Managing the Waiting List
Current CEO at Ferrari, China
inpractise.com/articles/ferrari-waiting-list
Why is this interview interesting?
- How Ferrari can deal with the potential pressures to pull forward demand to drive volume
Giuseppe Cattaneo
Current CEO at Ferrari, China
Interview Transcript
Can I go back to the point you made that Ferrari will always sell one car less than the demand, to maintain that brand equity. How do you deal with that, as a manager, to not push your team and to be willing to really stay true to that? Keep the waiting list long, not pull demand forward and drive production. How do you deal with that and how does the culture deal with that?
I understand the nature of the question, because people tend to say, okay, we’ll sell more to have more profit and so on and so forth. But this is not our business. We work in a different way. The target of our salespeople is generating orders. It’s not generating sales. The sales will come one year later, the aftersales. Invoice, sales, P&L, profit. The order I’m doing now is 2021 P&L. Now I’m delivering cars that were sold between 12 and 24 months ago. My P&L is influenced by sales from two years ago. Our people know that the key issue for us is to let the client understand the product, explain the content very well and keep the level of desire very high. The rule of the game is to have the desire for the car. This is what the good salespeople of Ferrari should do.
Now Ferrari is a public company, do you think it will be tempted or pressured to pull demand forward and reduce the waiting list, now they have shareholders?
I don’t think so. On the contrary, you can go check, the company has an extremely high – it could be higher – performance. Our business model has proved to be consistent with the request of the shareholders. Honestly, I don’t know. It’s already been several years that we have been listed and, so far, the company is very consistent with the business model and the philosophy to sell one car less than the demand has never changed; nobody has even considered it. Maybe in the industry, yes, but we are not the only one in the world to sell forward. There are watches, sometimes, following the same approach. Even for some leather bags for women. There are several brands that follow this process. It’s not something unique.
Copyright Notice
This document may not be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means including resale of any part, unauthorised distribution to a third party or other electronic methods, without the prior written permission of IP 1 Ltd.
IP 1 Ltd, trading as In Practise (herein referred to as "IP") is a company registered in England and Wales and is not a registered investment advisor or broker-dealer, and is not licensed nor qualified to provide investment advice.
In Practise reserves all copyright, intellectual and other property rights in the Content. The information published in this transcript (“Content”) is for information purposes only and should not be used as the sole basis for making any investment decision. Information provided by IP is to be used as an educational tool and nothing in this Content shall be construed as an offer, recommendation or solicitation regarding any financial product, service or management of investments or securities.
© 2024 IP 1 Ltd. All rights reserved.