Patience, communication and perseverance are a few of the many skills that come from mastering kickboxing and karate.
Marc Llistosella, well-trained in both, draws inspiration from these two ancient martial art forms in his work, too --like when he convinced his Daimler bosses in Stuttgart, Germany, to stay invested in India if they ever wished to become a sizable player in the world’s second-largest truck and bus market, where four out of every five vehicles sold were made by either Tata Motors or Ashok Leyland.
Llistosella (pronounced List-osay-a), who was the brainchild behind the birth of Daimler’s seventh global auto brand, BharatBenz, will become the Managing Director and CEO of Tata Motors, the very company he had been fighting against when he headed Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV) for six years.
Llistosella will take over from Guenter Butschek, whose five-year term gets over by the end of February, from July 1. Butschek, the former Airbus executive, who had been working from Austria since the lockdown started, moves to Germany for unspecified personal reasons.
Llistosella is the second senior appointment at Tata Motors (after Thierry Bollore, CEO of Jaguar Land Rover) under the chairmanship of N Chandrsekaran. who is also the chairman of Tata Sons. And Llistosella is raring to go once again.
“I am delighted to become a part of the unique Tata family. Having been bonded to India for so many years, a new exciting chapter is now opened. We would jointly awaken the potential of Tata Motors,” his brief press statement said.
Llistosella, an automotive expert, completed his education in economics, marketing and sales from the University of Cologne (Germany). He is currently on the board of Swedish transport company Einride, specialising in electric and self-driving vehicles.
Prior to that, he was associated for a long time with Daimler Trucks. He was President and CEO of Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corp during 2015-2018. He was also the head of Daimler Trucks Asia.
At Fuso, he led over 15,000 employees and monitored the production of 170,000 vehicles a year, clocking annual revenues of over $7 billion, until 2018.
India stint
Besides the launch of the new brand, under Llistosella, Daimler saw the setting up of a research and development (R&D) unit as well as a truck and bus manufacturing unit near Chennai for an overall investment of Rs 4,400 crore. DICV launched its highly localised trucks in India in 2012, two years before Llistosella called it quits, but not before he firmly established the BharatBenz brand in India. By end of 2014, DICV had become the third-largest CV company in the segments it was present in – the medium- and heavy-duty segments – with a share of 5 percent.
Priorities at Tata Motors
While Tata Motors’ passenger vehicle (PV) division has been on song since the past six months with dealers running short of stocks and buyers being made to wait for up to eight weeks, it’s the CV division that needs Llistosella’s attention.
Tata Motors’ CV sales during April 2020-January 2021 crashed 38 percent to 189,195 units, compared to the same period a year ago. The CV division is twice more profitable for Tata Motors than its PV division. Even after a 79 percent jump in revenues during the December quarter to Rs 5,000 crore, the PV division recorded an EBITDA of only 3.8 percent, whereas the CV division posted revenues of Rs 9,600 crore, an increase of 21 percent but a superior EBITDA of 8 percent.
Llistosella’s focus will be to disallow any further slippage in CV market share. From 45 percent in FY19, Tata Motors’ market share in the CV segment in FY21 (December-end) stood at 38.9 percent, which is the lowest in at least five years. Mahindra & Mahindra, VE Commercial Vehicles and DICV have steadily chipped away Tata Motors’ share over the years.
Like all CV players, Tata Motors is also hoping to benefit from the scrappage scheme rolled out by the government which could give financial incentives to owners of CVs aged more than 15 years, encouraging them to go for a replacement. The worry is less for the PV division, which is being hived off to accommodate a suitable long-term partner.
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