrival hampered its prospects, and adds how fluctuation in currency values also had a deterring role.

“First of all, we came in late. VW was primarily not prepared and didn’t have the products fitting the demands of a market like India. We came into India with the Polo and Vento, and we also brought in the Passat, Beetle and Touareg. Also, development was slowed down, very frankly, by credit and currency fluctuations. What was possible at the very early stage, after the changes, became really tricky. The profitability of some products was at stake and then decisions were made to phase out some models.”

But he knows exactly what’s holding VW back.