Is this The Blue Oval's Blue Ocean Strategy ?

2010, has been a remarkable year in the history of Indian Automobile Industry. This is the year that witnessed many global giants setting up plants in India and launch India specific products and making India the export hub for these products. A couple of years back, if a customer wants to buy a hatchback, there were hardly a handful of brands dominated by Maruti, TATA and Hyundai. Today, we have Chevrolet, Volkswagen, Ford, Nissan, Toyota and many more to come all lined up with their offers. 

But how many of these manufacturers actually manage to capture a share of their pie. Clearly Ford with Figo is the only manufacturer to have done that in style. 

50,000 units between March 10 to October 10, 2nd fastest model to achieve 50,000 units in India, overtook Tata Indica to the 5th spot in vehicle sales during the month of October 10, 3 digit growth rates for Ford India.... These data should be sufficient to judge the success of Figo amongst the models that came in 2010. 

The major problem Ford earlier had was, the brand always had a perception of high ownership cost. Other than Ikon, to a considerable extent and Fiesta, to a small extent, Ford never tasted success in India. How did Figo manage to achieve this whilst competition? 

While many others did brand building exercises before their launch, Ford kept quiet and let their product speak. The product exactly was in line with the customer expectations from a hatch, thanks to the decade old presence in India. The car was fully loaded at a price which was at par with the base variants of other models.  In a market where Value for Money is top priority, this is the key factor that was addressed. Along with the already existing dealer network, Ford also added new dealers to strengthen the sales and service network. 

Rather than fighting with existing players and fellow new comers, Ford devised its own plan and created an own market for itself. This is evident as the market share or the sales figures of Maruti, Tata or Hyundai did not get affected. Eliminating its earlier problems with the brand, Figo gained confidence of the customers.

Going in-line with the Blue Ocean Strategy, though not complete, Ford had also made the competition irrelevant and had created value innovation with the Figo. 

The success of Figo has once again proved that, in India a failure once never means the brand can't bounce back to winning ways. Also Indians have a welcoming heart that actually means value for them.