goingplacesmagazine.com
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32
| August 2019- The electric or EQ cars
2 & 4. The dream cars - The GLC 300 Coupé and GLE 450 SUVs
Mercedes-Benz has always been synonymous
with luxury and exclusivity, but in my view that
wasn’t enough. It needed to be more than that.
Our task was to rejuvenate the brand without
pushing away our loyal customers, and finding
that balance is obviously a challenge.
IN PROFILE | Mark Raine
communication, activations and engagement.
The third one is what I call best customer
experience, and that includes our dealer
network, all our touchpoints, the digitalisation
of the brand, the customer journey and
obviously, the sales aspect of it.
The product portfolio was fairly thin when I
arrived in Malaysia in 2014. In 2014, we sold
6,932 cars. In 2015, we sold 10,845 cars, out of
which 27 were SUVs because we didn’t actually
offer this in the market. In 2016, we sold 1,800
SUVs, and last year, we sold 2,600 SUVs out of
a total of more than 13,000 cars. So, that has
been essential in terms of our growth story.
I think the key decisive moment, to a certain
degree, was the decision I took to dissect the
portfolio into four product segments, which is
compact cars, limousines, SUVs and the dream
cars, because that allowed us to curate the
tonality according to the individual product
groups and the target customer segment.
Mercedes-Benz has always been synonymous
with luxury and exclusivity, but in my view
that wasn’t enough. It needed to be more than
that. Our task was to rejuvenate the brand
without pushing away our loyal customers, and
finding that balance is obviously a challenge.
The tonality for our compact cars is more
progressive, edgy and youthful, and this is
reflected in the activities that we do. If you
compare that to what we do with the SUVs,
which is about pursuing an active lifestyle,
this again differentiates what we do in the
limousine segment; for instance, if you look
at the launch of the S-Class family in August
last year, it was very grand and exclusive. That
has to be my favourite launch because it was
the most challenging. The expectation towards
what we do for our S-Class is so high because
that’s our pinnacle of luxury (cars). Changing
that perception to make the Mercedes-Benz
brand more progressive and more desirable
while retaining its luxury and exclusivity was a
huge task.
There has been a number of new launches
in recent years that have really appealed to
millennials. Was the intention to capture a
younger generation of buyers?
Yes, on the one hand, but also the customer
mindset is changing. Nowadays, if you’re
in your 40s and 50s, you don’t want to be
considered as old. Most people in that age
bracket still live a very active lifestyle. I have
many friends who are in their 40s and 50s who
go running and cycling with me. But if I look at
my grandparents’ time, if you are 50, you are,
not stone age, but you are old! There is also
that “young at heart” factor. I mean, we capture
a lot of young customers, but we also needed
to make the brand more edgy and youthful in
order to appeal to the older generation. I don’t
like any segmentation by ethnicity, gender or
age. For me, it’s the mindset, the attitude and
the lifestyle that determine the perfect match
(car) for the person.
Is this going to be the company’s strategy
in the next 2-3 years?
What we always try to be is agile and flexible,
never be dogmatic because the environment
we live in is so fast-moving and changing. You
always need to be at the forefront of future
development, for instance, the introduction of
the GLC coupé as locally produced cars. The
Malaysian market has come from a traditional
three-box limousine sedan market. It has
progressed a lot in that a lot of SUVs are being
driven, and I think the next big thing is the
crossover segment. It’s a combination of the
usability of the SUV with something which is
more design oriented, more visually appealing
like a coupé.
Having a lot of new cars to launch is very
important, but the investment into the after-
sales facilities and into the dealer network to
provide the promise of first-class service is
also very important. We have invested a lot
into training and into our people to ensure
that we have the human capital to deliver
on that promise. Also, our sister company,
Mercedes-Benz Financial, has looked at new
ways and means in terms of financing and our
leasing products. Driving, developing, exploring,
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_Aug 2019_InProfile.indd 32 18/07/2019 11:38 AM