Mario Michelli: Yes, we adopt a substantially different business model, it’s actually closer to the one for high-end luxury goods. Traditionally, Ferrari has always had a gap between demand and the offer. This gap has changed in the years but it’s been always more demand than supply. The work of the whole Ferrari commercial team is about managing scarcity.

CB: How do you go about doing that?

MM: When demand goes up it’s very difficult for Ferrari to match it, as we are running at full capacity already. Another company would have built another factory but Ferrari will not accept making its cars in bigger numbers because there is a clear understanding that this would undermine one of the key values of the brand, which is exclusivity. To be exclusive you must maintain limited number of goods.

CB: How do you keep your clients happy in light of this?

MM: You can easily imagine that all our customers are people who have achieved great success in their respective fields. When they want something, they’re naturally very impatient to have it right away. We have customers who pay a deposit for and then have to wait years to get the cars, in a way it’s like buying super-premium wines, you know you cannot drink them for a number of years while they age in your cellar.

It’s part of our culture, part of the ownership experience, which can sometimes create frustration, and we have a deep respect for this. When the waiting period becomes too long, It becomes a risk to the relationship between Ferrari and a customer, especially if that customer is new to Ferrari and isn’t used to this sort of thing.

In our opinion, the waiting list should not go over 15 to 18 months for the eight cylinder cars and 9 to 12 months for the 12 cylinders. Today, with the enormous success of the F430, the waiting list is sky high.

In this situation you can either increase production or cool demand, we don’t want to slow down the demand as this is not the way a modern company with customer relationship as a key value of future success should behave. Once you buy into Ferrari you can’t just give up on it, there’s a huge amount of passion involved.

CB: Would you consider managing this passion to be your marketing approach?

MM: Well, our marketing approach is naturally very linked to the roots of the company and the brand, but the development is left to the local level. Today is a good example, as driving on the track is part of Ferrari’s DNA. We do provide guidelines for our distributors worldwide and every year we approve marketing activities. But what is important to us is to maintain consistency in brand values and
implementation at the local level.

CB: Speaking of consistency, are marketing activities the same for customers in China as they are here for example?

MM: No, they are not. The key values and principles are the same, but customer behaviour and expectations are substantially different from country to country. There are some common points and as a general rule we try to leverage on similarities as opposed to points of difference. Nevertheless, differences exist and they are to be respected and we rely on our importer network in this regard.

CB: What are some of the common points?

MM: One of the common points for the emerging markets in particular are younger customers, who have much less patience in waiting for their cars to be delivered! We also have customers who have more distinct levels of expectation, some want the cars for their sportiness, others for the excellence achieved in the product, the exclusivity, and the tailor-made nature of the cars.

CB: What is Ferrari’s current production volume?

MM: We expect to achieve another record year with roughly 5,000 cars. We have been steadily increasing production volume but this has been due to our presence in new markets. When you enter into a new market, like China, Russia and Hungary which we’ve recently done, you’ve got to make more cars available without taking production away from other markets.

CB: Does this mean that allocation for all your markets remains more or less the same?

MM: No. There is a very professional team of commercial people who manage the scarcity. There are plenty of people willing to pay for cars but you have to say no which is bad and inconvenient!

There is a sophisticated approach and a deep understanding of the trends present in all our markets. We approach allocation based on some key variables, one of these is the order book. The gap between demand and offer is a critical element of our business model. We’re not a volume driven business and if there is one Ferrari unsold then there is something wrong in the system and it is our fault.

CB: How does the recent decoupling with Maserati affect your product decisions or strategy?

MM: Maserati is now an independent entity from Ferrari but the core relationship hasn’t changed. We don’t see an overlap, or direct competition because the companies are so different
and we have different customers.

CB: There’s also been some talk about the revival of the Dino model, can you tell us a bit more about that?

MM: This old rumour came about when the split between Ferrari and Maserati was announced. Before Ferrari bought Maserati, three options were being considered, the first was to buy another brand, the second was to buy Maserati specifically, and the third was to expand the Ferrari range to include a more volume-based model, this was the Dino concept at that time, and when the news of the split came, this option resurfaced.

Our response is simply this; Ferrari does not exclude any option to serve our customers in a better way. But serving customers and offering them the best experience is not a volume driven game.