Maruti Suzuki looks to revamp outlets in image makeover bid

NEW DELHI: Two years after Mar uti Suzuki India Ltd introduced the Nexa sales network in an effort to become a premium brand, India’s largest car maker is set to revamp its remaining 1,800 showrooms, 3,000 work shops and as many as 1,000 pre owned car showrooms under the True Value brand.

It is another effort to change popular perception of the Mar uti brand by the auto maker which will also introduce exclu sive service outlets for cars sold through the Nexa network.

Unlike for the Nexa network where Maruti along with its dealers spent large sums for promoting and building the brand, the investments on revamping the older sales chan nel will be made solely by the dealers, adding to their costs.

The carmaker is of the view that dealers will ultimately ben efit as satisfied customers return to buy Maruti cars.

On average, it takes around ₹1-2 crore to revamp a car show room in a metro city.

“We started Nexa in 2015 After two years have passed, it seems like customers have accepted this kind of approach,” Kenichi Ayukawa, managing director and chief executive of Maruti Suzuki, told the media on Monday. “Through that we learnt a lot of things. We are try ing to spread that kind of experi ence. We will introduce those kind of things in the existing network...”

Maruti Suzuki’s decision to create a separate sales network in the form of Nexa was prompted by consumers choos ing other brands when buying bigger cars as Maruti had tradi tionally been associated with small cars since it introduced the Maruti 800 in 1983.