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Saying “No” to dawdling
Smiling and energetic as usual, Michael Peng looked almost exactly the same as how I remembered him from our last meeting, except perhaps his graying hair.
“I got most of my gray hair from Aston Martin.” It was a joke, but it also spoke for the sheer amount of hard work put in by Michael Peng over the past two years or so.
“This is for you.” At 5.30 pm, the secretary handed over an ice cream to Michael Peng who was wondering around in the office, knowing well that whenever he started looking everywhere for food near the end of the workday , it must be because he skipped lunch again for being too busy.
This has been such a familiar sight in the office over the past more than two years that it’s also become part of Michael Peng’s everyday life. Being as important as the President, he treats himself the same as a common employee, trying to stay attuned to work and create value for Aston Martin all the time.
But the biggest hurdle is not how busy and straining the job is. For a brand of a limited size, resource constraint is the “deadliest”. Since his first day in Aston Martin, Michael Peng has been pressing for more resources from the headquarter in many aspects, such as finance, personnel and product, in an effort to beef up market confidence in the company and put its future growth on better footing.
Following DB11’s debut in the Chinese market at the end of last year, Aston Martin also plans to bring in V8 engine-equipped DB11, the new Vantage model and even DB11 convertible. This is in addition to Aston Martin’s DBX, one motor home model and one three-box sedan model set to enter China in 2019 and 2020.
One big challenge for Michael Peng shortly after taking office was the unsold car inventory. To shake off this major historical burden, he acquired the massive funds needed for producers to subsidize dealers for every car sold from the inventory by the amount of tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands. By the end of last year, Aston Martin no longer had hundreds of unsold cars in China, with marked improvements in sales performance.
“We have received enough orders for DB11 to complete this year’s task.”We are less than one third through 2017 and yet the sales task of the new model launched in the Chinese market last year has been over-fulfilled, with over 100 Aston Martin cars delivered in the first quarter, nearly tripling the amount of the same period last year, and most dealers reporting profits.
Having unloaded the unsold car inventory, Michael Peng now has a new worry and, that is, whether the market is getting too “hot”, so much as that even cars for display and test-drive have been sold by dealers. Unable to check the exhibition halls every week, he asked 15 dealers to send him photos every week to show if the displayed cars are still there.
“It used to be me chasing inventors. Now it’s the other way around.” Today’s Michael Peng couldn’t even have a meal “without being disturbed”; still less afford the luxury of lazing around.[detail]
 Michael Peng
Michael Peng took office as President of Aston Martin Lagonda China on Feb. 1st 2015, assuming operational responsibility for all aspects of the Aston Martin China business. Born in Shanghai in April 1964 and an Engineering and Industrial Management major graduate from Tongji University, Michael Peng has gained a rich insight into the automotive industry home and abroad from his 24-year career. Joining BMW AG’s reserve talent program in 1993, he has since taken several posts, including BMW Overseas Region Sales Management and Strategic Planning Manager, BMW Asia Regional Manager of Singapore Office and BMW China Market Strategy Manager. In February 2008, he began working for Porsche China as Sales Director for the China Region before reassignment as the PR Director.
?Michael?Peng
Movies

Movies

Starting as a popular entertainment product in the 19th Century’s America where living standard soared, movies are a comprehensive modern art and, as it is, has a sophisticated system. Instead of watching movies at home, Michael Peng prefers going to the cinema because of the socially interactive and sharing touch to it. It could be argued that he is interested in not so much the movie as the bonding.
New attempts in unknown areas
It is therefore fair to say that in many consumers’ mind, Aston Martin and 007 have since long ago been “packed” together.
To a certain extent, the 007 series was the making of the successful brand. It would’ve been easy to just rely on this to put Aston Martin on the map but Michael Peng didn’t want to “rest on” past laurels. “We won’t tie the brand to some image. 007 did play a part, there’s no denying that, and offers a good opportunity to expand Aston Martin’s business. But I hope the brand should be so much more than just standing behind 007.”
Strength, beauty and soul, this is what the Aston Martin’s brand is all about. Michael Peng believes that beauty is the roof of the brand’s house and historical roots, classic products and existing achievements are its pillars. What he and his team are doing is to highlight what is special about this brand by writing their own Chinese brand book.
One book naturally is not enough for creating more opportunity of reaching potential customers. At the end of last year, after the contract with the dealer’s shop on the Jinbao Street expired, one new idea came to Michael Peng’s mind.“We plan to turn the shop on the Jinbao Street into Aston Martin’s first global brand experience center.”
Team integration, inventory integration, dealer integration, and so on, for the past two years integration has been taken as the keyword in its development. In this and the following year, Michael Peng hopes to see Aston Martin entering the “take-off period” when quality improvement will be completed in such areas as dealer procedure management, operating standard, training and classification, and investor selection, all work designed to lay a more solid basis for the growth period expected for 2019.
“I believe Aston Martin’s brand will see significant growth in quantity in the growth period and hope to rise as the top 3, top 2 and even the top 1 player in the supercar market.” As the helm-holder of Aston Martin, naturally Michael Peng has high hopes for the company’s future. When will this goal become a reality? Perhaps the day is not far off.[detail]
 Michael Peng  Michael Peng
Golf

Golf

Golf, also known as the little white ball, is an outdoor sport where a ball is repeatedly struck from tee box until it gets into a hole. When he is free on the weekend, Michael Peng would invite friends, mostly manufacturers, dealers and investors, to play golf to get to know them better, something that couldn’t be done in the office.
精彩问答
  • 1

    Tencent Auto : What do you think of the fact that many people would tie Aston Martin with 007?

    Michael Peng : We do not deny the influence 007 has on Aston Martin as a brand but neither will we tie the two together. While hoping to introduce the brand to more people with the help of 007’s influence, we also expect there to be more to it than just a brand that’s behind 007.
  • 2

    Tencent Auto : How do you see Sales as a “KPI”?

    Michael Peng : Sales are a basic KPI for all dealers and therefore it would be a mistake to leave it out of their performance assessment. But that along is far from being enough because more important is whether a dealer is making enough profits to keep going.
  • 3

    Tencent Auto : How to understand the “Take-off period” Aston Martin is in now?

    Michael Peng : After the 2015-2016 period of consolidation, Aston Martin begins the 2017-2018 period of take-off, not in quantity but in quality, during which it prepares the ground for the growth period due in 2019 through dealer procedure management and operation standard re-updating, dealer support, training and classification, and investor selection.
  • 4

    Tencent Auto : What do you believe is new in Aston Martin’s publicity activities?

    Michael Peng : Aston Martin has entered a new phase of brand publicity when we need to extract and present new things. An ongoing experiment will see a brand experience center, revamped from a dealer shop in the Jinbao Street, host more boutiques, possibly painting exhibitions or brand awareness seminars, and use new media to enable exchanges with potential clients at a deeper level. If it works well, other countries could follow suit.

unchartered waters

Take-off period

rarity

aestheticism

change

feistiness

uniqueness

brand connotation

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  • 彭明山
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编者按
EDITOR'S NOTE
Those who know us well would know that Elite’s Talk is a series that comes in English and Chinese and therefore this edition can be half of previous ones because there is no English version. But instead of feeling compelled to end this “imperfection”, I am somewhat delighted. And the reason is simple. Because what makes Michael Peng “rare” is that he is a Chinese navigating Aston Martin perfectly through its transitional period while other imported brands, be it luxury or super-luxury, are invariably led in China by overseas employees sent by their headquarters. Obviously, Michael Peng cannot leave his work half-done. The next step for him would be to prepare Aston Martin well in the take-off period for the upcoming growth period. Plaint water may seem much lighter than coffee’s strong flavor, but Michael Peng prefers it perhaps because he enjoys biding his time for the eventual shining moment.
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