JAGDISH KHATTAR says market leaders must concentrate on creating fundamentally new opportunities

EVER heard of the term 'opportunities share'? It reverberates often in the 11th floor boardroom of Maruti Udyog near Connaught Place in New Delhi, and even more often in its executive management meetings.

As opposed to marketshare,
opportunities share - as conceived by Maruti Udyog's managing director Jagdish Khattar - is the portion of business that a company captures from new opportunities which the company itself creates. Khattar believes that all market leaders must concentrate more on creating fundamentally new opportunities and grabbing a larger share of business from those than from the existing market. Because growing the pie is the primary responsibility of the market leader. So, much of what Maruti does today is focused on creating and tapping as much opportunities share as possible.

Though greenfield opportunities take a while to develop into concrete businesses, once they are developed, almost the entire business is there for the taking. This happens because, at least initially, no competition exists. "We have been telling ourselves, let's get away from marketshare. Let's get into opportunities share," says Khattar. The board - comprising O. Suzuki, R.C. Bhargava, Kumar Mangalam Birla, M.S. Banga and Pallavi Shroff - couldn't agree more.

The board sees the concept as an ideal fit for the most wholesome product profile in India's auto industry - Maruti 800, Omni, Gypsy, Alto, Zen, Wagon R, Versa, Esteem, Baleno, Baleno Altura and the Grand Vitara. First, the company needs to stretch the lifespan of its most successful model till date, the Maruti 800, as long as possible. The product is the best any company in the world can offer to an entry-level buyer - the biggest segment, where opportunities share can be created and tapped. Second, it needs to penetrate deeper into the B- and C-class towns and rural areas to widen its scope of geographical coverage.

Maruti's concept of opportunities share kicked off in September this year with a scheme specifically for teachers. The company reckons there are more than 5.5 million teachers across more than 1 lakh schools in India, a majority of whom own a two-wheeler, not a car. So, one of the first few opportunities is in the teachers' community. Many of them have bank accounts with State Bank of India, particularly those employed in government schools and colleges. Maruti Udyog has worked with SBI to launch the scheme for teachers, so that they can upgrade to a four-wheeler. Interestingly, until now, teachers were in SBI's negative list of customers for loans. The scheme envisages a special incentive of Rs 3,000 to every dealer who sells a product to a teacher, lecturer or professor.

After the few focused advertising inserts that have appeared in the vernacular press recently, Maruti has received over 9,000 enquiries. Of these, 1,176 have already bought a vehicle, 1,912 are considered 'hot', and another 3,000 are likely customers. In Varanasi, for instance, after the company sold a Maruti 800 to a teacher, at least 32 more cars were bought due to peer pressure in the following month. "These were known customers to SBI because they have had accounts with the bank for some time. The bank also knows their credit history well. It's easier for the bank to finance them," says Khattar, explaining his first opportunities share victory. At the very least, Maruti expects 10,000 cars - more than the number of Maruti 800s it sells every month - to be sold under the teachers' scheme. Till competition wakes up, that would be 100 per cent opportunities share in the teacher community for India's largest car manufacturer.

Having tasted blood, the company is busy identifying more communities like this. Under consideration are the armed forces, railways, police or any other large community. Each of these, it believes, is capable of delivering volumes higher than what the company sells every month. So, expect to hear more from the company in this area. In a sense, the concept has already been extended to the public at large in a different avatar. In its '2 to 4' scheme (two-wheeler to four-wheeler), any two-wheeler owner can drive into a Maruti showroom with the necessary papers, leave his bike as the initial deposit, and drive out in a Maruti 800.

Not convinced about opportunities share yet? Gurgaon-based B-school MDI is. The Maruti theory may be included in its curriculum.