The New Hero

Many years back, when I was still residing in one of the sleepy towns of North India, I remember that when a dealer of Hero Honda bikes expired, the Munjals and their senior managers themselves paid a visit to the bereaved family and offered their condolences. The dealer had been a long time associate of the company. The Munjals also assured their continued support for the dealership and to the young successor of the deceased dealer. The news made headlines in the local dailies and a lot of goodwill among the public in general was generated, for it was unprecedented for a company’s chairman to be paying personal visit to dealers, especially in small sleepy towns.


This quality of the Hero group’s first family has endeared them to their various stakeholders. True engagement lies in connecting the ‘internal’ with the ‘external’ of an organization. After splitting with their Japanese counterpart Honda in December 2010, Hero group has a task in hand to restore the confidence of the employees (internal) and of the customers, investors and society at large that includes their business partners as well (external). And the group seems to be making all the right sounds -

When the new logo of the now – Hero Moto Corp was unveiled then Brijmohan Lall, Chairman, Hero MotoCorp Ltd, said “Today is a historic day. It is not just a change of name; it marks the ushering in of a new era that will unlock the immense potential of this company to build its own capabilities to grow beyond boundaries and set new benchmarks. As we set out on this exciting new journey, we look forward to the continued support of all our stakeholders including dealer friends, suppliers, employees and all our associates.”

The latest campaign of Hero Moto Corp featuring the theme song – ‘Hum Mein Hain Hero’, composed by the Oscar winning A.R. Rahman has become quite a hit. The credit goes to the innovative strategy of ‘engaging’ with the customers and the society at a tangible level. The company has solicited videos from the public-in-general singing the song (whose lyrics are uploaded on the website in various languages). Fresh TV ads are being prepared by editing & combining the videos uploaded by the people. Videos can be uploaded at http://heromotocorp.com/ or http://www.billionvoices.in/index.php . In this age of social networking people seem to be loving it, for it gives them an opportunity to be on television and gain instant fame. The company is loving it, since it gives them an opportunity to actually connect to millions of people and also to maintain the freshness of their advertisements without almost spending a penny. The resulting ROI must be very high.

The lessons of engaging employees can come from anywhere and as we look at the Hero Moto Corp today, the lessons are five –

• Get the communication right.

• Get the target (the ones to be engaged) to participate.

• Give the target instant yet tangible takeaways.

• Zero or minimal investments can also give very very high ROI.

• Many times investment is leadership rather than money.