Royal Enfield is the cool urban bike for most youngsters today. This, however, was not the case a decade back. The motorcycle brand of Eicher wasn’t the first choice for young riders in India who preferred slick, stylish bikes on a road-trip or to college.
Struggling from an image-crisis, Enfield languished in sales and was on the brink of shutting shop. Siddhartha Lal, the CEO of Royal Enfield from 2000 had a difficult decision to make in 2004– to be a major player in the automobile market or to be a smaller one in 14 other businesses. Lal decided to save Enfield and the rest is history.
In the next 5 years, Royal Enfield became a major player in the Indian automobile market as it transformed its image to a rugged cool bike appealing to the aspirational bikers in India. Part of this was achieved by clever use of marketing strategies from sponsoring mountain biking events and cross country runs to rapidly expanding its network across India. The result is that now most of us have that one friend who keeps bugging us to plan a road trip to Ladakh on an Enfield!
Royal Enfield is now the most successful component of Eicher and most of the credit for its success goes to Siddhartha Lal. He developed a biking culture in his team and motivated them to travel and connect with the brand. The Eicher CEO is not just about the smarts, he is also an authority on British bikes of the post-World War era and that is no joke. The positioning of Royal Enfield as a bike of stature and rich legacy is its USP and Lal has been the architect of this makeover from scratch.
From selling just 25,000 bikes in 2005, Siddhartha Lal has brought the brand to a point where it sold 300,000 bikes in 2014. Under Siddhartha the company is now expanding its reach in the west where it exports just 6,000 units every year. Considering how the brand has grown in the last few years in India, it wouldn’t be a surprise if it gives Harley some tough competition in the next two decades.
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