Brand : Bajaj Chetak 
Company : Bajaj Auto Ltd
The brand which ruled the Indian roads have been laid to rest. Bajaj has officially stopped the production of Bajaj Chetak from December 2005. The stocks will last may be upto March 2006. The company says that the product no longer have any relevance to the customer. To quote Rajiv bajaj " Any one who clings to the past is a failure".
Company : Bajaj Auto Ltd
The brand which ruled the Indian roads have been laid to rest. Bajaj has officially stopped the production of Bajaj Chetak from December 2005. The stocks will last may be upto March 2006. The company says that the product no longer have any relevance to the customer. To quote Rajiv bajaj " Any one who clings to the past is a failure".
I owned a Chetak: a gift from my father for having secured admission to MBA program. It was in the year 1996. Later I exchanged it for a bike in 2001. Still Chetak lingers in me ( or rather haunts me) in the form of " Back Pain".
The brand which was launched in 1972 virtually owned the two wheeler segment. If reports are to be believed, Chetak was an unavoidable dowry in 1970's and 80's. It had a waiting period of more than 10 years ( can you believe it ? ) and now here I am after 34 years, writing the epitaph of this brand.
The brand which was named after the legendary stallion of the Rajput king Maharana Pratap, was known for the reliability and sturdiness. The brand thrived during the license raj with virtually no competition. It was during 1990-91 that the brand began the journey to the end.
Bajaj Chetak had a huge brand equity . The brand had the persona of a " work h
orse". With reasonable price and the low maintenance cost made this product a huge hit among the middle class Indians.
orse". With reasonable price and the low maintenance cost made this product a huge hit among the middle class Indians.Promoted along the base line " Hamara Bajaj", this was the Indian Family vehicle - a position now owned by Maruthi 800.
But then How can a brand that was so popular and successful fail?
Frankly, I am not sure. But here is what I think about this brand...
The primary reason is that the Brand forgot the customers. Another case of Marketing Myopia. The company failed to understand the changing perception of the customers towards scooters. Rather than looking at the customers, the company focused on influencing Government to block the opening up of economy. Bajaj never did anything with the product. For 40 years Chetak had the same look, same quality and style.
During the mid nineties the company realised lately that the segment has shifted to motorcycles. Scooters were no longer the option. But did the company made a mistake in discarding the scooter segment ? Looking at the way the share prices are going, the market thinks that Bajaj Auto made the right decision. But I think that th
ey made a mistake in leaving the scooter segment completely. Contrary to expectation, the scooter segment has not died. It has only changed.
ey made a mistake in leaving the scooter segment completely. Contrary to expectation, the scooter segment has not died. It has only changed.Chetak lost its identity some where during the nineties. What should be the future of the brand : no body knew. It was only in 2004 that company made any change in Chetak. In 1994 Bajaj introduced Classic another scooter with same style as Chetak, but failed.
Bajaj never was serious about product development. The R&D spent for a long time was a miniscule 1%. The average cycle time for the new product development was 4-5 years compared to 2-3 years of Japanese competitors.
Even after the opening up of economy, the scooter segment did not witness much competition.
The players like Vespa did not had much of success in this segment. Kinetic Honda managed to carve a niche with its gearless scooters. Another segment which was growing was the scooterette segment which was dominated by TVS scooty.
Bajaj never seriously looked at customer perception about Chetak. The product had serious problems like starting trouble and riding comfort. The " Tilting the chetak to the side for starting " was a common joke. Did the company do anything for that ? no
There was nothing wrong with the Promotion. " Hamara Bajaj " and " No one can beat a Bajaj " were famous base lines. There was nothing wrong with distribution and the pricing was very reasonable. The major problem was in the first P : Product.
So without addressing any problems regarding the product , can you expect the customer to buy the product ?
Bajaj was never a leader in technology ( now they are !!!). They never bothered to and paid the price . Had Chetak pioneered Electric start, had it provided more riding comfort, it could have survived.
Somebody have just beat the Bajaj........ the customer!
I don't quite agree with your reasoning here. Chetak was just a victim of eroding market. The Indian consumer no longer wanted a scooter, it was shifting to motor-cycles. What Bajaj did after seeing this change? It did something wise. Rather than resisting the change (which almost certainly would have been suicidal), it decided to ride the change. Rather than investing more in the scooter line and forcing consumers to still buy a scooter, Bajaj decided to start making motor-cycles. It was a very brave decision, but it paid off well. After the initial learning experiments with Kawasaki-4S, Boxer, CT-100 etc., now Bajaj has come to Pulsar and Discover and is the no.2 bike seller in India. How Bajaj has transformed itself from a 'Family' brand making boring scooters into a 'Youth' brand making stylish bikes is a great management lesson in itself.
ReplyDeleteIf eroding market was not the reason for Chetak's death, how would you justify the death of other scooters, like LML Vespa? In fact, LML made exactly the same mistake of resisting the change. Rather than trying to learn bike making, they clung to their scooters, making 'better' scooters like Supreme. Now you can see where LML is (that is, if you can still find the whereabouts of this company).
Indian scooters are quite cool and i guess bajaj chetak is famous over there nice article
ReplyDeleteIf scooters were an eroding market, it is more because of poor products by then players (Bajaj & LML). Look at Honda, it just jumpstarted the market again, Bajaj did fight back with Saffire and later Wave. But it waqs too little too late. The problem with Bajaj i think was that it kept ignoring the bike market, while not offering a modern scooter alternative either, when it saw bikes eating into its share, it panicked and put up all its resouces in bikes. Scooters were absolutely ignored. Today, it is not just Honda, Hero Honda and Suzuki have also had reasonable success with their scooter offerings, Even TVS is doing well with Scooty... Bajaj is a distant second in bikes, not bad at all, but dead in scooter market
ReplyDeletewould love to see a similar obituary about Yezdi. if bajaj was popular, yezdi was iconic, scored high om many fronts - power, style, cool quotient. Again zero investment on pdt development+ stricter environment regulation led to its downfall
ReplyDeleteI am agree with this article, if company had changed something in product, company would have not lost the market because even now many customer wants to purchase scooter what about Honda Eterno. it is same as a scooter but many customers preferred.
ReplyDeleteBajaj Chetak should have earned cash on the existing brand which they have developed over the period of time.......similar to what Hero Honda Splender has done.....they are also changing with the existing trend in the market
ReplyDelete-Arpit Kala
pravin singh, you are right. Because since the market is vanishing they can't do anything. that's why they shifted to bikes and they were succeed.but Chetak is the first INDIAN Two wheeler accepted by even a rural old man, who believes in walking is better than scooter.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for sharing this story.......
ReplyDeletebajaj chetak failed 2 understand changing customer perception.r&d department did not kept updating der model n it became out of fasion...da realization of der mistake was too late & dy never gt back der bradd equity...
ReplyDeletebajaj chetak failed 2 understand customer perception & chainging mkt demand...r&d department did nt update da model as per competition in mkt....da realisation abot der mistake was 2 late
ReplyDeletebajaj chetak failed 2 understand customer perception & chainging mkt demand...r&d department did nt update da model as per competition in mkt....da realisation abot der mistake was 2 late
ReplyDeletebajaj chetak failed 2 understand customer perception & chainging mkt demand...r&d department did nt update da model as per competition in mkt....da realisation abot der mistake was 2 late
ReplyDeleteIn India scooters were the first two wheeler which became the common means of transport for Indian families.My father also owns a Bajaj Chetak and it still looks and perform awesome on the road.We still ride it and we just love it.
ReplyDeleteIn India Bajaj was the first who came with 2-wheeler & it was liked by everyone & in 2005 Bajaj it stop the production of Bajaj chetak but i think why they don't come with novelty of Bajaj chetak for men & also for ladies. they can acquire the market again because the base very strong & our family love Bajaj chetak
ReplyDeleteA very good article for Bajaj Chetak.Once Bajaj Chetak was our family member.With great difficulties I managed to get Bajaj Chetak with arranging foreign currency.I always remember 'Rahul Bajaj' riding on a Bajaj Scooter.Still I am keeping that old Horse in our house.Thanks to Rahulji.
ReplyDelete