The Kinetic group is capitalising on the strengths it has derived from combining the strengths of Kinetic Motor Company Ltd and Kinetic Engineering Ltd. Already, the results are beginning to show, in terms of flexibility and ability to innovate in the marketplace.

The group is finding it easier to initiate brand building and customer targeted exercises. Some recent brand building exercises include the launching of the Kinetic Mega Show on Sony TV, road safety clips on Sun TV, and the launching of the limited edition 'Kinetic Campus Chill'. The Kinetic Campus Chill is a stripped down, cut-price version of the Kinetic scooter, aimed at catching the fashion-conscious college student. Begun in late June, the cut-price offer will be open until end-August 1999.

Relationship building
The group has launched some other customer-oriented initiatives. It launched 'Kinetic Care', a campaign that consisted of some 100 service camps in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh, providing free service and part replacement.

For its K4, the company has planned another ambitious initiative, 'Customer First'. Come September, the company proposes to reach out to every one of its 50,000 K4 owners. Each of its 4,000-odd employees from all its group companies, will be deployed, each to contact ten customers, go to their houses, give a little gift, and get a full feedback on the vehicles, and ensure that everybody is satisfied.

With its existing products, the company is taking on product improvement measures in right earnest. "There are two or three areas which I have taken up seriously, personally," says Sulajja Firodia Motwani, joint managing director, Kinetic Engineering Ltd.

One is the issue of fuel efficiency of the Kinetic scooter, for which the company embarked on the mileage advantage camp. Tips and handouts on correct riding practices, throttling, maintaining and filling oil were given to the customers at these camps to get the best mileage. Customers were given test rides on their own vehicles proving that these practices would indeed give them the required mileage.

"Nobody got below 50 km per litre, some got 85, some 70, 110 was the highest," says Ms Firodia Motwani. "Now 25,000 people will tell you that you can."

Value engineering
The engine too is being reworked to add another 10 km to the mileage. One measure is to convert the auto-choke into a manual choke. "Few customers know that the Kinetic scooter comes with an auto choke. The advantage of the auto choke is that the vehicle starts instantly, you don't have to pull it, but the disadvantage is that it takes some time to disengage, so mileage suffers."

The second complaint customers had was the low ground clearance of the scooter, which tended to scrape the humps on the road. The company has initiated change to increase the ground clearance of the scooter.

The third complaint was that spare parts were expensive, because of which people felt it was expensive to maintain a Kinetic scooter. The company has embarked on a study of each spare part, and plans to reduce the prices by about 30 per cent. The company is also planning the Kinetic Spare Part Shoppe in 33 cities, where genuine company spare parts can be bought at attractive prices.

"On the whole, we are better off," says Ms Firodia Motwani, commenting on the solo status. And the figures vouch for that. The takeover occurred in November /December 1998. Since then, Kinetic Motor has notched higher sales, month on month. For the year 1998-99, although the company made a lower sales turnover of Rs 323.93 crore against Rs 358.20 crore the previous year, net profit rose 70 per cent to Rs 3.69 crore from Rs 2.17 crore earlier. And the trend has continued into the current year.

The group expects its new, aggressive initiatives to now build sales as well as improve profitability.