Indirect learning resulted in Creta’s success: Rakesh Srivastava

In a recent interview with Mr Rakesh Srivastava, senior vice-president, sales and marketing, Hyundai Motor India, we got new insights on the marketing strategy for the latest success story, the Creta.

“For Hyundai, the second-largest domestic car manufacturer and largest exporter of passenger cars over the last ten years, the biggest learning didn’t come directly from its rival.

Rather it was an indirect learning from the consumers of its competitor’s product in the SUV segment. The competitor’s SUV was designed to be tough, rugged, in-your-face looking with basic features,” he explains.

Previous to his employment with Hyundai Motors in India he was with Maruti for the past 15 years.
“Hyundai learned from customers what was missing in the product as well as their changed aspiration: to own a modern and premium SUV. These learnings resulted in the creation of the Creta, an SUV with strong, stylish and rich features”, claims Srivastava.

Indirect learning is a more general construct because it includes both vicarious learning as well as learning through the experience of competitors in a fiercely competitive market space with a sizeable presence of global brands, reckons Srivastava. “The learnings are specifically in terms of technology, marketing, innovation and business processes by observing the activities of developed market competitors in domestic markets.”

Credits: ET Auto