The thumps that bind
From all accounts, Royal Enfield (RE), which bills itself as 'the world's oldest motorcycle brand', has surprised many in the auto industry with growth figures that analysts usually dub dramatic. Wags say the company may have even surprised itself.
Curiously, for a firm that peddles a famously swagger-inducing brand, RE doesn't disagree. The Chennai-based firm, a division of Eicher Motors Limited, has in fact struggled to cope with booming demand for its range of classic motorcycles. This comes after it firm spent years struggling to turn itself around and do new things, which according to its CEO, Venki Padmanabhan, RE is all the better for.
Padmanabhan, an old Motown hand from Detroit who joined RE in 2008 and took over as CEO in January 2011, has seen growth rates nudge over 40 per cent on his watch. He's measured but clearly pleased as punch when he states: "What has been quite spectacular in my mind is when you experiment with what you want the company to be, without messing up what people (customers) want from you (RE) - I think that has succeeded rather well for us. "
By 'experiment' he mostly means change. And Padmanabhan tells an interesting story that begins with Eicher heir and current MD Siddhartha Lal's careful stewardship of RE, some years after the Delhi-based conglomerate acquired a struggling Enfield Motors in the early 1990s, to the vital marketing push given the brand by his predecessor R L Ravichandran. "I came to RE in 2008 from an operations background, and, over time, it has complemented well the market positioning activities. It's also important to point out that by then (2008) they had managed to restore, in the eyes of our customers, the belief that Royal Enfield was a worthy brand - that it was worth cherishing. "
Reluctant to list a turning point, but clearly alluding several times to the November 2009 launch - and subsequent runaway success - of RE's 'Classic' model as something akin to one, Padmanabhan lists three main "causal events" that "put RE on the path to success". The first was relooking the firm's retail operations. "People said it was difficult to buy our motorcycles, so we set out to change that. We improved a number of things with customer experience there, and now operate 11 brand stores in addition to over 250 dealerships all over India, " he says. "Second, it was the engines, upgrading them while preserving what people had come to love. And finally, the shape of the bikes themselves, that were evocative enough, and that still do, I trust, grab peoples' attention and handle so well that they can enjoy them at very low RPMs or even at top speed, with the right torque curve. " This last bit of motorhead-speak was probably the most important thing the company needed to pay attention to, if it wished to capitalise on the fad that had sustained it so far - the cult of the Bullet.
Admits Padmanabhan, "Like all things historic, there was the good and the bad. Sure, there was a cult following for the famous cast iron engine, but we saw that the old 'British Singles' reputation of leaking, seizing up, and a certain quirkiness meant compromises on reliability. We really needed to develop a new engine and we came up with the UCE engine. " This was hugely significant in other ways too, as new emission norms that came into force in 2010 also meant that all RE models had to switch to this new engine. But for a company that keeps harping on its products' unique 'character' that was easier said than done.
"We had to be very careful about tweaking the engine. And I learnt this the hard way: motorcyclists talk endlessly about this Enfield character. So it all boils down to 'the torque curve', basically how much horsepower gets generated at what RPM. And the two elements that defined this character were the 'beat', which is every time the stroke happens one sound comes out as a 'dhuk' and then nothing else is heard until it fires again and you hear the next 'dhuk'. There was a lot of folklore about that 'beautiful' sound. The next thing was very 'low RPM torque', say even at just 1000 RPM the bike's 'pulling' power isn't compromised. This allows riders to cruise in a lower gear. These characteristics were retained, despite our being a small setup;this was frugal engineering working very well. This helped us iron out, to a great extent, the irritants that kept away a lot of people from buying our bikes, " he explains.
So is such 'modernity' subtly concealed in classic styling a defining part of the brand's appeal? Yes, says Padmanabhan, who acknowledges that they stumbled on the fact that 'old-fashioned' sells rather well - in such a niche. "It's also about simplicity combined with elegant lines and classic looks that is an invitation, telling customers that you have the right and the ability to return to simpler times in this modern, increasingly tech-obsessed and complex world. So yes, that's a deeper place where this brand lives. "
There's also the matter of a line RE marketing keeps bringing up: 'practical leisure motorcycling'. With big daddy Harley-Davidson in the rear-view mirror - and the impending launch of iconic British brand Triumph in India - RE appears to underlining the 'practical' bit as a USP of sorts.
Padmanabhan explains: "This is to show people how leisure may be spent in a more meaningful way on a bike. But this is not passive leisure. It's active and demanding in some respects. And this is the important dichotomy in our branding. What if this companion (our bike) could also take you to work? It's not a highfalutin thing. Or too much of an extraordinary idea to convey to our potential customers, that our motorcycles help you do these two key things. Reliability is also a key brand attribute. Unlike in most other countries, these types of motorcycles are not associated with rebels, hellraisers or the sort in India. Over 50-60 years we've come to be seen as a solid brand. The old image of soldiers driving Bullets has worked well for us. "
"Besides, " he adds, a touch expansively, "India's economic profile is in our favour, demographics work in our favour, the fact that we're the second largest motorcycling nation in the world. So there's a lot of room, and great potential. " RE's numbers appear to prove him right, for now. In 2009, when it launched the Classic, RE was selling about 40, 000 units a year. "There was this mythical number for us: 100, 000. We felt we might hit it someday in 2020. But we crossed it last week, and our new plant is yet to be commissioned, " muses Padmanabhan, who, ever the engineer at heart, also keeps highlighting his firm's "frugal Indian ingenuity" as a major factor. "If anything, that's an exclamation mark in the story of this brand, " he adds.
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