Ather Bets Big on AI and Salesforce to Transform EV Sales
One of India’s leading electric two-wheeler manufacturers, Ather Energy, has taken a tech-first approach to customer engagement and dealer management. In partnership with Salesforce, Ather has developed a unified, AI-ready digital platform to streamline its sales, service, and customer experience operations. The partnership was first announced two years ago. With the integration of Salesforce’s cloud-based solutions, Ather now has a single, scalable system that connects dealers, service centers, and customers, ensuring real-time access to critical data. Unified Saas-EV Ecosystem “We are a growing company in a growing industry, and things are changing rapidly—not just from a consumer point of view but also from a regulatory perspective. At the core of our business strategy is consumer experience, and that includes our dealers,” Ravneet S. Phokela, chief business officer, Ather Energy,​ said in an exclusive interview with AIM. He was speaking on the sidelines of Ather-Salesforce event in Bengaluru. India’s EV sector is evolving rapidly, with shifting regulations, growing competition, and changing consumer behaviour. To navigate these challenges, Ather recognised the need for a centralised platform that brings together lead management, customer interactions, and dealership operations. Phokela mentioned that regarding integrating AI or other emerging technologies, it is essential to be positioned to embrace the innovations that arise within the ecosystem. Previously, Ather’s dealership and customer management relied on multiple tools, making it challenging to track test drives, pre-orders, and post-sales service seamlessly. With Salesforce, Ather has consolidated these functions into a unified platform, allowing for real-time coordination across all stakeholders. “You can’t be a consumer-focused company if you don’t have a unified view of the customer,” he said. Highlighting the significance of this collaboration, Mankiran Chowhan, vice president of Salesforce India, emphasised how it enhances Ather’s scalability and operational efficiency. “This is about unifying CRM, lead management, and DMS (dealer management system) into one scalable platform, enhancing the experience for both dealers and customers,” said Chowhan to AIM. AI-Driven Insights Continue Beyond just data centralisation, the system is built to integrate AI and automation, ensuring smarter decision-making and predictive analytics. Chowhan highlighted Salesforce’s AI engine, Einstein AI, that processes over 2 trillion predictions daily, enabling businesses to personalise customer interactions and optimise operations. “This is really about how human agents and digital agents are all working together seamlessly in maximizing productivity,” said Chowhan. While Ather is still in the early stages of AI adoption, its new digital backbone ensures future compatibility with AI-driven tools. This means the company can eventually implement predictive maintenance alerts, automated service scheduling, and real-time sales forecasting, all powered by AI. Phokela emphasised the importance of seamless AI integration, stating, “Technology should be invisible. A sales guy should sell. The system should work in the background, making their job easier.”​ Chowhan highlighted how trust and transparency are key concerns in AI adoption, stating, “The world of AI is evolving rapidly, and trust and privacy are becoming critical. Most organisations are now looking at how AI ties back to their business goals.”​ For Ather, this means ensuring that AI is embedded responsibly into its digital framework, allowing for scalability without compromising data security. The partnership also ensures that as new regulatory requirements emerge, Ather’s systems can adapt and evolve without major overhauls. Overcoming Transition Challenges Transitioning to a unified, AI-enabled digital platform was not without its challenges. Phokela highlighted that resistance to change was one of the biggest obstacles. “If it ain’t broken, why fix it? We already had a system, and it was working fine. The decision to proactively change something was a reasonably bold step,” he stated, emphasising the risks associated with data migration and system overhaul​. From a technical standpoint, developing a scalable and future-ready architecture requires careful planning, as Ather explained. The system needed to be flexible and adaptable to meet the evolving needs of Ather’s dealerships and customers. The complexity of dealer-managed systems also necessitated a solid data model with 40-50 data entities, ensuring that future business pivots would not be hindered by technological limitations. On future collaborations, Chowhan expressed optimism about empowering more businesses. “Agent force is what we call, is really the heart and center of what Salesforce is focusing on,” she said. She added that there is a global workforce shortage while it is in surplus in India, and yet many are not employable. “So our focus right now is making sure that we can bridge that gap and get AI to help enable that next wave of growth as India focuses on being the third largest economy and really empowering that next wave,” Chowhan said.
“This is about unifying CRM, lead management, and DMS (dealer management system) into one scalable platform, enhancing the experience for both dealers and customers,” said Mankiran Chowhan, vice president of Salesforce India.
“This is about unifying CRM, lead management, and DMS (dealer management system) into one scalable platform, enhancing the experience for both dealers and customers,” said Mankiran Chowhan, vice president of Salesforce India.
["Ather", "Cloud", "CRM", "dealers", "EV"]
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["AI", "ML", "analytics", "Aim", "predictive analytics", "R", "Go", "Rust", "Scala", "Git"]
As a rare blend of engineering, MBA, and journalism degree, Vandana Nair brings a unique combination of technical know-how, business acumen, and storytelling skills to the table. Her insatiable curiosity for all things startups, businesses, and AI technologies ensures that there's always a fresh and insightful perspective to her reporting. She now hosts her tech segment 'Point Break' on AIM Tv.