Fit To Lead | Mercedes-Benz India's Santosh Iyer enjoys table tennis more than going to a gym

Mercedes-Benz India's CEO and MD Santosh Iyer.

Note to readers: Fit to Lead is a series of interviews with business leaders on their approach to fitness, leadership and navigating the new normal.

Fourteen years in the same job is a lot and Santosh Iyer has spent that much time at Mercedes-Benz India. However, the 46-year-old managing director and CEO of Mercedes-Benz India has had an entire career, including an entrepreneurial stint in Nepal, before that. Iyer has lived across the country and worked for American, Japanese and European companies but he remains a boy from suburban Mumbai at heart. Iyer grew up in Mumbai’s essentially working-class northern suburb of Kandivali and relied on the local trains to get around the city for everything. He beams every time he talks about his days there and attributes his love for discipline, punctuality and a great sense of time to the local trains. “I had to be at the station on time to be able to get anywhere on time. Miss a train and the entire day would be impacted. It is these local trains that instilled the discipline and sharp sense of time in me, which have helped me throughout my career,” says Iyer, who even took his daughter and twins on the famous Mumbai local during one of his recent visits to the city.

Iyer understands the importance of being happy at work to be happy in personal life and believes that the reverse is also true. “I love my work and my family and I am happy in both which takes away the whole concept of work-life balance. What I am doing is living a balanced life,” he says. So, both at work and life, Iyer maintains that consistency is key rather than “taking big steps and falling back to old patterns very soon.”

Iyer knows well Mercedes-Benz is a luxury player in India, a country where this is a “nascent” category. Perhaps, that’s one reason why demand outstrips supply here at the moment and Iyer aims to address this pain point. In India, many potential customers shy away from luxury and premium cars because of the sheer size of the cars on Indian roads, which makes them difficult to park and handle, as well as huge maintenance costs. Iyer understands this well. “A white shirt starts from Rs 1,000 and can go up to lakhs of rupees. Some people don’t wear the white shirt thinking it’ll get dirty. But white is still one of the best business shirts. Now, one can find reasons to not wear a white shirt but if you have to be in your executive best then, maybe, a white shirt is the answer. It comes across price points. Similarly, for cars… luxury products are irrational in terms of consumption. If somebody wants it, s/he will find a reason to consume luxury. This applies to everything in luxury from cars to clothes and hotels. The justification for people who buy these products is different. So, it depends on individual perceptions,” he says.

Edited excerpts from an interview:

Santosh Iyer, MD and CEO, Mercedez-Benz India prefers playing Table Tennis to gymming.

Your fitness routine…

Every morning, I set aside 45 minutes for stretching and some breathing exercises. I try to have an early dinner around 7.30pm and then go for 4-5 km walk every evening.

Favourite fitness activity…

Table tennis. I enjoy it more than going to a gym, which to me feels like a compulsion to stay fit.

The toughest?

Trekking. It extracts the best out of me but I enjoy it as well. I find treks tough because I don’t do them regularly. An occasional activity really puts a toll on the body in the subsequent days.

The new normal for you…

Today, Mercedes-Benz functions in a completely hybrid model as most employees, apart from those engaged in key production and related functions, work only two days out of the office. This has created a work environment of mutual trust and motivated employees as we are all able to strike a life balance.

Has your fitness routine helped you navigate the uncertainties of recent times?

My job involves extensive travel. By following a strict diet and exercise regimen, I am able to manage my health in a much better way leading to increased productivity even while travelling.

Any leadership lessons in your fitness journey?

Consistency and discipline are the magic words in both leadership and fitness.

Has being fit helped you become a better leader?

No doubt about that. It has helped me to be more productive as well.

Your leadership style…

I like to lead with purpose. Leading by issuing directives is not something that gives you results. Instead, if you are able to explain the purpose, take people along in the same purpose and the goals are aligned, people deliver more than what one expects. Leading by purpose, ensuring that people are given responsibilities and not tasks… that’s how I try to manage. I am a people’s person, so I would say my strength lies not only in conceptualising strategy but also ensuring that the strategy is executed. This happens because of the core working relationships I have across all levels within and outside the organisation, including the dealer and supplier networks.

On work-life balance…

I don’t look at work-life balance but at a balanced life. If you love your work it’s a part of your life and a balanced life is all about doing things that you love — which includes family. So, I don’t look at work and life in separate buckets. I love my work as much as I love my family. The idea is
to strike the right balance and here you need to be fit to give time to both.

Santosh Iyer, MD and CEO, Mercedez-Benz India says a current pain point is that the demand for the luxury car is more than supply.

Goals and challenges for the next year…

We are at a juncture where the demand is much more than the supply. Trying to meet the customer expectations in terms of the supply side is one of the goals. Second, as a luxury brand, India is still at a nascent stage when it comes to luxury as a space — so how we meet customer expectations and how we differentiate ourselves will play a big role in moving away from being just an automotive player to becoming a luxury player. We will need to take our retail network along with us for that. We need to think and act like a luxury brand. We still have a lot of work to do in this area and I would say this is one of the biggest challenges that we have right now.