MAHINDRA'S GOT WAR ON ITS MIND

FOLLOWING A TURBULENT FEW YEARS, M&M IS BACK ON THE GROWTH PATH. AND IT PLANS TO KEEP ITS FOOT FIRMLY PLANTED ON THE ACCELERATOR. BUT ITS COMPETITORS AREN'T SITTING IDLE EITHER

- PRERNA LIDHOO

ON A LAZY SUNDAY AFTERNOON in June 2021, Veejay Ram Nakra, President-Automotive Division at Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), was prepping for some downtime when he glanced at his phone and found the screen full of missed calls and new WhatsApp messages. Most were from Pratap Bose, who had joined that month as M&M's Chief Design Officer, 0 and Rajesh Jejurikar, M&M's Executive Director. "My WhatsApp messages just wouldn't stop. I still have pictures of the new Mahindra logo that Pratap had made out of a napkin sitting at a UK restaurant," he says.

"This should be our logo!" Bose had texted. Brimming with excitement, the three began debating the new identity and went on to launch the 'Twin Peaks' logo for M&M's SUV portfolio in August 2021. Placed on the XUV700, the twin peaks replaced the one that its first SUV, the Bolero, had sported at its 2000 launch.

Changing the logo did two things: it gave M&M's re-energised SUV business a new identity and established it as a premium player. Organisations such as the Mahindra Group, with its 77-year history, can be touchy about change. For Group Chairman Anand Mahindra, the grandson of one of the founders, the previous logo had stood for the old M&M. Redesigning it should tell the market that M&M was primed for a turnaround beyond cosmetic changes. Anish Shah, promoted in April 2021 as MD & CEO of the Mahindra Group after a seven-year stint in various roles including Group CFO and Group President (Strategy), was equally conscious of M&M's legacy. So was Jejurikar, whose first stint with the group was between 2000 and 2008, before he came back in 2013.