Mahindra Turns Attention Inward Ahead of Growth Bid

DETROIT – Mahindra & Mahindra has not eliminated the U.S. as a potential new market as the Indian automaker accelerates a global expansion in the coming years, but its top executive in America admits strengthening its core engineering organization and defending the home market takes precedence.

Rick Haas, president and CEO of Mahindra North American Technical Center, tells WardsAuto selling vehicles in the U.S. remains “under consideration,” but warns a number of global markets also are strong candidates.

“We’ve got two full platforms under development right now,” he says on the sidelines of the 2015 MICHauto Summit here. “They are being prepared for all global markets.”

But, he adds, Mahindra’s global aspirations are vast and multifaceted.

“We have a lot of ground to cover,” he says, “so we have to pick and choose our battles. We will be deciding which markets to expand into over the next couple of years.”

Mahindra’s plans to enter the U.S. market date back to 2008. But the global economic crash in 2009 was followed by the unraveling of its distribution partnership, so the automaker shelved plans to bring a pair of small, diesel-powered pickups stateside.

Fast-forward to today and Mahindra, an expert in affordable SUVs in its home market and a seller of tractors and commercial vehicles worldwide, holds a majority stake in tiny Korean automaker Ssangyong. Ssangyong’s growth plan includes intentions to enter the U.S. by 2017.

“They are preparing to do that now,” Haas says, declining to comment on whether Ssangyong’s U.S. bid will pave the way for Mahindra to restart its ambitions or serve as a proxy.

For the time being, Haas suggests Mahindra has its hands full getting its own house in order. The automaker wants to mature its business ahead of a global growth push in light vehicles, and a key element of that will be shoring up its core engineering group. Mahindra planned to execute the plan by seeding global experts into its organization, but Haas says the approach stalled because persuading executive-level talent to relocate to Chennai proved to be a tough sell.

“That plan was not easy to execute,” says Haas, who confesses an unusual willingness to bounce around the world for more than 30 years at automakers ranging from Ford to Tesla. “It would have taken years. You’re looking at a 20-year plan instead of a 3- to 7-year plan. We needed to get there faster.”

So Mahindra changed gears and decided to locate where the automotive engineering expertise resides. In 2012, it opened a North American tech center 20 minutes north of Detroit. The facility serves as a product-development hub for Mahindra, allowing it to recruit talent and conduct research and engineering work around the clock with other sites in Europe and Asia.

“We needed a bigger toolbox to grow from a regional automaker to a global automaker,” Haas says of the Troy tech center.

The facility will play a key role in elevating Mahindra’s product quality, which will be necessary for it to compete not only in developed markets but back home, too.

Two months ago General Motors revealed plans to invest $1 billion into its India operations, an outlay aimed at bolstering the Detroit automaker’s Talegaon manufacturing complex and growing the local supply base and dealer network. GM India will roll out 12 new Chevrolet products over five years.

GM’s announcement came just two weeks after Ford India detailed plans to introduce three new vehicles to the market within 18 months on the strength of a $1 billion assembly-plant investment for local and export production.

India is the world’s sixth-largest sales market but is expected to witness rapid growth. Ford sees sales in India doubling by 2020.

“It is not just about expansion, it’s also about defending,” Haas says of the Mahindra plan. “Every automaker is pouring into (India). All these folks are building plants and coming in with their best stuff, especially in the areas of customer-perceived quality, craftsmanship and NVH. We need to do some work on that.”

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