8 things we learnt from Royal Enfield’s Head of International Business

1. The Himalayan is the brand’s first ground-up purpose-built bike
And it won’t be the last. Through its recent big-name appointment, Royal Enfield has made it quite clear it has grand plans. The newly launched Himalayan (pronounced Him-aar-lian) is the first time the chassis, engine and styling all started from scratch and, according to Gopal, each and every new model to roll out of the firm’s Indian-based facility will follow suit.
“Whatever we do from now, we want to make it grounds-up,” he said. “The Himalayan is our first attempt in doing so and the future platforms will be absolutely ground-up designs, new to the world of Royal Enfield, and hence we need the talent, we need people to help us live the vision that we have.”

2. It thinks motorcycling has lost its way
“Our philosophy is leisure motorcycling has gone extreme,” Gopal said. “Motorcycles are getting super fast, super heavy, super expensive and difficult to maintain. The youngsters don’t consider motorcycling as a hobby – I really want them to come back to looking at motorcycling less seriously. In today’s world we really feel that people have started to live in a virtual world – staring at a screen. We really want them to come back to the real world, to the world of motorcycling, explore the world they live in and have fun doing so.”

3. We’ll never see a 1000cc Royal Enfield
According to Royal Enfield, the mid-sized segment is where it’s at. And if you think about it, it’s hard to disagree. Ninety-six percent of motorcycles on earth today are 250cc or smaller, so when those owners want to upgrade, they’re looking for a mid-sized bike at an accessible price point and that’s exactly where Royal Enfield wants to be. “Our vision is to be leaders in the mid-sized sector, between 250cc and 650cc,” revealed Gopal. “So we would like to have various models and platforms that fill in various levels of that particular segment. So we’ve invested in two technical centres – one in the UK and one in India – and the teams there are absolutely focussed on developing new platforms, engines, and chassis, to cater for those requirements in the mid-sized segment. There’s actually nobody focussing on the mid-sized segment today. It’s a sweet spot that we feel exists in the industry.”

4. Royal Enfield sees Mahindra’s BSA buyout as an opportunity to be the best
“The BSA brand is phenomenal – it’s such a beautiful brand and it should really be out there in the market. I really feel that Royal Enfield and BSA are the types of brands that can really kickstart the motorcycle industry across the world. Frankly speaking, we feel like the mid-sized segment is so underserved globally, that we really need the industry to focus on that segment and, by then, Royal Enfield will be able to have the lion’s share of the segment. So we really would love as many brands as possible to focus on the mid-sized segment, there’s lots of opportunity.”

5. It never wants to be a technological pioneer
That’s not how it rolls. While many of have been coerced into believing the historic British brand was gathering the talent and tools to take on the Triumphs and Nortons of the world, Royal Enfield wants to keep the future simple. “The simplicity is what we really want to propagate across the world,” said Gopal. “You’re always going to get restricted by technology and regulations. Countries will say now we need ABS, and you need to meet this level of emission. New regulations will push us to get into more technology and we are absolutely prepared for that. Look at the Euro4 version (of the Himalayan, the current Australian model is between Euro2 and Euro3), there are disc brakes and ABS. Yes, we are a classic motorcycle company but we have to look at new technologies based on regulations and absolutely we will adapt to those.”

6. The brand sees itself relevant to every single global market
“Our focus has been for many years only India, so the last few years we’ve had to look at international business as an opportunity,” Gopal said. “We’ve really put a roadmap around that and have split the entire globe, at high level, into two segments: the developed market and the developing market. The developed markets like Australia, Europe and America where we are already present, in those countries it’s easy for us because leisure motorcycling is already established. But it’s more difficult in developing markets because the motorcycle is about their life. They use two wheelers to go to work, drop their children to school, use it for shopping and their user habits are very different. But because Royal Enfield focusses on the mid-sized segment, our brand is actually very relevant to both of these markets. The developed markets are absolutely relevant for us today because the brand is so strong. People don’t just want to buy a two-wheeler, they want to buy a brand, and the history and heritage that we have really lures them to the Royal Enfield brand.”

7. Royal Enfield cannot identify a rival
“I don’t want to sound arrogant,” Gopal said when asked who he saw as the brand’s biggest threat. “But if you look at the mid-sized segment, there’s really nobody else out there. You have players who play largely in the sub-250cc segment who have a few options, and there are some larger capacity players who also have a few options, but as a focussed organisation looking only at the mid-sized section – it’s only us.

8. Royal Enfield will double its production capacity in three years
According to Gopal, Royal Enfield finished 2015 at 450,000 units, and is well and truly on track to reach its goal of 675,000 at the end of 2016. “And by 2018, we’ll have a production capacity of 900,000 motorcycles, thanks to the new plant coming up in India.”