The document summarizes the story of Maruti, India's largest car manufacturer. It describes how Sanjay Gandhi was passionate about small cars and worked to establish Maruti Motors in 1971. After nationalization in 1981, Maruti was tasked with producing 100,000 passenger cars and 40,000 commercial vehicles. Maruti partnered with Suzuki Motor Corporation and began production in 1983, launching their first model, the Maruti 800, which became very popular across India. The document outlines Maruti's growth and success in the Indian market.

1. The Maruti Story
Submitted by:
Poornima Kulkarni (106)
Rohitashav Goyal (127)
Saloni Maheshwari (134)

3. • Association of Sanjay Gandhi with Maruti, passionate
about making small cars.
• Other competitors such as Hindustan Motors, Padmini
Motors, Standard Motors were there serving premium
segments.
• Late 1950’s Ad Hoc committee was setup to look into the
feasibility of making small cars.
• 24 proposals from various firms were obtained.
• Sanjay Gandhi and Captain Tillu started working on a
small workshop in North Delhi.
• Incorporation of Maruti Motors on 4 June 1971.
Assembling the dream…

4. • Land acquisition by Sanjay Gandhi in Haryana.
• Commercial production was not possible because of less number
of cars to be produced, economies of scale will not be achieved,
not economically viable.
• After 1975 emergency Sanjay Gandhi got involved in politics.
• In 1980 Gandhi Family returned to power with heavy majority.
• Maruti was nationalized on February 24th 1981 and it was
decided that it will manufacture 100,000 passenger cars and
40,000 LCV with a payload of 2 to 3 tonnes.

5. Team formation of Maruti, big names from PSUs and private companies were
roped in. It included :
• V Krishnamurty,
• Arun Nehru- Points man ,
• Mr. Sumant Moolgaokar (legendary chairman of TELCO),
• Mr. Yashwant Sinha (who became the finance minister of our country
thrice),
• Mr. D. R. Mehta (who went on to head the Securities and Exchange Board of
India).
These decisions were made by Mrs Indira Gandhi to keep Maruti
away from politics
Creating a partnership…

6. • Ministry zeroed in on Renault R-18, a 1647 cc engine car, a little
bigger than ambassador.
• Calculated cost for final assembled product was Rs 1.15 lakh
with Renault, it was dropped.
• Internal indecision regarding whether to make small cars or LCV.
• Finally after many meetings it was decided that company will
produce passenger cars and LCV.
Getting Started…

7. • Market survey to ascertain what the customers wanted, and
formed a team to visit car manufacturers in Europe, Japan, Italy,
Peugeot, Wolfsburg, France, Stuttgart and Germany.
• In Japan the team met representatives from Toyota, Honda, Suzuki
Motor Corporation (SMC), Mitsubishi.
• Finally by the grace of the Divine, SMC evinced interest in the
project.

8. Testing…
• In order to win the trust of the potential car owners, Suzuki
sent a few cars of different models for an exhaustive testing in
our country over different and treacherous terrains.
• The test drives resulted in several modifications in the cars to
suit the driving conditions in our country.
• Market Research by IMRB- it came to light that 90 percent
usage of cars in India was with less than four passengers; over
90 percent of usage was within city and not for outstation
trips; & the greatest value was attached to fuel efficiency,
reliability and low price.

9. Work-in-Progress…
• It talked about the SMC system of project management, where
all the constituent shops of a car factory are not constructed
simultaneously.
• In the case of Maruti, the last stage, i.e. the car assembly and
testing line was set up first. It was then followed by the setting
up of paint and weld shops. The chapter contains a
comprehensive discussion pertaining to the advantages of such
a system.

10. Recruitment policies and culture
• The book also focuses on the recruitment methodology
followed at Maruti, which is very important in a country
where many job aspirants may not have the required
aptitude and/or qualifications but certainly have very
powerful ministerial approaches. Thankfully, Maruti can
boast of workers from all parts of the country.
• The Maruti company is blessed with a culture of not
assuming that a problem had no solution.

11. Difficulties in the initial stages… (at the factory
level)
• The Japanese did not want even a speck of dust on the shop
floor.
• The Suzuki office does not have air-conditioning because
they have a belief that air-conditioning is not good for
health.
• At one point Suzuki argued that robots were not required in
a car manufacturing unit because labour in India was cheap.
Nonetheless Maruti wanted to adopt the modern concepts
of production technology and Maruti was able to convince
Suzuki of the feasibility of using robots.

12. Capturing the market…
• Maruti’s popularity, variants, advertising campaigns and its
journey through continuous innovation.
• Venturing new market segments with Gypsy and overcoming
obstacles hindering its market share.
• Measures taken by Maruti in exporting their cars to East
Europe, West Europe and thereafter to almost all the other
continents except North America.
• Liberalization opens new doors.

13. Overall, Story talked about...
Government
• Redtapism
• Roles of planning commission and public
investment board
• Politics and politicians
• Economic state of the country
Manufacturing
• Labour problems
• Outdated technology
• Cost cutting
• Japanese way of doing things
• Effect of speed of decision making
• risks associated with a project, meeting
deadlines, acute power shortages

14. Interesting Facts about Maruti’s Story!
Maruti company has been special to India in several ways:
• Workers are required to reach the plant ten to fifteen minutes before their time begins and
perform the mandatory physical exercises.
• There are two seven-and-half-minute tea breaks during a shift, workers are also given an
attendance bonus, there is a common canteen for all, regardless of rank, the food, plates and
cutlery are also the same for all.
• The company also devised novel housing scheme for the workers due to which twenty-five
year old workers were able to have their own flats.
• Maruti also established Maruti Authorized service stations where genuine spare parts were
made available to customers at reasonable prices. In a way the Maruti 800 car was an
embodiment of a special type of freedom for women, because, women found it easier to
drive the Maruti 800 car themselves, compared to the Ambassador and the Padmini.