Mercedes-Benz India started its ‘year of excellence' strategy with the launch of a product that it believes epitomises excellence of a luxury motoring and sets new benchmark - the new S-Class. How many more new models is the company planning to launch in 2014 in India? "We will be launching about 10 new cars in 2014 and most of these will be in the top of the pyramid. We will be launching products across segments thus giving our customers a lot of fascination and options to choose from. We also will be focusing on our performance brand AMG a lot more in 2014."

While Mercedes-Benz has already sold-out the first allocation of the new launch, the delivery will happen only in April. Obviously, reducing the waiting period for cars will be a key focus area for Kern. "We faced the challenge of long waiting period for most of our products launched as these had high customer traction. The M-Class, GL-Class, A-Class were in waiting period and the time for these varied depending on markets.

However, we were in talk with our HQ for additional allocations of kits and we are successful in reducing the waiting period for our products. We are also operating full steam our production facility currently." (And by the way, the HQ is equally busy. For the third year in row, notwithstanding a market slump in Europe and still to gather steam US market, Mercedes-Benz has increased its total production output, according to press statement).

Coming back to the role of the facility at Chakan in India, Kern reiterates that it is a benchmark facility within the Daimler world and that has been pivotal in the company's success since inception. The Rs850 crore facility is also the only luxury car manufacturing facility boasting of an in-house state-of-the-art paint house that has been operational since Oct-2012.