A well thought out and executed launch has enabled Ford India to change its fortunes dramatically in India. Nigel Wark goes through the ride with Sanchit Verma
Nigel E. Wark
Ford India, Executive Director, Marketing Sales & Service
My role,” feels Nigel E. Wark, the man behind the marketing and sales for Ford India Region. One should say the man behind why Figo reached the stature at which it stands today in the Indian market. He credits his success to the support he received from the team at Ford India, including Ford India’s President & MD Michael Boneham.
A Bachelor of Economics from Flinders University, Australia, Nigel E. Wark came to Ford India as Executive Director, Marketing & Services, in 2008 with the backing of a rich experience of selling and marketing products across 12 different diversities globally. He has been successfully driving and managing Ford India’s rapid growth, which has led to a third phase of capacity expansion for the company. The task at hand keeps him extremely occupied and longing for a bit of fresh air every now and then.
India is indeed a challenging market where one has to deal with tremendous diversity; in terms of differences in religion, region, languages, cultures, et al. Before coming to India, Nigel had worked in many other countries in Asia – Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and to a lesser extent, China and Japan. He feels that the sum of all the diversity that he saw in those countries is wrapped up in India alone. How does Nigel manage to handle them all for Ford? He gives his take succinctly, “I don’t believe in averaging.” In other words, Nigel doesn’t believe that there is one approach to marketing that fits all. Yes, a brand positioning needs to be done, and yes, the market place will show the way eventually. But there is a significant difference in different regions and for the success of the product, Nigel feels that the easiest way to comprehend the market is to have a look at the market shares and the leaders of the different segments and look at what they did right or wrong.
Under Nigel’s command, Ford India achieved ‘big’ even as it went ‘small’ with Figo. The company posted an impressive sales record this year by clocking around 7,925 units in August, which is three times higher than the total reported sales in August last year. Brand Ford has scripted a remarkable success story since Figo was launched in March this year, as it remains a hot cake for the company – even 25 weeks since it was introduced. Nigel took the complex responsibility of creating the brand and changing the perception of Ford India, and he did this by believing in going ‘right through the basics’. “You can really make the business complicated or you can simplify it and try to get it right in the simplification process – and Figo was the pro duct where we actually made the market understand the product right,” he comments quite proudly. Nigel had started the research for Figo almost 3 years ago. Ford started researching on the customer base for the segment in question to understand the gaps to be filled. Research teams spent a lot of time with customers to know what they liked, what they did as far as entertainment was concerned, how they spent their weekends, what they watched on television, movies, internet, et al. And once the customer profile map had been generated with precision, the part about positioning the product in the consumer’s mind became much easier – and more effective too.
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
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