Imagine you are at sea.

You need to chart your course before you embark on the sea voyage- Mapping will give you an idea of how best to reach your destination. As you sail on, markers at sea like lighthouses, buoys, fog signals and day beacons help you in navigating your way through the sea. But beware of storms that brew up at sea and make provisions for anchoring your ship securely. Ahoy, set sail!

Introduction
The size of the Indian tyre market is approximately Rs 35,000 crore. The segmentation of the market in 2011 is as follows: Category Trucks Car/ Jeep L.C.V. Farm 2/ 3 wheelers Others Market Share 53% 15% 11% 8% 10% 3%

Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) is popularly known as Tempo (mini truck) in India. Tata, Ashok Leyland and Eicher are the major OE players in the LCV market. These vehicles are used for short distances of 50 - 200 km where trucks do not prove to be economically viable; for instance, transportation of vegetables from surrounding villages to cities, ferrying of fishery/poultry or miscellaneous goods within the city. Also, often trucks do not have the permission to ply within the city during day time and hence LCVs play a key role in transporting goods from one place to another.

LCV Customers
For years, tempo drivers have been looked down upon by everyone pedestrian to traffic police, everyone refusing to recognise him as just another businessman. He starts early in the day and travel long distance before returning home in the night. He has been thanklessly moving our world day and night, making all our basic necessities available- he has been a lifeline of urban India.

He is typically 18-35 years old, male, Socio Economic Classification (SEC)C/D. He has always been at a stretch for resources to offer a decent standard of living to his family. However, he is a fighter, an optimist, has dreams of becoming a successful

businessman one day and wants to offer better education to his kids he is hopeful of tomorrow. Many things about the tempo driver and his lifestyle have changed over the last few years. Second generation has taken over the business and they are doing it more professionally with many of them multiplying their vehicles and growing it into small fleets (2-3 light trucks), managing it just like any other business. He chooses and optimizes his routes, maintains his vehicle and works professionally. However, he is yet to be fully introduced to the world of quality services or engaged by any brand, especially in the tyre sector. This offers us immense scope to engage with him emotionally, to earn his loyalty and to give him a sense of partnership with the brand to help his business grow.

Brand CEAT and LCV Tyres

CEAT has been in the Indian market for around 50 years now and has enjoyed a very good equity amongst consumers till late 1990s. The early 21st century was a tough time for the brand with aging product portfolio and loss of relevance to fast evolving consumers. CEAT recognized this problem early and promptly responded with corporate rebranding exercise thus becoming more relevant to consumers through youthful, dynamic and premium brand imagery, understanding consumers core need and offering product solutions, making the brand promise more relevant, revamping communication and seeking consumer feedback more often. Now, CEAT has a revamped product portfolio, clear brand promise and growing brand preference. CEATs key brand now is the Buland Series and it is present across all segments of the LCV tyre category. All Buland tyres also come with Unconditional Warranty, which no other competitor offers across the segments.

CEAT LCV tyres are sold through traditional distribution system of Company CFA Dealer cum Retailer

and also through our exclusive retail chain, CEAT Shoppe mainly designed to sell car/SUV tyres.

CEAT is amongst the top 3 preferred brands of LCV tyres today. To become the most preferred brand, it needs to engage with the consumers more meaningfully and consistently. The top 3 LCV tyre brands are Apollo, MRF and CEAT in that order overall followed by JK and Birla; however, different orders may be found in different

regions. The two most dominating parameters of LCV tyre purchase are: load and mileage i.e. no. of km that a tyre lasts. While CEAT product is as good as the competitors product and even better in some cases, it does not enjoy top of the mind recall from consumers. The perception of MRF and Apollo is very strong in the consumers mind and CEAT mainly sells due to either cheaper price or dealer push. If the brand perception is improved, CEAT product would definitely enjoy consumer preference especially when it comes with unconditional warranty (both MRF and Apollo do not provide such warranty) which makes it a No Worry tyre. Today, the biggest challenge for the brand is to engage with its customers more effectively to achieve high brand saliency and relevance. We need to create a clear CRM strategy for the brand to engage with the customers on a sustainable basis.

Preliminary Round:
Mapping
With reference to the given context of LCV tyres, what should be CEATs plan to approach this voyage? Provide a graphical representation of your proposed strategy, i.e. your map, to tackle the problems faced. It can be in any of the following format: MS Power Point, MS Excel, MS Word, jpeg image.

Navigating
Design an effective customer engagement program for CEATs LCV customers by navigating your way through market research. Provide your proposed solution in MS Power Point with not more than 15 slides.