Tata Motors To Introduce Digital Showrooms Later This Year

The going has been good for Tata Motors as the company has seen a good amount of growth in the past few years owing to the number of new car launches and also to the fact that these new cars have hit a chord with the crowd in India. Sales have surged and Tata Motors has grown 22 per cent year on year which it says is more than the automotive industry in India which has steadily grown at 9 per cent year on year. A lot has changed at Tata Motors and the future is now, according to the carmaker, because of which you will soon see Tata showrooms go digital. And by digital, we don’t mean e-brochures, rather a showroom at the customers disposal which s/he can visit any time and any place.

From a count of around 255 two years ago, the number of touch points for Tata Motors passenger vehicle division has reached more than 550 and the plan is to take it up to 1500 in the next three years. Now, while physical showrooms are needed to give the customers a view of how the car, is in real world conditions, digitization is going to play a very important role in India and this sentiment was reiterated by Mayank Pareek, President Passenger Vehicles, Tata Motors, “The way digital space is changing, it’s really not seen its entry into automotive showrooms, apart from someone using an iPad which is not really digital. What we, at Tata Motors, are doing is working with augmented and virtual reality makers so that we can show customers the entire car without actually showing the car. So, the future would be of asset light showrooms.”

While that statement does not mean that Tata Motors will cut back on investment on new dealerships, as it has a clear expansion plan in mind, this, in fact, will be a way of reaching customers without the customer having to make a lot of efforts. But there’s more, as Pareek explains, “The second concept is to go to a place where a customer normally goes like malls, where you can provide a VR experience to the customers. We’ll bring the showrooms to the customers and VR and AR will help. In fact if I close my eyes and look at 7-8 years down the line, well, the entire showroom can be on your phone.”

These digital showrooms might seem to be a long time coming but Pareek puts those doubts to rest too. “We have already developed a concept of AR, VR which is the first level and certainly it has to go up. But this year we will put out the first actual model in the country.” That said, the virtual showrooms will come up in metros to begin with and then an expansion plan will be put in place. We can’t wait to experience this first hand and tell you all about it.