Bajaj Auto, which is working to become a global motorcycle manufacturer, has been voted as one of the world’s top 100 most innovative companies of 2014, by Forbes.
26 Aug 2014 | 3478 Views | By Autocar Pro News Desk
Bajaj Auto, which is working to become a global motorcycle manufacturer, has been voted as one of the world’s top 100 most innovative companies of 2014, by Forbes.
The company is among five Indian companies and the only automotive company to be featured in the coveted list. Its overall ...
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Bajaj Auto, which is working to become a global motorcycle manufacturer, has been voted as one of the world’s top 100 most innovative companies of 2014, by Forbes.
The company is among five Indian companies and the only automotive company to be featured in the coveted list. Its overall rank in the list stood at 96.
Forbes uses a unique methodology relying on the “wisdom of the crowd” to compile the list of the top 100 most innovative companies in the world. According to Forbes, measurement of innovation is an evaluation of the investors’ ability to identify firms they expect to innovate now and in the future. Companies are ranked by their innovation premium: the difference between their market capitalisation and a net present value of cash flows from existing businesses (based on a proprietary formula from Credit Suisse HOLT).
The Pune-based OEM also bagged another global recognition of being recognised as India’s fifth most valuable brand, with a value of US$3 billion (Rs 18,156 crore), by the first ever BrandZ Top 50 Most Valuable Indian Brands ranking.
The combined brand value of the BrandZ Top 50 Most Valuable Indian Brands is almost US$70 billion (Rs 423,640 crore). Carried out by WPP's marketing and brand consultancy Millward Brown, the valuation is the only one in India that takes into account consumers’ opinion of brands to calculate the contribution that product brands make to business success.
The diversity of brands in the ranking – enabled through the country’s openness and ‘right to play’ for businesses – indicates that India is a fertile market for building valuable brands, irrespective of age, origin, structure, category, ownership or even price range. The Top 50 come from 13 different categories. Seventeen are multi-national corporations (MNCs), 26 are private Indian brands and seven are state-owned brands.
Rajiv Bajaj, managing director, Bajaj Auto, feels that the company’s business strategy has helped its products to differentiate themselves from competition and yield rich dividends. “A sound strategy does this by creating new categories for its brands to dominate, rather than have them unimaginatively serve existing categories,” says Bajaj. “Our Pulsar, Discover and RE brands are a result of such a strategy at Bajaj, making us the world's most profitable auto company, with almost half our sales coming from overseas markets,” he adds.