Our Corporate Bureau

New Delhi, April 11: IN a new marketing initiative, Daewoo Motors India has identified seven under-performing cities with the objective of improving customer service and market performance to bring it up to the company’s expectations.

The company is drawing up a list of dealers, which have a lacklustre performance in these cities.

Giving details, Daewoo Motors India managing director and CEO, YC Kim told newspersons here on Wednesday, the company is offering dealers two options: First, the dealer transfers the dealership to DMIL, who will run it for a year and implement a turnaround strategy, while the dealer runs the after sales service during the period. In this case, the dealer will not have to bear the burden of pumping any money in the dealership, and the company will take care of the working capital and other costs.

In the second option, the dealer will transfer the dealership’s management to the company, if he does not want to give control of the dealership. The dealer will, however, have to take care of all investments in the venture.

The seven cities are Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Cochin, where DMIL has identified eight out of the 25 dealers as poor performers, he said adding agreements have been signed with two dealers in Delhi and one in Chennai.

The company has selected two dealers in the capital — Swaroop Motors in east Delhi and Gravity Cars in Connaught Place. Talks are being held with them, he added.

Though Mr Kim admitted that the Korean situation has been the cause of the under-performance of these markets during the last five months, he added that there has been a communications problem.

“There has been a drop of 50 per cent in sales in the last five months in these seven locations”, he elaborated.