Daimler India Commercial Vehicles Private Limited (DICV), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Daimler, on Monday announced the integration of the Mercedes-Benz bus division with itself. The Mercedes-Benz bus business was until now handled by Mercedes-Benz India.
In line with this integration, the marketing, sales & after-sales of Mercedes-Benz buses will now be handled by DICV. The production of these buses will continue at MB India for some time. The organisation for buses has been transferred to DICV and will now operate from DICV?s manufacturing plant at Oragadam, near Chennai. The Daimler bus division at DICV is headed by Markus Villinger, currently head of Daimler bus division in India, DICV said here on Monday.
With the current integration with DICV, Mercedes-Benz buses will now be promoted using the growing network of state-of-the-art dealerships created for its brand BharatBenz, a brand promoted by DICV to sell its trucks in India. While the sale of the buses will be carried out directly by DICV, the service of these buses will be carried out by select dealers of BharatBenz.
All BharatBenz dealers have been planned with the capacity necessary to handle the bus business. However, initially only 7 dealers along with 2 other dealers who have been servicing MB buses through MB India will handle the service of buses. These dealers have been selected based on the market regions where bus business is currently focused. However, as expansion takes place, other dealers of the DICV network will be nominated.
Daimler Financial Services (DFS), another Daimler organisation which is focused on captive finance for Daimler customers, will support the bus business through its tailored financial product ?Mercedes-Benz Financial?. Further tie-ups through the existing relationship between DICV and various other financial institutions will also be explored.