TheScuderia.net - Luca di Tough At The Top

Luca di - Tough At The Top

Surrounded by so many corporate failures, any successful chief executive could be forgiven for relishing his position. Yet Luca di Montezemolo, the chairman of Ferrari, was seriously thinking of quitting last year. Ferrari's Formula One triumphs after 21 years in the motor racing doldrums have made Mr Montezemolo something of a national hero. Silvio Berlusconi, the rightwing media tycoon, even tried (unsuccessfully) to recruit him to his future cabinet the week before winning last year's general election.

He has become a corporate hero at Fiat, the country's largest manufacturing group, which controls Ferrari through a 90 per cent stake. Ferrari has just reported record profits and annual sales topping the Euros 1bn (Pounds 600m) mark for the first time, making the cult sports and racing cars company one of the few bright spots in Fiat's otherwise struggling automotive businesses. Fiat is now considering floating the company as part of its strategy of reducing its debts.

But success is stressful, Mr Montezemolo says. Waving a red Ferrari pencil and gazing at the tropical fish tank in his elegant office, he says he was overwhelmed by doubt last year. "When you have won everything you only risk losing," he says, adding that "Enzo Ferrari (the company's late founder) once told me that everywhere, particularly in Italy, everybody will forgive you everything except success". It is a lesson he has not forgotten. "So I try to do my best, with passion, but sometimes I feel tired," he admits.

The 54-year-old's doubts about staying on at Ferrari were short-lived. It did not take much for Giovanni Agnelli, the Fiat family patriarch with whom he is always in close touch, to persuade him to continue. But what convinced him even more, he says, was the letter he received from 400 of his 2,000 employees the day after Mr Berlusconi announced he was offering him a cabinet post as industry minister. They urged him not to leave Ferrari. "It was the best day in my career," he recalls.

For all his maverick personality, Mr Montezemolo is a team player. Part of the secret of his success at Ferrari has been his ability to build a sense of deep commitment both in the company's racing activities and its sports car manufacturing operations. This loyalty extends to Michael Schumacher, the F1 champion and one of the world's highest paid professional sportsmen, who is signed up to race for three more seasons with the Scuderia Ferrari. He remains cautious, however. "Success is difficult to manage because you learn more from failure than success," says Mr Montezemolo. "You also have to remain humble because there is always a danger that a problem is lurking around the corner," he adds.

Mr Montezemolo is not afraid of sounding corny. Every employee who joins Ferrari receives from the chairman a poem printed on a card sporting the familiar Ferrari horse logo. "The real secret of success is enthusiasm," it starts. "Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes rise to the stars. Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eye, it is the swing in your gait, the grip of your hand . . ."it goes on. "Enthusiasm is at the bottom of all progress. With it there is accomplishment. Without it there are only alibis," it ends.

But enthusiasm is only the starting point of Mr Montezemolo's management recipe. "It may be stating the obvious, but there are three key elements behind a successful company: manpower, product and clients," he explains.

He has overhauled the company's products. Since taking over in 1993, he has completely renewed the Ferrari sports car range. "We made a big effort to show the innovative technology we put in our cars: we were the first to introduce a F1 gearbox in a commercial car; the first to apply the aerodynamic approach used in F1; the first to build an all composite car like in F1." Demand for Ferraris has continued to grow.

"There is a 2 1/2-year waiting list for Ferraris in the US where we sold a record 1,220 cars last year despite the economic slowdown and the September 11 events," says Mr Montezemolo. In 1993, Ferrari sold 2,366 cars. Last year it sold 4,256 cars. It could sell many more, Mr Montezemolo says, but he has capped sales at 4,200-4,300 cars a year to maintain exclusivity. At the same time, the company is reviving the Maserati brand it took over five years ago. "We shut down the Maserati factory for six months and relaunched the marque with new models." The gamble is paying off. Maserati sold 1,767 cars last year compared with only 626 in 1998, the year of the relaunch. He expects to sell 3,500 Maseratis this year with the number rising to 6,000 by 2004.

He is paying equal attention to the manpower element of his management equation. Mr Montezemolo says he is dedicating this year to making Ferrari "the number one company in the world in terms of quality of life inside the factory". Ferrari already builds virtually everything in house - from the engines to the leather interior fittings - at its spotless facilities in Maranello, a small town in the rich central farming region between Bologna and Modena.

"From this summer we will show that we are the most advanced car manufacturer in terms of ecology, environment and innovation inside the factory. We have spent three years of deep benchmarking with the best in this area: Volvo, Porsche, Toyota. I strongly believe that if you want the best product, you need the best organisation and people and you must put people in the best condition to work," he explains.

A new Euros 70m engine plant has just been completed. Inside, the latest robots and machine tools share the wide and airy facility with olive and lemon trees and little green lawns. "Some people asked me what on earth I was doing planting trees inside a factory. I told them that life inside a factory should be like the outside world: light and green," Mr Montezemolo says. The company is now about to build a new Euros 45m paint shop.

Mr Montezemolo is already looking further ahead. He is considering developing a third leg to the company's two core businesses of sports cars and racing by pushing it into entertainment and retailing. If Fiat decides to float Ferrari on the stock market, he hopes this will release funds to develop new racing activities for Maserati as well as developing Ferrari theme parks related to its racing and car manufacturing.

Ferrari has millions of fans and is one of the top-10 most recognised brands in the world, according to numerous marketing surveys. It already licenses a wide range of products from watches to clothes, to computer games and pencils. "This year we will earn Euros 18m from royalties without even really trying," says Mr Montezemolo.

The potential to exploit the brand is enormous. This month Mr Montezemolo, who recently joined the board of the French retailing and luxury products group Pinault-Printemps-Redoute, opened a Ferrari store outside his factory in Maranello. He is planning similar stores in New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, London, Paris and Germany.

All this suggests that Mr Montezemolo, for all his occasional angst, is glued to the Ferrari driving seat. And although he would never admit it, continued success in F1 racing is probably the least of his worries. Mr Montezemolo sells Italian lifestyle at its best. Even when Ferrari was struggling in F1, it was still the most popular car on the circuit. "It's all about image. That's what I sell," he says. Many would argue that selling the Ferrari image when the going was rough was Mr Montezemolo's biggest success".