Contents

1. Carobar

Updates on the company and what we have been up to

2. Opinions

Articles and valuable lessons from experts

3. Key Company Initiatives

The challenges we face, and how we overcome them

4. Podium Finish

Shining the spotlight on the stars in our midst!

5. Off-Roading

Veering off the path to all things fun and entertaining

6. New from other Mahindra Group

Companies

Keep in touch with what other companies in the

Mahindra Group have been up to

7. Employee Portal Section

Stay updated with the latest from HR

8. A Fun Puzzle

Don’t let this one puzzle you

ABOUT THIS MONTH’S THEME:

July brought in much needed rains and a fresh dose of

positive sentiments. Businesses have found a renewed

urgency to bounce back stronger, to make an impact, to

innovate and disrupt the ecosystem with a digital-first

mindset.

At MFCW we are already well on our way, with stretch

projects like Fateh (scroll down to know more!) seeing

initial success, signing up of more dealerships every

week, reimaged businesses with digital interventions

like Autokart Refresh, OEM exclusive yards and the

e-commerce route with carandbike. We have bounced

back and are now ready to leap forward!

Car bar

Updates on the company and what we have been up to

RETAIL BUSINESS SIGNED UP 55 DEALERS IN 2 MONTHS

(MAY & JUNE): Even with Retail Business at a standstill in

May and movement starting only in the 2nd half of June,

the team did a great job of undertaking 55 signups - mostly

digitally. It was not just the payment that was in digital

model, but the majority of prospect interactions also took

place over Microsoft Teams and Whatsapp calls.

LAUNCH OF HOME

PROJECT FATEH RESULTS

INSPECTION

We talked about the

BUSINESS:

FATEH MISSION in our last edition,

Retail Business has

and here are the outcomes

also launched Home

✦ Vehcile Inventory moved

Inspection business

from 3,500 to 5,200

on 15th June. Initial

✦ Crossed the milestone of 50

15 days’ performance

dealer signups

has been

✦ 50 store upgradations with

encouraging and the

branding adaptions

team hopes to set a

✦ 2,000+ registered buyers on

new benchmark

IBB Trade

in this space.

EPO & OEM

TIONS :

ue to the Covid-19

pandemic, banks /

NBFCs have slowed

down on repossession

(repo) of vehicles,

so the repo stock

for auctions have

also come down

onsiderably.

overcome this dearth,

e now focusing more

epo listings and listings

from OEMs. With the help of the

BD team, we are able to make this happen. In the coming

months, our focus will be to grow this segment and make

it significant and crucial. Key clients include Swaraj Mazda

TAFE, Escorts, Ashok Leyland, VST motors, Kivaraj Motors, Tata

Motors Corporate vehicles.

THE COLLECTION ACTIVITY THROUGH CALL CENTRE TEAM:

In our constant endeavour to create backward integration

in the used car value chain, we are on the verge of starting

a new initiatve - ‘The Collection Activity through Call Centre

Team’. This will focus primarily on delinquent customers

of Banks/NBFCs. Delinquency has to be assesed at initial

stages to avoid NPAs. At MFCW, we are assessing the early

stages of loans & applying analytics to collect the overdue

instalments through our collection’s activity. This will provide

real-time end-to-end services to our clients, and we have

aspirational plans for the next few months to tie up with

major banks and NBFCs.

THE E-COMMERCE TRANSFORMATION:

Since the past 5 years, Indian consumers have started

spending more time purchasing products online, and

we are truly reaping benefits of convenience, multiple

selections and low pricing. With online transactions

growing 80% in 2020 driven by strong uptake from tier II

and III cities, consumers are in a much more comfortable

position to purchase high ticket items, further spurred now

due to the pandemic. As part of our long-term strategy to

be India’s #1 Auto-Tech company, we are unlocking value in

a phased manner. By launching an e-commerce portal for

our consumers, we are focusing on providing a reimagined

consumer & dealer experience, ease of access with unique

product driven offerings and leveraging a highly data driven

approach to be best-in-industry.

Mahindra First Choice has launched an e-commerce

reservation portal that is live in Pune and Chennai currently.

The offerings are best-in-class and are exclusively tailored

for our E-commerce customers while being 1st of a kind

in the Pre-owned car Industry. 4 key offerings that the

consumers will benefit from are:

- Exclusive X Extended Warranty Package

- Lowest IRR financing for Pre-owned vehicles

- No Questions Asked 7-Day Easy Returns Policy

- Guaranteed Buyback Protection

GO EXPLORE THE WEBSITE

CNB launched the used car ecommerce on July 28th

2021 to offer significant value and seamless experience

to our customers. This initiative will start from Chennai

and Pune. Other cities will be progressively added. This

rollout was made possible by various teams which came

together to achieve a common goal. Many innovations

and new work streams were added and functionalities

were created to kick start this new initiative.

Congratulations to the teams at MFCW and CNB for this

super achievement

- Nalin Kapoor

ANNUAL AUDIT MANAGED BY FINANCE DEPARTMENT

The usual annual year-end storm was coming! As trained

accountants, we are well trained to face and ward off

this storm smoothly, year after year. So, we were ready to

face the storm! But the situation was different this time.

At accounts, we could gauge that the storm would now

be more violent, due to the pandemic, the consequent

physical and psychological stress of doing an entire year’s

audit sitting at home and handling the process challenges

in a few businesses. In the midst of this evolving crisis with

many team members getting the virus, the captain of the

ship got infected with the virus.

As the saying goes, it’s not important how many storms

you hold out during the journey - what is important is

whether the ship reached home safe! And our ship reached

home safe and sound.

All this thanks to team members displaying

tremendous camaraderie and empathy for each other,

holding the ship together even when the captain was

out of action, navigating through the storm of audit

procedures and scrambling home to ensure that both

the company’s results and they were safe and sound.

It was easily the most demanding audit experience

in our careers and also the most satisfying! Kuddos to

each member of the Finance and Legal teams who

made this a grand success!

- Janakiraman Venkatasubramanian

UPDATES FROM PRODUCT PORTFOLIO

1.eDiig - A step closer to customers

Enhanced app notifications to send

relevant real-time updates on bid status,

permission status, payments etc.; Revamped

designs on payment screen and ‘my quotes report’ for a better

customer experience. Several ‘under the hood’ improvements

have gone in for a faster and seamless bidding experience to

the customer.

2.Autoinspekt - Leading the auto-tech journey

A couple of big clients have been added to our self-

inspections arm, with promising volumes and good

growth potential; New investigation types - Theft

Investigation, Personal Accident and Motor Accident Claims

Tribunal added as part of Claims Investigation’s digital journey.

AI App adoption by RO valuators has been 100% & PI App

adoption by RO valuators has been 90+% in Q1 2021.

3. IBB Trade - Diversifying into new channels and

vehicle categories.

Launched ‘Home Inspections’ and corresponding

‘Assured Auctions’; Introduced commercial vehicle

auctions for IEP.

4.YMS - Maker-Checker

Launched a dedicated web module for ‘Internal

Audit’ team to check and validate the data sanctity

of every vehicle confirmed in YMS. Enhancements

done for better tracking, auditing, validating, and approving the

asset details

DID YOU KNOW

French automobile

manufacturer Citroen has

partnered with CarWale

for last-mile delivery of its

flagship vehicle model,

the new Citroen C5

Aircross SUV. Under the

tie-up, customers purchasing the car through a 100 per

cent direct online selling model will now have an option

to get the vehicle delivered at their doorstep, a release

said on June 28, 2021.

Opinions

Hear from VS Yashpal, Area Manager for

Retail Business on Customer Obsession

Customer Obsession is a state of

hyperfocus on creating a better customer

experience. It’s a commitment to having a customer-first

approach. Customer needs are at the center of everything

you do. Customer Obsession starts with understanding

our customers’ needs, and how our offerings can help

them. We should think of

ourselves as problem-solvers,

Customer Obsession

helping customers achieve

starts with

their desires — and that

understanding our

may mean going outside

customers’ need, and

the box. Our offerings may

how our offerings can

not always be what our

help them.

customers need, which is

why we must approach the

research phase with an altruistic perspective. Even if we

can’t directly service them, we should always look for an

opportunity to help customers beyond our products &

services, demonstrating that we are truely committed to

their success. Harvard Spark platform helped me build a lot

of perspective around this key leadership competency and I

urge all my colleague and go and explore this.

- VS Yashpal, Area Manager - Retail Business

Hear from Abhishek Agarwal, Head of

Marketing on Decoding Leadership.

“DECODING LEADERSHIP”

This is an interesting segment in

Harvard Spark and a must read. Of course, leadership

is not something we can learn out of a book or articles

but it needs to be in action every day at work and in our

communities. That said, HMM gives you a great context

in to leadership traits and has interesting interviews with

Harvard leaders. The crisp articles and snackible videos

does not require hours of screen time. It clearly calls out

the 4 rules to decode leadership - what’s in common for

leaders of today’s generation -

As long as each

They shape the future, they make

one of us has an

things happen, they identify

and nurture talent for today and

ownership mentality

the future and finally the most

and we are able

important rule - they invest in

to develop it in our

themselves. My clear takeaway

colleagues and team

was as long as each one of us

members we are

has an ownership mentality and

creating leaders

we are able to develop it in our

around us

colleagues and team members

we are creating leaders around us. We work in a company

which is #1 on many fronts in the country - largest chain of

multi-brand used car franchise, biggest vehicle inspection

business in volumes, largest users for any auto-portal in the

country and many more. To maintain the number one spot

we will need to awaken the leaders within us and reinvent

ourselves. HMM is a great platform for self-development

and I urge everybody to spend an hour a week at least.”

- Abhishek Agarwal, Head - Marketing

Hear from Siddharth Joardar, Regional

Manager for Retail Business on Ideas for

Customer Obsession

Customer Obsession is the mantra to be

successful in today’s competitive world. Those

companies who are obsessed with customers are more

likely to retain and attract customers. The ultimate purpose

of customer obsession should be to create ‘CUSTOMER

DELIGHT’. In context of used car business, apart from

hygiene factors like clean showroom, customer lounge,

polite and well-informed staff etc., offering a car which is

much better than their expectations of customers, along

with value adds like warranty, after sales service etc can

go a long way. Now competition is doing the same too. So,

we need to identify what unique thing can be done. A few

ideas which i could think off are -

1. Conduting seminars and driving

Those companies

lessons for our customer who are

who are obsessed

are first time car buyers and not well

with customers

versed with driving.

are more likely to

2. Provide safety driving booklet

retain and attract

during delivery of car along with

customers.

important numbers like hospitals,

police stations etc.

3. Contribute towards community by putting a small value

from every sale to initiatives like Nanhi Kali.

4. Referral Marketing Schemes for customers.

5. Social media publicity for dealerships.

These ideas hopefully will be able to provide extra value

addition and delight to our customers. Do you know

how I was able to build these ideas? By exploring

Harvard Spark Platform.

- Siddharth Joardar, Regional Manager - Retail Business

Key

Company

Initiatives

The challenges we face, and how we overcome them.

COVID-19 vaccination drives were conducted in Mumbai

& Bangalore. All the arrangements were done keeping in

mind the social distancing norms. Hoping our small steps

would continue bringing in bigger changes and making

society a safer place to live in. Kuddos to the HR & Admin

Team that worked diligently behind the scenes to ensure

smooth & hassle-free experience.

DID YOU KNOW

Woven Alpha teams up with Mitsubishi Fuso on new

mapping tech for ADAS. The initiation of this relationship

between Woven Alpha and MFTBC is another cross-industry

collaboration with a commercial vehicle manufacturer

outside the Toyota Group.

APEx Program : Our Area

Managers from the Retail

Business are key linkages

between the organization &

dealerships. Each dealership

store is brand ambassador of

MFCW and hence it becomes

crucial for us to make sure that

our dealerships & area managers

are successful. This year we have taken

a target to create 20 ‘Role Model’ Franchise stores.

We have identified 19 Area Managers & 6 Regional

Managers to create these role model stores. To make them

successful, we have created a 9-months developmental

program - Accelerating Pride in Excellence (APEx). During

these 9 months, our participants will be trained in various

technical aspects regarding cars, project management,

dealership profitability etc. We aim to improve our

performance on the following excllence parameters:

Finance, Business Performance, People, Processes,

Infrastructure, Effective Utilisation of Outlet Management

System (OMS), Remote Dealer Management System.

Launch of Authbridge

This new age platform was launched on 1st June’21. It is an

end-to-end digital onboarding and employee screening

platform. It is a one-stop web platform, automating end

to end hiring ecosystem (Offer Generation and Digital

Signing, Employee Background Verification and Reference

Checks, Document Collection, Online generation of PF

& ESIC forms, Appointment letter rollout, Aadhaar based

e-signing & Seamless Onboarding). This helps to make the

HR onboarding 100% paperless and digital and tech savvy.

Creates a smooth candidate experience from offer roll-out

till joining.

7 promising young managers have been

hand-picked for the Shadow Board Team for

FY22. They have the chance to recommend and

implement change in the organization through

their exciting projects. Wishing them all the best.

Konark Rai

Head of Product - CarandBike

Inquisitive to learn new things.

Anisha Saluja

Head - Organizational Effectiveness

Always aiming for perfection

Abhishek Agarwal

Head-Marketing

Growth-hacker

Nisarg Swaly

Senior Manager - Strategy

Fearless & Open-minded

Ananthanarayanan S

Head - Product Management

Keeping it simple and impactful

Jay Rungta

Head - X Mart

Fun Loving

Nitin Sakpal

Senior Manger - Accounts & Finance

Want to beat yesterday’s performance

DID YOU KNOW

Automakers initiate production ramp-up to recoup

lockdown losses. India’s passenger vehicle production

to top 1 million units, which will be the highest for the

July-September period at least in three years, provided

there is no third wave of the pandemic.

Podium

Finish

Shining the spotlight on the stars in our midst!

Rewards and Recognition programs are critical to

enhancing employee engagement and performance. 8th

July 2021 saw the entire Mahindra First Choice Wheels and

carandbike team join in on the first ever virtual Rewards &

Recognition Program recognizing all the employees who

have been gear shifters and change-makers in the first

quarter of the year. We as a team believe in appreciating

and encouraging the achievements of our employees going

above and beyond at work.

Like an electrifying ‘Live Wire’, our employees overcome

all challenges to achieve success and the ‘Live Wire’

Awards became a way to celebrate this. Let’s look at the

various winners:

Appreciating high achievers from COX Team:

Sabyasachi Padhihary - Sabya was recognized

for being an exceptionally consistent

performer in the RMS vertical for Cox. He

has been instrumental in improving buyer-

portal performance, migrating to a more

scalable search infrastructure, and launching

simultaneous listings on multiple auction platforms.

Senthil Kumar - Senthil was recognized as the

best performer for the entire Cox RMS vertical

among all global offshore development

partners. Senthil has played the lead architect

role for the Enterprise Automotive Platform,

which was implemented with a new tech

stack that the team had no prior exposure to. Senthil was

also instrumental in implementing the payment gateway

interface for processing eVA (Evaluation & Appraisal)

customer payments. Both these projects were delivered

under very aggressive timelines.

Off

Roading

Veering off the path to all things fun and entertaining.

Lovely Doll House made by

Yashika Bhavel, Daughter

of Dilip Bhavel

Potrait by Rohit UJ

bout an year ago I started

y Yoga Journey. I could just

et 1 month of training before

ockdown, I explored more

about it during lockdown.

From having no knowledge

about yoga to now practising

daily for more than an hour is

a great achievement for me.

It has made me realize to

never give up on your goals

and that there is a time for each dream to get

fulfilled, we just need to keep trying.

- Rupeshree

Sketches by

Amazing singing attempt

Ganesh Balasubranian

by Manjusha

Utilizing weekends

to work with

NGOs and help

people in need -

Our Hidden Hero

Sayantan Roy

WHAT TO READ:

The wind up

The Spy Chronicles

Stop Reading

bird chronicle by

by A.S Dulat, Asad

the News by Rolf

Haruki Murakami

Durrani and Aditya

Dobelli

- Munira

Sinha

- Anisha Saluja

Thanwala

- Vikram Baheti

The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the

Evolution of Human Intelligence is a 1977 Pulitzer

winning book by the late Carl Sagan, renowned

astrophysicist and science evangelist. Sagan

delves into the evolution and construction of

the human brain, the functionality of the right

and left cerebral hemispheres, the triune model of the

brain, and the influences of different parts of the brain on

human emotions, dreams, sleep, intuition and rationality.

Sagan introduces the Cosmic Calendar, a fascinating

mapping of all existence since the origin of the universe

into a single calendar year. With his lucid story-telling style,

Sagan left me with the intriguing question - “What will the

second year on the Cosmic Calendar look like?”

- Vinod Raman

The last lecture by

Speaker For The

Randy Pausch

Dead by Orson

- Chandra Prasad

Scott Card

- Konark Rai

WHAT TO WATCH:

The Office. This US adaptation, set at

a paper company in Scranton, Pa., is

one of the best mokumentaries to watch

and unwind after work. Disclaimer -

you might start recognising

a few of the show

characters in your

colleagues from

the workplace.

So watch at your

own risk :)

- Anisha Saluja

The Social Dilemma, This

documentary-drama hybrid

explores the dangerous human

impact of social networking, with

tech experts sounding the alarm

on their own creations.

- Abhishek Agarwal

Series “Dark”, a complicated

How to get away with

time travel series where

murder. A brilliant TV

you can lose the plot/

thriller series

sequence easily

- Munira Thanwala

- M Arun

News from Other

Mahindra Gro

The Mahindra Group-owned

Automobili Pininfarina’s Batt

Hyper GT added another

feather to its cap after being

named the ‘Electric Dream’

car at Electrifying.com’s

inaugural awards. READ MORE

500 initiative to tackle

disability inclusion.

Mahindra launches India’s

first 4-row ride-on rice

transplanter in Telangana.

The new technology will

help increase yield and

overcome issues related

to a labour shortage that

have surfaced during these

difficult times. READ MORE

Employee Portal

Here’s All You Need To Know About Zing HR Navigator

ZingHR. KNOW MORE

What Will You Find There

• HR Handbook & FAQs - to view all policies and FAQs

• Wish your colleagues birthdays, anniversaries and

welcome new joinees

• Company announcements & important updates

• Submit claims & reimbursements

• Manage Leaves & Attendance

Also, refer a friend or apply for Inter Department

Movement Policy

We’re constantly looking for awesome people to join the

team and believe in giving equal opportunities to all.

Solve this amazing crossword created by our CTO,

Vinod Raman. Fastest receiving entries with the right

answers will be featured in the next issue of Konnect First

and will also win prizes.

EMAIL YOUR ANSWERE HERE

ACROSS

DOWN

Many of us are longing

Formerly (4)

to get back there (6)

Meat (5)

Conduit for fluids (4)

Soft, creamy cheese (9)

Milk fat (5)

Sugary spread that

Vessel used to cook in oil (5)

goes on cakes (5)

A popular sandwich (9)

6 Slips (6)

Whisk (3-5)

8 Popular Christmas

Braided bread (5)

confection (9)

Disturb (5)

Brewing & serving

Mix a salad (4)

vessel (6)

Another name for the

Pyrex and Duran are

card game ‘Dominoes’ (6)

types of this (5)

Cooking appliance (5)

Visionaries? (4)