In January 2020, at the Delhi Auto Expo, Force Motors unveiled the Urbania (codenamed the T1N), a vehicle that would come to define a turning point in the company’s trajectory. Built over five years, the new platform had cost Force Motors about ₹1,000 crore and aimed at creating a premium mobility segment in India while meeting international standards. Within weeks of that showcase, the pandemic brought the world—and Force’s core business of shared mobility—to a halt.
The timing was brutal and Prasan Firodia, managing director at Force Motors and the third-generation of the family to run the business, still shudders when he recalls those days.
Then shared mobility disappeared and plant utilisation dropped to 20 percent as schools shut for two years. In a manufacturing business with high fixed costs—depreciation, salaries, interest and plant overheads—such utilisation levels are devastating. Contribution margins get wiped out quickly when volumes shrink, and the burden of fixed expenses becomes disproportionate.
Force, whose bread and butter was staff buses, school vans and institutional transport, started losing money—₹223 crore in the two years to March 2023. IT offices shifted to work from home. The market for second-hand cars zoomed as people avoided shared transport. (The silver lining was the order for ambulances, but the government was slow to pay and receivables stretched to as much as 180 days.)
Yet the crisis forced Firodia to confront a difficult truth: Survival would require sharper focus and a reset of the cost base. And it set the stage for making Force Motors the powerhouse it is today with a trebling of revenue to close to ₹9,000 crore, a return on equity north of 20 percent, zero debt and a stock price that has outperformed the Nifty index over a 10-, three- and one-year period taking its market cap to ₹33,000 crore. “Knowing what not to do is just as important as knowing what to do,” says Firodia.
The first decisive move was to define what Force Motors would not do and focus on the core—passenger mobility. Its Traveller platform had been a runaway success with over 65 percent market share. Trax did well in rural markets and there was the Urbania to cater to upmarket customers.
The second lever was structural cost discipline. Headcount was rationalised during the downturn. While manufacturing-linked hiring resumed as volumes recovered, white-collar expansion remained tightly controlled. The objective was to improve operating leverage not merely through volume growth, but a leaner fixed-cost structure.
Simultaneously, a granular bill-of-material (BOM) cost optimisation programme was rolled out. On certain platforms, material costs were structurally reduced by up to ₹1 lakh per vehicle; Firodia does acknowledge that a large part of this has flown into the bottomline. Given that raw materials typically account for 60 to 70 percent of automotive revenue, even a 3 to 5 percent reduction in material cost can have a significant impact on Ebitda margins. In Force’s case, these savings improved gross margins structurally rather than cyclically.
Operating leverage then amplified the effect.
As demand normalised post-2022 and volumes rose, fixed costs were spread across a larger production base. Pre-Covid, the company’s investments were weighing on profitability because utilisation was sub-optimal. Post recovery, the same fixed assets began generating higher throughput. The incremental margin on additional units sold was significantly higher than historical averages—from 7 to 8 percent to 16 percent.
The numbers reflect this shift. Force is now closing in on ₹9,000 crore in annual turnover—a threefold expansion. Net profits have risen to about ₹1,300 crore. More tellingly, return on equity has moved beyond 25 percent, indicating that capital deployed in new platforms is now yielding commensurate returns.
Working capital discipline has also improved. Faster inventory turns have been aided by better demand forecasting and digitised dealer systems. Receivable cycles have stabilised.
For fleet customers, uptime translates directly into revenue. By enabling predictive maintenance and performance monitoring, Force enhances total cost of ownership economics—a key purchase driver.
Parallel to its own brands, Force Motors occupies a distinctive niche as a contract manufacturer of engines for global luxury players. At its Chennai facility, it assembles cars for BMW India. While these are put together from imported kits, there are some India-built components as well. In a demonstration of its industrial chops, Force Motors is the majority partner in a 51-49 JV with Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG to produce the Rolls-Royce Power Systems Series 1600 MTU engine and Series 1600 Diesel Generators.
These are financially significant for two reasons. First, they provide stable, high-quality revenue streams less exposed to domestic CV cyclicality. Second, they demand world-class manufacturing standards, which elevate process capabilities.
Both father Abhay and son have worked hard on assembling a board that asks the right questions. One member is Vallabh Bhansali whose firm Enam took Infosys public and has seen several businesses flourish (and flounder). “If you are happy with a narrow path, it ends up being the best (in the long run),” he says.
In addition to the domestic market, Force Motors sees exports as a huge opportunity, especially for the Urbania. Designed to meet international-compliance standards from inception, it is now sold across Gulf markets and has entered Latin America, with South Africa next. Exports account for 5 to 8 percent of volumes, but are targeted to rise toward 30 to 40 percent over time.
Domestically, the monocoque bus platform has carved out nearly 8 percent market share in three years in a segment long dominated by Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland and Daimler India Commercial Vehicles.
Defence is an emerging vertical with long-term annuity characteristics. “Delivering 5,000 to 10,000 vehicles annually to the armed forces is both a matter of great pride and a responsibility we value deeply. It aligns strongly with our DNA of building reliable, indigenously engineered mobility solutions in line with the vision of ‘Make in India’,” says Firodia. Defence contracts involve rigorous testing and extended payment cycles, but offer multi-year revenue visibility once executed.
At the heart of this transformation is also a generational shift in leadership. What began as a stewardship phase has evolved into full operational control by the next generation. The past five years—marked by crisis, restructuring and expansion—have effectively tested capital allocation discipline and strategic focus. Rather than pursue aggressive diversification or capital-intensive moonshots, the leadership has chosen calibrated scaling.
An earlier attempt to tap urban SUV buyers with the Force One provided a formative lesson in capital prudence. Brand stretch has limits. “Our focus is on creating new segments rather than competing in crowded, established ones,” says Firodia, who points out that unlike global majors deploying tens of billions on EV platforms, Force operates within finite capital constraints, making return metrics central to decision-making.
India’s growth in health care, tourism, manufacturing and IT services supports structural demand for passenger mobility. Premiumisation is rising. Export markets remain underpenetrated. Defence spending is increasing. By deepening its presence in these areas, Force Motors aims to compound growth without jeopardising balance-sheet strength.
The Urbania’s unveiling on the eve of a shutdown could have been remembered as unfortunate timing. Instead, it marked the start of a disciplined reset.
First Published: Apr 03, 2026, 11:46
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