Mr.Jagdish Khattar the former MD of Maruti Suzuki, is credited with kickstarting the continuing successs of the brand(Maruti Suzuki) and naturally enough every investor would have considered this 'intiative' a sound investment when the nationwide 'initiative' kicked off.

Personally,to me, It is also a unique opportunity for entry level & middle managers to see if Head Corporate Managers can cut it out in the real world and if they are really the reasons for corporate success or if it is just invariably cases of being in the right place at the right time...

Real success in Automotive After Sales lies in the product delivery-reasonably good and consistent service and this is one which has eluded every automaker and their band of authorised dealers till date. But for the fact that vehicle warranties are tied to service maintenance, forcing car owners to patronise dealer workshops, car owners seldom pay attention to the infrastructure of the service setups and would rather go for factors like proximity and quickest turn around time and low service and parts costs.

Interestingly enough, Carnation's focus areas are none of the above(proximity,low cost etc.)and they are starting off with such noticeable handicaps like;

1. no warranties.

2. location handicaps.(large scale workshops, like the ones Carnation proposes to have, can never be located in residential areas and it makes no sense for a customer to drive down to the industrial areas where authorised dealer workshops are anyway available! it makes better sense to have small 3 bay or 5 bay tiny outlets in different residential areas focussing on the needs of the small local neighbourhood population, rather than try to cater to the entire city!).

3.lack of up-to-date, trained workforce.(only manufacturer authorised dealers will have regularly trained workforce and even if Carnation regularly poaches trained technicians, it is only going to increase the overheads and lose the competitive price advantage).

4. only marginally lower service costs.(because of the large infrastructure and use of genuine parts only policy-again where the authorised dealer will score better due to manufacturer support on parts pricing!).

With nothing of real value offering for the common car owner/customer, except the most frequently bandied about 'exceptional customer service' statements, and with no distinct service identity or advantage, it seems to me that Carnation is not going to revolutionize the Automotive After Sales anywhere in the near future!

It will also be quite interesting to see how long they can keep the setup running profitably before applying for 'yet-another-authorised-service-centre-and-used-car-dealership' status with any of the many manufacturers!!