Believe in your idea and break the self-limiting principles: An exciting story of Bajaj auto ltd comeback with Pulsar in new millennium

Two decades for one of the India’s favorite motorcycle-Pulsar and it was the savior of Bajaj Auto Ltd in the new millennium. The road was not so smooth for its launch in the year 2001. Here is an exciting story of the birth of Bajaj Pulsar.

Scenario

As India funneled towards new millennium, there was a great shift in the preference of consumers from scooters to motorcycles. The entire market was favor to the motorcycles. By the year 1999 motorcycles surpassed the sales of scooter for the first time. Already Bajaj failed to excite the market with their motorcycle Bajaj Kawasaki Boxer. Its cost was too high, quality was low. Though its brand name ‘Bajaj’ became the synonym for scooters but failed to manage competition and stood in fourth position after Hero Honda, Yamaha and TVS. It was the situation either a brave or the foolish would have invest their money in the Bajaj Auto Ltd.

Idea of Rajiv Bajaj

In 1991, Rajiv Bajaj (Elder son of Rahul Bajaj, Chairman of Indian conglomerate company Bajaj Group) has completed his M.S. in Manufacturing Systems from University of Warwick in UK. He was just in his 30’s when he tried to sell his idea of making an indigenously developed performance-oriented motorcycle without any support of their Japanese partner Kawasaki. It was a tough time for him and his team to convene his own board of directors to his idea. How he succussed in this challenge was rest of the story.

The idea of Rajiv Bajaj MD of Bajaj Auto Ltd was to make 200cc motorcycle when the company could not make even a 100cc one. He decided to do this with the help of 15 guys who have never experienced in making a motorcycle but the first time they are going to do this. And his plan was to do that motorcycle by their own without the help from Kawasaki. The fastest motor cycle he is planning to make when the company couldn’t in a position to make mass motorcycles.

Taking ownership of one’s mistakes is the first step for success: Rajiv Bajaj Did

Regarding their failure with the first motorcycle, there was a great suspicious whether something went wrong with Kawasaki or with Bajaj. Kawasaki couldn’t have gone wrong for sure because the same motorcycle made in Japan wouldn’t had these problem. Rajiv concluded that something went wrong with Bajaj Auto Ltd only. Really it takes a great courage for accepting one’s own mistakes and faults committed and it is the first step for success.

The biggest challenge was to get the right product at the right price and to bring in Japanese style of management practices. But the people at Bajaj did not want to change from their current practices to the desired future practices. They all with the opinion “it is ok in Japan not in India”. So, the problem was the deep-rooted attitude: Bajaj was a scooter company and the motor cycle development was given least priority. Around 1996, it was only 10% of their business. As the quality of the products were poor, offering fuel efficiency is a challenge, the manufacture processes were outdated. Simply to all together, Bajaj Auto did not know the art of making motorcycles and people at Bajaj Auto were highly reluctant to change their attitude.

Sanjiv Bajaj younger brother of Rajiv joined the way

Sanjiv Bajaj who completed his MBA from Harvard University joined the company. He believed that any successful company needs a good product. But most of the workers in the Pune plant did not have faith that they could bring Japanese management practices. 

Sometimes people need to be taught by examples

The knowledge what Rajiv Bajaj acquired through his MS in Manufacturing Systems propelled him to bring the similar changes just as Japanese. But the own board of directors have not supported him and laughed at his idea. Their view was Indians were not able to achieve Japanese level of technology and quality. The two brothers believed in their idea and decided to start a new plant. A place called Chakan which is an hour driven from Pune was their choice. They understood that sometimes people have to be taught by examples. That is what they did in Chakan.

Chakan plant was to produce exclusively the new concept bike completely with the new workforce who are the fresh graduates from college and open to new ideas. This young crew are crazy about bikes and well understood the requirements of customers.

Support from supply chain

The role of vendors who supply the parts is very important to reduce the cost and improve the quality of motorcycle manufacturing. Many of the vendors for Bajaj company were not good in their quality. Then Rajiv decided to cut down size of their vendors from nearly 1000 to around 200 valuable vendors. With the help of foreign consultants these vendors were given training to produce quality components. Dealers role is also important to promote the sell the products. Here in the case of Bajaj, dealers had been selling only scooters. Selling scooters entirely a different concept.  Rajiv Bajaj completely renovated dealers so that they even could sell motorcycles. Bajaj dealership was designed in such a way that they able to cater the needs of new motorcycle buying customers.

Role of R&D Team

It is really spirit of the engineers who are important for R&D. Abraham Joseph, the R&D Head who is a Mechanical Engineer from the National Institute of Technology. He led the entire team of R&D. Many of the people in R&D department were youngsters with the average age of 30 years.  The reason to have more young people in R&D was the inspiration Rajiv Bajaj got from first time visit to Kawasaki R&D in Japan. He thought that he would see a lot of grey-haired people with thick glasses. Surprisingly he saw the people there with the average age of 26 or 27. The engineer does not need experience but require passion to work. The team committed number of mistakes initially with Pulsar engine before they got it right. That was really a learning experience for them.  One the survival test they have is to take the engine full throttle. Now, full throttle on a bike is rare on the road. Their target was full throttle for 100 hours continuously. The first time, it failed within 10 minutes. Today, the Pulsar engine goes 300 hours full throttle.

Birth of Pulsar

The role of Marketing team is another big important thing for the success of Bajaj Auto Ltd. The marketing team provided the great inputs for the concept bike. In their market survey they identify there is a set of customers who are looking for something more than just a bike for commuting purpose. They expecting a bike with rugged styling and more power along with fuel efficiency. Initially the design department made 8 to 10 different designs and later they narrowed down those to 3 to 4. With the inputs received from the target audience through market survey, two prototypes of bikes were made. Out 2 to 3 variations of engines Rajiv selected one finally. 

Rajiv Bajaj personally looked after every details right from the styling and painting to the design of the console, the right grip and even the spark plug to use. For doing all this they have taken nearly 24 to 30 months. With all these great efforts from the R&D, Styling and Marketing departments, finally the Pulsar bike was launched in November 2001 with two engine options of 150cc and 180cc.

Initially, the company thought that the target audience would be 25 to 35 age group people. But, when they saw the sales chart, surprisingly it was even being preferred by 35 to 45 age group people. Here the reason they understood was, the Pulsar fulfilling the desire of the riders to take a youthful persona. It was powerful, cheaper and macular looking than other bikes in its category. Finally, the Pulsar has comfortably outsold any other 150 cc motorcycle in India and has dominated the 150 cc and above sales since its paunch. In the interim, instead of sitting idle on its successes, Bajaj has been constantly upgrading its models and giving the mighty Japanese a run for their money.

Finally…

Today, though there are vast number of successful bikes with different variants from different companies available, in my opinion Pulsar was the first bike symbolizes the spirit of a progressing India of the 21^st century. It also represents the manufacturing and managerial power of Indians.

Moral of the story

To tell moral of the story, first let me explain about how elephants are kept in Thailand.

To keep elephants from running away Thai people prefer just tie a rope or a single chain to the elephant’s leg and secure it to a stake in the ground. Once the elephant leg is secured, it will not run away. Though the elephant has the power to break the chain or rope simply but it will not do that. The reason is, the entire process conditioned. It lies in making the elephant believe that it cannot break the string. This conditioning begins from young. When the elephant is a baby and still too weak to walk or even stand properly, they tie leg to the stake in the ground.by the time elephant tries to run to its mother, it would not able to break the chain that binds it. Whenever it attempts to run, the chain catch its leg and it will fall onto the ground. After experiencing all the pain from falling again and again, one day the elephant will not bother to pull the chain any more. The moment this happens, the keepers know that the elephant has been conditioned to be trapped for the rest of his life.

The workers at Bajaj Auto Ltd were also the same way trapped by their self-limiting beliefs and habits. If they wish to change then they really could do that. But they never attempted for that because they strongly believed that they could not achieve Japanese levels of quality and efficiency.

Rajiv and Sanjiv Bajaj has shown tremendous courage and self-belief that ‘nothing is impossible’. They have evidenced that Indians are capable of contending with best in the world and in this process they have made every Indian proud.

Conclusion

The self-limiting beliefs are still presenting among many people. If they able to come out of those, they really could do wonders. Believing in one’s own strength and ideas is more important than fearing by looking at others strength and power. Though a great criticism you receive initially, you will become an ideal person for many later.