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CASE : AUTO COMPONENTS
Occasions Young President`s Organisation (YPO) Meeting
DATE August 7, 1996
TIME 4 p.m.
VENUE The Carlton Chambers, Mumbai
PRESENT
Members • § Vinod of the YPO
Abhayankar, CEO, Auto Component; Lalit Desai, Chairman, YPO: AGANDA The Need for Strategic Planning
Lalit Desai : Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Let me begin by welcoming our guest speaker for today, Vinod Abhayankar, the CEO of Auto Components, which manufactures the Zebra brand of shock absorbers., founded by his father, Dhanvantri Abhayankar, in 1984, Auto Components now enjoys the status of being a preferred supplier to many of the Original Equipment Manufacturers I (OEMs) in the Indian automobile sector. Vinod will speak about the problems he faced while implementing a strategy-planning process in the company. Vinod I wish to correct Lalit at the very outset. We haven`t implemented strategic planning at Auto Components; we are in the process of doing so. We are still
grappling with two questions. First, do we need strategic planning at all? That`s surprising since strategy is supposed to be high on every CEO`s list of priorities. Second, how should the company formulate a strategy? Should it be bases on Auto Components` present position in the industry? should we factor in the emergence of new forces in the future — such as technology and draw up a strategy in the light of their impact on our operations? I thought I could use this to platform interrupt as a sounding-board, and fine-tune my own approach to strategic planning. Please feel free me.
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Questions:
(a) Is there a need for a strategy at Auto Components? Does a small company operating in a predictable environment need to formulate one ?
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(b) Can approaches to strategy be so conceptually different ? Should Abhayankar go by gut-feel and, using in-house talent do what he believes is right for the company?
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(c) Instead of spending time on documenting a strategy, shouldn`t Auto Components just have an informal plan of action, governed by the intuition of its senior managers ?
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(d) Since the company has a team which knows its business better than any consultant, why should Auto Components bank on external ideas ? Should strategy ever be documented?
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