What the Auto Expo Components 2020 Tells Me About The Indian Automotive Industry: Not a “slow down”, but a “speed up”!!

I attended my fourth edition in a row of the Auto Expo 2020 Components last week and I walked out of Pragati Maidan rediscovering inspiration from the unlikeliest of places- something everyone needs today. So I thought this would make for a good topic for my first blog!

I'll get to the headlines in a bit. But first up, kudos to CII and ACMA for organizing such an awesome show of strength in the midst of what is arguably the worst slow down that has hit the auto industry. That Pragati Maidan is, quite literally, a massive construction site wouldn't have helped spare them any expenses in getting the venues up to scratch for the who's who of the industry walking in for this four-day event. Once construction at Pragati Maidan is complete, I am hoping the Motor Show and Component Shows resume co-locating. With the infrastructure at the new
venue this event would be among the best in the world. But we will have to wait till at least 2022 for that!

I had my doubts about how the Expo would turn out finally. An industry slow down and the Corona Virus scare didn't bode well. Even at the starting block, the 2020 edition was starting with an unfavorable statistic. The number of registered exhibitors had gone down from 1204 in 2018 to 1010 for 2020- a 16% drop! To top it off, some of the largest exhibitors like Uno Minda, Lucas TVS, the Murugappa group, the Amalgamations group and Denso were staying away. The absentee list at The Motor Show 2020 attracts more media attention than that of The Components Show. But since the interests of T7E, the company I co-founded, are more closely aligned with the auto-aftermarket this was the list I was more interested in.

But at the venue, no effort was spared to make the event as grand as ever! Future Technologies was this year's theme and it was a sign of times to come. Beyond the slow down and the upheaval it is bringing with it, whether all of us are going to be ready for it or not- electric, hybrid and connected vehicles are arriving on the Indian automotive scene.

But without the biggies stalls in this year's show, I didn't have any stalls anchoring my movement around the Expo. That was a blessing in disguise, as I was a lot more enriched for it! I realized just how ignorant I am about the industry I am so closely associated with. I discovered a gem of a regional language publication- Motor, which is a Tamil industry magazine with a monthly circulation of 97,000 copies and a print run of close to 1.1 Lakhs! I am sure those numbers must be giving some of the more "popular" publications a run for their money. I asked the owner why he didn't publish in Hindi, as he would get a much larger readership. He schooled me in Marketing 101 and said they were going to come out with a Malayalam edition instead, because that's where a hungry-for-content regional language reader awaits them.

I also had pleasant chats and honest exchanges of views with many exhibitors. Even in the midst of the slow down, there are many heartening stories of companies discovering growths, setting up new factories and carving up profitable niches for themselves. A friendly banter with Anuj Aggarwal, a co-founder of Volto Industries, was the inspiration for my headline. When I asked him about the slow down, trying to tease a response out of him, he said to my amazement- "pehley jitna sale laaney ke liye hamey 500m bhaagna padta tha, aaj utna hi sale laaney ke liye hamey 2 kilometre bhaagna padta hai!" (He was implying that the business is still there to extract for the determined, but the effort required is far more!) "Toh slow down nahi, ab toh aur tez bhagna hai".

A line thrown away in jest can sometimes have a profound impact on the listener. I walked away from that conversation a more determined entrepreneur as my inspiration moved on nonchalantly to the next visitor in his stall. The next edition of The Auto Expo is two years away. But with the enterprising and determined people populating this industry I am sure it will embrace the changes and bounce back to growth by the 2022 edition!