BlazingNew Trails
Building India’s first Smart Truck, against all odds.
March ‘14
Stuck and slow
It’s Monday morning and I’m late to work. Tailing a truck on a narrow street, I’m confronted with a daring remark. In Hindi, it means:
‘Overtake me if you have the guts, or zip it up.’ It would not be the only challenge thrown my way this day.
In A
Bigger Jam
“We need to do better than this! We’re falling behind,” protests one member of the board. My team and I had been anticipating this meeting for a while. But nothing prepared us for what was spoken next. “Two years – that’s all you have. Get us back in the game.” The ultimatum echoes in my ears long after people clear the room.
Our fledgling truck business needed a surge in sales. We had almost lost the customer’s faith. It would take nothing short of a breakthrough to win it back.
“How do we turn this around in two years?” I think to myself on my way home.
Brain-rackingmonths
We immerse ourselves in R&D.
Hundreds of customer meetings.
Over thousands of gallons of coffee.
Spark millions of joules of heated discussions.
We were just warming up. Every avenue of innovation is explored, abandoned and re-explored.
... .we finally zero in on a revolutionary new truck that would excite the customer.
Mahindra BLAZO - a smart truck with a solid guarantee.
The first thing we do is shave 450 kilos off our old truck. Then, we give it a bigger heart – a heart of 260 HP.
It was lighter on the outside and stronger on the inside – the perfect mix for a heavy load.
April ‘15
Next, we tackle mileage.
Our truck needed to take on any kind of load, on any kind of road. A single power train would not do. So we give it three power and torque options. “What if,” my chief engineer muses, “we fit switches on the dashboard so that the drivers can change to any mode at the click of a button?”
It was a bold idea and an innovation that no other truck in the world had. Like having multiple power trains in a single truck that could be changed on the go.
We call it the mPower FuelSmart Technology; it becomes the most remarkable feature of the Mahindra Blazo. It would enhance fuel economy by 5-8%, resulting in savings of nearly "16000 USD" per year on every truck.
Dec ‘15
A Smart Promise
The switches gave the driver unbeatable mileage, without compromising on power. But we didn’t want to just say it. We needed a rock-solid guarantee to win our customer’s faith.
So we make two sincere claims that no other truck company in India had made earlier.
February ‘16
Launch
The campaign rolls out and the phone lines open. At 3PM, we get our very first enquiry. What follows is 10,000 enquiries that week alone – five times more than the average during any campaign launch week.
“The truck has really moved the market. We are witnessing a lot of reciprocation.” Truck Dealer
Two years are up, and we make our way to the board room once again.This time, we walk in with confidence. And the numbers to back us up.
