Page 67 - Forbes India (December 2015)

Name: company needed
gunjan srivastava to differentiate
Age: 47 years itself in a cluttered
Designation: market
Md and ceo, How they did it:
Bosch siemens By going against
home appliances the prevailing
Manufacturing wisdom and
launching a 7 kg,
Pvt Ltd (india) front load washing
Education: machine in a
iit (Bhu), iiM- market dominated
ahmedabad by 6 kg machines
The challenge: Next move:
Bsh was a marginal to launch
player in wash- refrigerators for
ing machines. the the indian market

machines are priced at Rs 30,000.
This makes it attractive for people
to stretch a bit and upgrade. The
price should not be a barrier.
Bosch Siemens has also expanded
its presence in India. While the market
for front load machines is in the top
200 cities in the country, we were not
present in all of them initially. But
with two brands and a ‘Made for India’
product, we were able to convince
more retailers to stock our products.
The dual-brand strategy continues
to help us in many ways. Due to our
legacy in India, there are different
parts of the country where the Bosch
brand and Siemens brand are strong.
For instance, Siemens is strong
in Mumbai and the surrounding
region, whereas Bosch is strong
in Hyderabad and Bengaluru.
What we have done in India is to
deliver German engineering suited
for Indian conditions and that is the
promise the consumer is buying into.
We hope to be the second biggest
washing machine company in India
in the next 18 months, which would
be an improvement from our number
three status now. In some markets,
like parts of the South, we are already
second, behind our Korean rivals
LG and Samsung. (BSH does not
publish its revenues by country.) Prasad gori for forBes india
Going forward, we plan to adopt the
same strategy for refrigerators with a
‘Made for India’ range next year.
(As told to Samar Srivastava)

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