Tata Motors launches new sub-brand 'TAMO'

In a bid to regain the lost ground in passenger vehicles segment, homegrown auto major Tata Motors today launched a sub-brand TAMO with an aim to introduce new technology equipped vehicles faster to the market.

Under the TAMO sub-brand, the company will launch vehicles that are low in volumes requiring low investment. It is also looking at a different buying experience for TAMO vehicles, although for the time being it has not confirmed if it would set up a separate retail chain as market leader Maruti Suzuki has done with Nexa.

"We need a different way to get into the future. To secure our future in a rapidly changing environment, the advanced mobility solutions space is of utmost importance. The introduction of TAMO will help us co-design India's automotive footprint by taking new technologies and mobility concepts as a new ecosystem," Tata Motors Managing Director and CEO Guenter Butschek told reporters here.

He said TAMO will be a ring-fenced agile and flexible vertical that would serve as an incubating environment towards new technologies, business models and partnerships.

"This will be a lean operating model with volume, low investment and faster to the market," Butschek said. Elaborating on the idea behind the new sub-brand, Tata Motors President Passenger Business Mayank Pareek said vehicles from TAMO will be in niche segment with technologies that are ahead of market and when proven successful they could be transferred to vehicles of the main Tata Motors brand.

When asked if TAMO would have a separate retail chain, he declined to give a definitive answer but said: "The buying experience will be different from that of the main brand. There will be a lot of digital experience."

TAMO will operate as a separate vertical in the first step on a low volume, low investment model to provide fast tracked proofs of technologies and concepts, the company said.

It will serve as an open platform to network with global startups and leading tech companies to get access to trends, innovations and solutions for the design of future products and services, Tata Motors said.

Explaining the rationale for such an idea, Butschek said it was done with an aim to meet the company's targets, including being in the top three passenger vehicle makere in India by 2019.

The company has already reviewed its PV platforms, which will be reduced to 2 by 2018 from the current 6. "Our strategy is to deliver 7-8 product variants from two platforms for greater coverage and sizeable economies of scale," Pareek said.

Tata Motors President and Head Advanced Product Engineering Tim Leverton said through TAMO the focus would be to scout for new technologies and to explore opportunities at the innovation hubs across the globe and to work with startups in new spaces.

"Since this requires a different way of thinking we will apply within TAMO also new ways of working because leadership is all about time to market," he said. Overall, TAMO will also contribute to the repositioning of the main Tata Motors brand.

In a rapidly changing automotive environment, TAMO will provide a digital ecosystem which will be leveraged by Tata Motors to support the mainstream business in the future, the company said.