Osamu Suzuki, the genius man who led Japan's Suzuki Motor Corporation for more than four decades and played a key role in transforming India into a thriving automobile market, has died at the age of 94.
The company, which he led ambitiously during his time as CEO or chairman, said he died on Christmas Day of lymphoma, outside its core market of small cars.
Inexpensive 660cc box cars destined for Japan benefited from generous tax breaks, but required strict cost control that proved to be an essential part of the automaker's DNA.
However, Suzuki's frugality was legendary: he had factory roofs lowered to save on air-conditioning costs, and traveled economy class on planes even at an advanced age.
“Forever” or “Until the day I die” were characteristically humorous responses to questions about how long he would stay with the company, which he stuck to well into his 70s and 80s.
Suzuki, born Osamu Matsuda, acquired his wife's family name through adoption in a practice common among Japanese families without a male heir.
The former banker joined the company founded by her grandfather in 1958 and worked her way up the ranks to become president two decades later.
In the 1970s, he saved the company from the brink of collapse by convincing Toyota Motor Corp. to supply engines that met new emissions regulations, but which Suzuki Motor had not yet developed.
More success followed with the launch of the Alto small car in 1979, which was a huge success, strengthening the automaker's negotiating power when it contracted with General Motors in 1981.
India
Suzuki then made the big and risky decision to invest a year's worth of company profits to build a national automaker in India.
His personal interest was driven by a strong desire “to be number one somewhere in the world,” as he later recalled.
At the time, India was an auto backwater, with annual car sales of less than 40,000, most of them British knock-offs.
The government had just nationalized Maruti, which was founded in 1971 as a pet project of Sanjay Gandhi, the son of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, to produce an affordable “people's car” made in India.
Maruti needed a foreign partner but early collaboration with Renault failed as the sedan being considered was deemed too expensive and fuel inefficient to meet local needs.
The Maruti team knocked on many doors, but was widely ignored by brands including Fiat, Subaru and – coincidentally – Suzuki Motor.
The partnership came about only after Suzuki Motor's India director saw a newspaper article about Maruti's potential deal with Japanese small car rival Daihatsu.
He phoned headquarters to learn that the Maruti team had been turned away. Suzuki then sent a message to Maruti and hurriedly invited the team to Japan asking for a second chance.
The letter of intent was signed within months.
The first car, the Maruti 800 hatchback based on the Alto model, was launched in 1983 and was an instant success.
Today, Maruti Suzuki, majority owned by Suzuki Motor, still controls nearly 40% of India's automobile market.
In class-conscious India, Suzuki also ushered in change, insisting on equality in the workplace, requiring open-plan offices, a single canteen, and uniforms for executives and assembly line workers alike.
But not all efforts were successful.
A month before his 80th birthday, Suzuki concluded a multi-billion dollar partnership agreement with giant Volkswagen in December 2009.
Described as a match made in heaven, it quickly unraveled, with Suzuki Motor accusing its new largest shareholder of trying to control it, while Volkswagen objected to the Japanese diesel engine maker's purchase of Fiat.
Suzuki Motor Company took Volkswagen to an international arbitration tribunal in less than two years, eventually succeeding in buying back the 19.9% stake it had sold to the German automaker.
Suzuki, who often cited golf and business as key to his health, finally handed the baton as CEO to his son Toshihiro in 2016, and stayed on as chairman for another five years until the age of 91, retaining an advisory role until the end.
