In its early years Canara used to supply exclusively to the original equipment market. It used to have all the then top manufacturers of vehicles as its prestigious clients. To take care of sales in the replacement market, it had a few exclusive distributers who used to meet the demand. Later in the 80’s it started supplying springs to state transport undertakings in Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Tamilnadu.
It changed its marketing strategy and set about in developing a full fledged marketing department in the mid 80’s to cater to the replacement market. It developed a highly trained sales force who went about in establishing a well defined dealer network. It selected the two tier system of company managed branches selling directly to dealers and fleet operators as its channel of distribution. By this it has been able to get the pulse of the market and respond accordingly.
Meanwhile, Mr Premnath S. Kudva son of our Chairman & Managing Director, Mr. Srinivas V. Kudva who completed his post graduation in management from T. A. Pai Management Insitute, Manipal joined the company in the year 1986 was inducted to the Board as Executive Director on 9th June 1992.
In addition to the change in the market strategy of appointing company managed sales depots, Mr. Premnath S. Kudva initiated interaction with the dealers and blacksmiths coming under purview of all the sales depots and corrective actions were implemented. Annual sales conferences were organized to provide the branch personnel to meet the executives from head office and exchange their opinion and ideas and the same were implemented to improve the market share. This strategy paid dividend and slowly the company progressed towards the path of growth.
As of now, we have nine company managed sales depots in all the four states of Southern India and a sales depot in Maharashtra at Solapur.