To Rajiv Bajaj, the recent rollout of the one millionth KTM motorcycle from the Chakan plant near Pune sent out a very important message.
“More than anything, what this tells us is how world-class our engineers out of India are. It is this engineering talent that is the foundation of the success of one million KTMs,” said the Managing Director of Bajaj Auto during the event commemorating this important milestone.
For a long time, he continued, the world perhaps slightly underestimated the country’s capabilities and this landmark of one million KTMs out of India “shouts very loudly and says, ‘we are world class’. This is a very important story to me”.
Bajaj Auto and KTM began their partnership way back in 2007 and the ensuing years have seen the former’s plant at Chakan emerge as a global manufacturing powerhouse. It is from here that KTM motorcycles in the 125-400 cc range are shipped out to a whole lot of countries and, of course, retailed in India too.
Stefan Pierer, CEO, KTM, who was present at the event, said it was an emotional moment for him and added that this partnership was “based between two entrepreneurs, who have picked up a friendship and joined forces”. It also put in perspective why it continued to remain so successful and would only grow stronger in the coming years.
Focusing On The Cause
Rajiv Bajaj reiterated that the duo had not started with a goal of producing a million bikes or exporting them to so many countries. “If you have done this long enough, you understand that you have no control over such results. It is almost a spiritual discussion that you have to focus on the cause and not on the results,” he said.
After all, the results depend on other factors such as customers, competition, government, the pandemic and many other things. The result is “really not in our hands… what is in our hands is to bring the best technology to the market”.
Beyond this, continued Bajaj, is also a commitment to maintain the highest operational standards of quality and cost, to build very sharp brands in terms of product and communication and to provide people an exciting environment.
Being The Best
“When we think about ourselves and our people, we do not tell them you must come to Bajaj Auto everyday to make it great,” he said. On the other hand, the message to employees is to “please come here to work so that you can be the best version of yourself”.
Whatever “you think your skill is or passion is”, Bajaj Auto should be the place where “you feel you could do the most with it”. As he put it, by the end of the day, the best people who are enabled to perform in the best possible manner will build the best motorcycles in the world.
According to the MD, it was no secret that after the Bajaj-KTM success story, many other such partnerships were also motivated between companies in India and overseas. The fundamental reason for the success of this particular alliance was owing to the fact that as companies, “we are individually exclusive and mutually exhaustive”.
Essentially, this meant that both Bajaj Auto and KTM are completely distinct entities where the former is more of a volume player with a value-for-money focus, whereas KTM is a high-end niche participant.
“We are different and this is what makes us complement each other not only in production but in design and distribution. When one is complementing each other, the chance of conflict becomes very less. This is fundamentally a very good starting point,” explained Bajaj.
The other ingredient for making this partnership successful could be traced back to a lesson he learnt from his management guru, Dr John Wallace, who had mentored Bajaj Auto for 20 years in the 1990s and the early part of 2000.
The Problem With Greed
Wallace had once told Bajaj “something very important”; that the single biggest reason for corporate demise was corporate greed. The minute “you want to go beyond legitimate ambition, passion and excellence into what can be called greed is when problems start”.
This is when people start indulging in practices which they perhaps should not and so on. As he added, it was very important in an alliance that both partners stopped before either one got greedy. “It is when you get greedy for something — in the broader sense of the word ‘greed’ — that the conflict arises,” elaborated Bajaj.
Additionally, neither KTM nor Bajaj Auto put the relationship first and joined hands saying that one day they would be friends. “We came together to do some good work jointly,” he said. When one puts work first, it builds a friendship and “I do not think it can happen the other way around that you seek to build a nice, happy and fuzzy partnership and a great motorcycle comes out of it”.
While reiterating that things do not happen this way, Bajaj added that the duo never thought that they were working solely for one or the other. “We never think we are working only for Bajaj and KTM... this spirit of putting the work first is the third important element of this relationship,” he said.
Vignettes From The Past
The Bajaj Auto MD went down memory lane to share some “favourite stories” going back to the beginning of the relationship with KTM in 2007. It was clear to the Pune-based company at that point in time, when it was exploring new frontiers, that it would be difficult to sell a Bajaj-branded motorcycle beyond a certain price point in the world markets.
“I think we had the humility to understand that and we thought it would be good to have a suitable partnership with some global motorcycle brand,” he said. It was quite clear to him and his leadership team that while the company could make the motorcycle, it was equally important to have the right name on it.
After all, consumers in global markets were not going to be enthused about buying such an expensive motorcycle “perhaps with our name”. Keeping this goal in mind, a few brands were shortlisted and KTM was one of them. This was when a member of the team at Bajaj Auto told the MD, “Boss, choose whoever you want but don't choose KTM because they make the weirdest looking motorcycles.”
Laughing at the memory, Bajaj said he was reminded of a saying where, “I have met the enemy and it is us” — the enemy was always inside and not outside.
Reaching Out To KTM
Along with a senior colleague, Bajaj travelled to KTM in Austria and reached a hotel in the middle of the night. There was nothing to eat except the following morning’s breakfast of cereal, which had already been laid out.
This doubled up as dinner and then followed the meeting with a member of the core team at KTM the next day. “We went to his office and, while having a cup of tea with him, expressed our desire as a rather nondescript Indian company wanting to partner KTM,” narrated Bajaj.
The reaction at the other end was one of stupefied amazement and the look on his face was like “You guys think you are going to make a KTM?” The man went to great pains to explain that the Austrian bike maker only dealt with the latest technology, the really new stuff, highest quality, and highest performance. There was understandable scepticism about Bajaj Auto’s ability to handle such a challenge and the fact that it did this in style only meant that Indian engineering was second to none.
Kawasaki and KTM
Another fond memory was when the Indian company had launched its (now defunct) XCD motorcycle in 2007-08 and was struggling “a little bit” while trying to put some finishing touches. This was when it requested Kawasaki, its Japanese ally of many years, to send a team of designers to work with Bajaj Auto for a week or two and “help us finish this bike in a better way”.
In the process, it was also a kind of testimony to the relationship with Kawasaki that even though “we were engaging with KTM at that time”, the company did not hesitate to send some Japanese designers over and worked alongside to help out with the XCD.
“When I entered the R&D studio to see what they wanted to show to me, they had put up some reference benchmark pictures and almost all the pictures were of KTM motorcycles,” recalled Bajaj. He said he still remembered the first discussion they had was on a certain seat profile and seat texture of the material.
The Kawasaki people “were telling us that this is the next standard”. They were appreciative of what KTM had done and that kind of endorsement coming from the Japanese “said a lot to me that we had the right partner in KTM, who are the power behind this partnership and we are just following what they have in mind… it is their vision and strategy.”
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