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.[
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