Tata Motors 2.0

How outgoing MD & CEO Guenter Butschek guided Tata Motors’ India car business out of its misery by ensuring a diversified portfolio, launching attractive products, and addressing quality and cost issues

- Manu Balachandran

It’s been a rather long journey for Guenter Butschek in India. At the end of it, however, the German can definitely return a satisfied man. On February 12, Tata Motors— that claims to be India’s largest automaker—announced that Butschek, who had been leading the company since February 2016, has decided to leave the firm to stay on in Germany.

“Guenter Butschek has informed his desire to relocate to Germany at the end of the contract for personal reasons,” Tata Motors said in a statement. “He has kindly accepted the request of the board of Tata Motors to continue as the MD & CEO till June 30, 2021.” Butschek will be replaced by Marc Llistosella, a Daimler veteran.

Llistosella comes at a time when the company has become the third-largest carmaker in India, after years of struggle as a leading passenger carmaker. The passenger vehicle category had been struggling for a decade until 2016, largely due to outdated models, poor service and the entry of numerous global carmakers. In January, according to the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations, the apex body for the country’s automobile retail industry, Tata Motors was the third-largest carmaker by sales. The company held an 8.26 percent market share in the country, up from 5.63 percent in the year-ago period, after selling some 23,267 units of vehicles in India.

In December 2020, Tata Motors also cornered 7.25 percent of the passenger car market after selling around 21,000 units of its vehicles, and during the October-December quarter, it posted the highest sales in over 33 quarters or more than eight years.