Ferrari bets on India as 'market of the future'

When Ferrari announced in 2021 that it was appointing as CEO Benedetto Vigna, a physicist and semiconductors veteran, who had never previously worked in the automotive or luxury industry, it was met with disbelief. The message was clear, though the job is to ready the Italian luxury sports marque, a byword for expensive fast cars that made a statement, for the era of new powertrains, and more AI and software inside cars than ever before.Transforming a successful company like Ferrari, with its intense aura of racing heritage and fandom around it, is among the toughest jobs in business management. It became evident when the company launched its first electric car, the Luce, in May to negative reactions around its design.Also read: Ferrari accelerates India expansion, opens doors to EU trade pact benefitsIn a conversation with Sruthijith KK for ET's The Quest podcast, Vigna says innovation cannot be driven by consensus, and that humans are uncomfortable with "everything that is diverse, everything that is new and the future". While India is a small market for Ferrari today, Vigna believes it is a market of the future for the carmaker. The Indian Ferrari buyer is among the youngest Ferrari buyers in the world.While legacy carmakers around the world are trying to gauge which technologies and powertrains to bet on for the future, Vigna says Ferrari has many horses in the race and will let the customer choose the powertrain. As someone who loves to drive in every country he visits, he says the transformation he has seen in India in the last 25 years is extraordinary. Edited excerpts:135416719Watch: Inside The Mind Steering Ferrari: CEO Benedetto Vigna on Innovation, India, Powertrains | The QuestIndia certainly has a lot of Ferrari fans but it's a small market for you. You sell 14,000-odd cars around the world of which you sell less than 100 in India. You are in India for the third time this year. What makes a CEO like you invest in a market of the future?I think one of the biggest responsibilities of a CEO is to pick the weak signals and to pick them on time. We have been investing in India for a while, I believe this is the time to push the accelerator because, on the one side, we have this free trade agreement that is going to be signed, and it will benefit the client. On the other side, we see more and more wealth generated in India. Here the age of the client is much lower, much younger. In a world that is becoming more and more digital, a CEO cannot rely on an AI agent, which can only tell what has been done. You need to be close to the people. You need to live the reality, to smell it, to breathe it.You went from a very successful semiconductor company, STMicroelectronics, to one of the world's most passionately followed companies-Ferrari. You are an outsider to the world of cars. How has this transition been?I believe we have only one life and we have to live it the best. Sometimes it is good to challenge yourself in a different field. Clearly, the two worlds-high tech and luxury-are different. But there is a common factor-people and the passion they put in the work. My biggest privilege has been to work with people who are passionate about what they are doing. In Ferrari, the passion is at a high level. It's very engaging because Ferrari is very experiential. You cannot experience a chip, but you can experience with all your senses the car.A company has three things-people, product and processes. At the centre, you have the people who make the product, following some processes. People are the most important thing. You have to understand the people working in the factory, in the company. You have to spend high-quality time with your client. You have to go around the market to pick up the culture. You have to use a helicopter. Because with a helicopter you go up and have a good view of the ground and then you go down to understand what is going on.I was in Florence earlier this year, and our tour guide told us: Italy truly comes together as a country only on two occasions-when the Italian football team is playing in the World Cup, or when Ferrari is racing. That is how important your company is. That means there are high expectations also. When you introduced the company's first electric car, the Ferrari Luce, earlier this year, the internet didn't exactly love it. But it's been a commercial success. It's sold out.Yeah.How did that episode play out for you?First, I would like to add something to what you said. It's true Ferrari is a kind of glue for all Italians, but I would go one step further. It is gluing people from different parts of the world. Coming back to Luce, three days before the launch, a friend and I wrote an article where I said, 'Innovation is never democratic. When you innovate, it's not easy for anyone to understand the essence of what you are doing. We had a lot of negative comments, but once we auctioned Ferrari Luce for $40 million for charity, a lot of the comments became positive…