India’s largest utility vehicle and tractor producer, Mahindra & Mahindra, has established a new business unit specifically focussed on emerging opportunities in Africa.

The African business unit will be headed by current Mahindra South Africa (MSA) CEO Ashok Thakur, and will operate from four core hubs, namely South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt.

The business unit will act as a centralised distribution channel for all products currently manufactured within the group, including utility vehicles (such as backhoe loaders), tractors, generator sets, large trucks and two-wheelers (motorcycles).

It will also include the trading and services of Mahindra’s Agri portofolio.

This centralised approach will also allow Mahindra & Mahindra to identify and address the specific needs and requirements of individual African markets, and to customise and engineer its products accordingly, said the company in a statement released on Tuesday.

According to Ashok Sharma, a group executive board member of Mahindra & Mahindra who controls the new initiative at head office level, the four African hubs will allow Mahindra to integrate more closely with the markets it is supplying by effectively becoming a local company, staffed by local employees.

The new business unit will also create new synergies as far as distribution, the supply chain, spare parts, service, advertising and branding are concerned.

Mahindra already has an active presence in 20 of the 50 countries in Africa, with growth in these markets maintaining double-digit levels over the past four to five years.

The company’s new African unit will unlock the potential for much more aggressive growth, with a ten-fold increase in business possible in the next five to seven years, Sharma believes.

Thakur will report directly to Sharma.

He has been at the helm of the local subsidiary for the past six years.

The diverse and competitive nature of the South African vehicle market has become an acknowledged proving ground for automotive executives, many of who have gone on to take up senior positions in a global context.

“I’m looking forward to taking up my new position, and tackling the challenges it represents,” Thakur says.

Details about a replacement for Thakur as MSA CEO will be made at a later date.