Interviewee: Mr.Christian Schroeter, Vice President of Network Development of Mercedes-Benz (China) Ltd

Interviewer: Mr. Willy Xie,Producer of China Finacial Review Network

X: At the presentation, you mentioned PIR (People in Retail) has already achieved remarkable achievement during last several years. Also, you mentioned that Mercedes-Benz is the first automotive brand to implement PIR program on dealership in China. Can you briefly give the overview of the PIR program starting from 2007 to now, what are the achievements by Mercedes-Benz?

谢: 您曾提及零售精英 (PIR) 项目在过去几年中已取得显著成绩。而且您还提到说梅赛德斯-奔驰是中国第一个实施经销商PIR项目的汽车品牌。那么，您能简要概述一下2007年至今 PIR项目的实施情况吗？梅赛德斯-奔驰已经取得了哪些成绩？

CS: We are the fastest growing luxury brand right now in the Chinese market. We all know it only grows, it can only work with the right people, if we have the right people, and retain the right people in our dealerships. Therefore, we have decided, back in 2007, to set up People in Retail program as strategic program. We also know that we have the most comprehensive program for People in Retail in the automobile business right now. The question is, how did we do it? We said, first, we must understand what is important for the People in the Retail outlet that are working there, and we need to understand how we can retain them there. Therefore, we started with very scientific research on satisfaction, what is the meaning of satisfaction for the staff in the retail outlet. We have identified four factors: it is about comfort, it is about fairness, team and brand. We said with these four factors, we can measure satisfaction and we are able to measure this down to every individual dealer. We have a picture about every individual dealer. We can give this feedback to the dealer. How does it exactly look like in your organization?. Furthermore, we also said, besides the employee, there are different requirements on satisfaction on the management level. Therefore, we said we have to have specific management satisfaction index, which is targeting on the management level below the general management level of the dealership. And last, but not the least, we also have so-called dealer satisfaction index. This is where we specifically ask the general manager of the dealership about his satisfaction and business. So, these services together already are able to give us very comprehensive picture about the situation of the individual dealership. Secondly, we said based on this, the next step, we also need to know what is the best practice on all kind of HR issues, not only in the automotive industry, but we also should widen our horizon, and looking into other areas. We have set up a benchmark survey, so that we know what others are doing. We have started to develop HR or People in Retail tool kit, where we are covering several areas, starting on how to recruit people, how to retain people, how to train people, what are the rules and responsibilities for HR manager?. So, this was are our initial stage, how we kicked off People in Retail program, and this is also what we have introduced last year in our very first PIR conference. After the conference, we started very comprehensive training program with several training modules for the HR managers. So, we clearly defined the roles and responsibilities for the HR manager. In the dealership, we give training on this, but also we also give training on how to use all the tool kit. We give special training on how to do the recruitment, how to do the interviews. And in parallel, as Mercedes-Benz China we stated to work on the next big milestone in, the People in Retail program is the HR infrastructure, then you can consider it is like pyramid. The basic is the organization structure, so we develop the organization structure, we distinguish the sizes of the dealerships. Next comes the job description, so we have identified 72 different jobs in dealerships. For every single job, we have worked out a very comprehensive job description. The next level on this pyramid was the grading structure, because you have different levels according to hierarchy, how can  you compare all the different levels in dealership. We then, started also with remuneration and on the top, this is where we have this year special remuneration and career path. What is very important for me to emphasize, is that all our dealers are legally independent, they are their own entities, so we don’t have the intention to indoctrinate the dealer, that is the way to do it. Our intention is have the cooperation with them. We will help you, we will consult you, we develop these tools, whatever questions you have; we want to do it with you together, but as suggestions. I am very happy that I can say from the feedback and through talks with the dealers the People in Retail program is most welcome by all of our dealers. And the dealers are coming back to us, talking to my organization, and said we are really happy with this program, please continue, help us more, we really need your support, and we really appreciate that Mercedes-Benz is giving us so much support on this area.

施: 目前我们是中国市场上发展最快的豪华品牌。我们都知道，如果我们的经销商拥有合适的人员，并且能够留住合适的人员，这一品牌就必定能迅速发展，而且只有正确的人员才能使其发展。因此，早在2007年，我们就已经决定将零售精英项目设定为一项战略性项目。我们还知道，目前我们拥有中国汽车业最为全面的零售精英项目。问题在于我们是怎样做的？首先，我们必须了解在零售渠道工作的零售精英们所看重的东西，而且我们必须了解我们如何才能留住他们。因而，我们首先从对满意度的科学调研着手，零售渠道员工满意度的含义是什么？我们确定了四种因素，即舒适、公平、团队和品牌。有了这四种因素，我们就可以衡量满意度，就能够对每一家单独的经销商进行评价。所以我们了解所有经销商的情况。我们可以将其反馈给经销商。它在您的组织里到底是怎样的？此外，我们还知道，除了员工以外，在管理层面上对于满意度也有不同的要求。因此，我们必须设定具体的管理满意度指数，这主要是针对经销商总体管理层面之下的管理层面。最后还有非常重要的一点，我们还设定了所谓的经销商满意度指数。通过这一指数，我们特意要询问经销商总经理的满意度如何，对业务的看法如何。所以，这些服务汇聚起来，已经足以使我们掌握个别经销商非常全面的情况。其次，根据这一情况，我们接下来还必须知道什么是各种人力资源问题的最佳实践，不仅仅是在汽车行业，我们还应该拓宽我们的视野，关注其它领域。我们已经提出要进行一项基准调查，以了解其它同行在干什么。我们已经开始开发人力资源或零售精英管理工具箱，它涵盖了多个领域，从如何招募人员、如何留住人员、如何培训人员入手，什么是人力资源经理的规则和职责？所以，这是我们的初始阶段，我们如何启动零售精英项目；这也是我们在去年第一次零售精英大会所介绍的内容。那次会议之后，我们就面向人力资源经理实施了由多个培训模块组成的、非常全面的培训项目。因而，我们清晰界定了人力资源经理的角色和职责。就经销商而言，我们也进行了关于这一方面的培训，而且还就如何使用所有工具箱进行了培训。我们就如何开展招募和面试工作进行了特殊培训。同时，作为梅赛德斯-奔驰（中国）有限公司，我们开始从事下一项重要工作，零售精英项目是人力资源基础设施，那么您可以将其视为如同金字塔。组织架构是基础，因此我们就开发了相关组织架构，对经销商规模进行了甄别。接下来是职位描述，我们已经确定了经销商72种不同的工作职位。对于每一项单独的职位而言，我们都制订了非常全面的职位描述。这一金字塔的下一个级别是职等架构，因为你有不同的层级水平，那么你是如何比较经销商所有不同水平的？那么，我们也是从报酬开始着手，顶部是本年特殊报酬及职业路径。我需要强调的非常重要的一点是，我们所有的经销商在法律上都是独立的实体，因此我们没有向经销商进行灌输的意图，这就是我们工作的方式。我们的目的是和他们建立合作关系。我们将帮助你，我们将为你提供咨询，我们开发了这些工具，无论你有什么样的问题，我们希望能和你一起完成，但是这些都是建议。我很高兴看到，从反馈的情况以及通过和经销商进行会谈看来，零售精英项目受到了所有经销商的一致欢迎。而且有些经销商还找到我们，和我们的机构进行会谈，表示其对这一计划非常高兴，请求我们继续为他们提供更多帮助，认为确实需要我们的支持，并非常感谢梅赛德斯-奔驰在该领域为其提供了大量支持。

X: apart from PIR program, what are other supports Mercedes-Benz give to their dealers?

谢: 除了零售精英项目外，梅赛德斯-奔驰还为经销商提供了什么支持？

CS: Mercedes-Benz is giving several kinds of support to the dealerships. I am also proud to tell you now, outside Germany, the biggest Mercedes-Benz training organizations. We have training centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and in Hong Kong. We will also open up one in Chongqing and we are intending to set up next one in Xian. We will provide more than 50,000 men with training, which is huge of amount of training. Besides, we also give on site support. So we have retail consulting team for after-sales and we have another consulting team for sales. These consulting teams are going on site to a dealer to see exactly what the situation is in this dealership, and they are consulting and then they work out together with the dealer measurements, working out the recommendation on how you can change your process of business to become even more successful. We are also giving regularly ongoing training to our own organization, to our field staff, to the people who are facing the dealers. So, that they  with their daily visits and  contact with their dealer, are permanently able to help, to support the dealer, to improve his business.

CS: 梅赛德斯-奔驰正在为经销商提供多种支持。现在，我也可以非常自豪地告诉你，在德国之外，梅赛德斯-奔驰还有哪些规模最大的培训机构。我们在北京、上海、广州和香港均设有培训中心，我们还将在重庆设立一家培训中心，并拟在西安设立另一家。我们将提供超过50,000人次的培训，培训量巨大。此外，我们还提供现场支持。因此，我们设立有零售咨询团队协助经销商售后服务，并设立有另一个团队为经销商做销售咨询服务。这些咨询团队均将奔赴各经销商现场，观察相关经销商的实际情形到底如何，他们将提供咨询服务，然后和经销商一起进行评价，提出你应如何变更你的业务流程、获取更多成功的建议。我们还会定期为我们自己的机构、我们的现场员工以及面对经销商的工作人员提供培训。因此，凭借他们的日常走访以及和经销商的联系，他们将始终能够为经销商提供帮助和支持，以改进其业务。