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| Thursday, 29 July 2004 |
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Suzuki chairman opens international service centre Chairman and CEO of the Suzuki Motor Corporation of Japan, Osamu Suzuki, who arrived in Sri Lanka on a 24-hour visit, opened Sri Lanka's first 24-hour Service Centre, the Motor Marvels Service Centre, the first 24-hour service centre to be operated by a new vehicle distributor in the region. The local distributors for Suzuki are Motor Marvels. Incorporated in March 1920 as the Suzuki Loom Manufacturing Company, in 1954 the name was changed to the Suzuki Motor Company Ltd. and in 1990 again to its present name, the Suzuki Motor Corporation of Japan. Osamu Suzuki who took over the chairmanship of the company three years ago has aggressively pursued various strategies to ensure Suzuki's dominance in the South Asian automotive industry. Currently Suzuki has a representation in 127 countries, with manufacturing plants in India, Canada, Hungary, China, Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, USA, Columbia, Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, Argentina, Spain, Egypt, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar and Malaysia. Suzuki entered the Sri Lankan market in 1982/83, while outside Japan Suzuki vehicles are most popular in India and Pakistan. Suzuki is the market leader in both these countries. In Sri Lanka over 1,000 new vehicles and 5,000 reconditioned vehicles have been sold to date. The Motor Marvels 24-hour workshop which was inaugurated by Suzuki will provide customers with maintenance facilities, carried out by trained technicians. Explaining the rationale of the 24-hour workshop concept, Managing Director Motor Marvels, Sheran Fernando said that they realised that with most cars being owner driven, in that they need the use of their vehicle during the day, day time repairs and services resulted in tremendous inconvenience. "The service team carried out a brainstorming session aimed at identifying strategies to increase customer satisfaction. The 24- hour service is one of the identified areas" Fernando said. Fernando said that their Kirula Road service centre would provide international levels of customer satisfaction, thus raising the average levels of customer expectation in the industry. "After sales service is key to customer satisfaction and Motor Marvels is determined to provide a highly personalised and quality service to all our customers", he said. Motor Marvel's target for Suzuki is to be among the top three vehicles sold in the country, and the new service centre will definitely help the Suzuki brand to achieve this position. For the year ending 2003 Suzuki achieved the number 5 slot in terms of Japanese new car imports, beating Mazda, while up to June 2004, Suzuki has achieved number 3 position. Currently around 10 Suzuki vehicles are sold per month in Sri Lanka. In Japan for the last fiscal year, Suzuki's total domestic automobile sales grew to 637,214 units, placing Suzuki in fourth place in the Japanese domestic car market. Suzuki has also held the number one position in the mini vehicle market, a position maintained by Suzuki for the last 30 years consecutively. Suzuki's automobile exports numbered 1,108,000 units for the last fiscal year. Suzuki's business partnership with General Motors too has been further strengthened with Suzuki making equity investment in GMDAT, a company formed by General Motors for assuming the responsibility of looking after the operations of rebuilding Daewoo Motor Company in Korea. |
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Produced by Lake House |
