Members of the Sandy Springs-Perimeter Chamber of Commerce (www.sandyspringsperimeterchamber.com) and guests had a chance to sit down for a chat this week with Stephen Cannon, CEO of Mercedes-Benz USA, who recently moved his company’s corporate headquarters from New Jersey to Sandy Springs.  Cannon was the featured speaker for the October Chamber luncheon, but rather than take the podium, as is the norm for luncheon speakers, Cannon sat down with Jim Fitzpatrick, founder and CEO of CBT Automotive Network, for an informal Q&A, and took questions from the audience following the presentation.  The luncheon was attended by nearly 250 guests, including the mayors of Sandy Springs, Dunwoody and Brookhaven, and was co-sponsored by BB&T and CBT Automotive Network.

Cannon described his role as charting the course for the company, and investing in the people and the corporate culture to allow success to happen.  When asked about the decision to move corporate Mercedes-Benz USA’s corporate headquarters from the Northeast to the Southeast, Cannon admitted it was a challenging process.  “We were brainstorming ways to make the company more fit for the future, just as our aging headquarters building was coming to the end of its useful life.  That, coupled with the fact that many of our customers had migrated to the Southeast from other parts of the country, helped shape our decision to move.  Of course it was difficult to tell the employees they would be uprooted, and we ended up losing about 60 percent of our former workforce when we left New Jersey.”

“However, the good news,” he continued, “is that the move has become transformative for our company.  We have found a deep talent pool here and were able to bring on about 300 new employees relatively quickly.  This has given us the opportunity to take advantage of new ideas and skills to evolve Mercedes-Benz USA from what we were in our former location to what we wish to become in our new one.”

Cannon said he and his leadership team have set an “impossible goal” for the company.  “We want to be the best customer-care brand in the world.  Not just the best auto brand, but the best brand, period.  To begin, we focused on improving the car-buying experience and quickly realized the majority of our retail employees had never actually driven a Mercedes.  How can you expect to win the hearts and minds of your customers, if you haven’t first won the hearts and minds of your own people?  So, we launched a program allowing employees to take home a Mercedes for the weekend so they could experience that special feeling of driving a Mercedes.  We sent them to brand immersion programs where they learned about the company, drove the cars and toured factories.”

Cannon also spoke about reaching out to Millennials, asserting their generation will change buying behaviors.  “We must connect with them now.  We can’t wait for them to engage with our brand later in life.  So, we’ve created two new products geared towards entry-level luxury car buyers: the CLA-Class and GLA-Class.  Seventy percent of the buyers of these cars, priced around $30,000, have never purchased a Mercedes before.  These models have become an active entry point into the brand.”

Cannon said the move to Sandy Springs has brought the company a unique opportunity to plan for the future: the opportunity to design and build a headquarters building from scratch to support the culture he and his team are trying to create.  He wants to create a Town Hall concept with open floors, transparent walls and a focus on collaboration space versus individual space, with a move-in target date of the end of 2017.

He sees the branding of the new Falcons stadium as the Mercedes-Benz Stadium as a natural extension of the idea of collaboration.  “It’s a marketer’s dream,” he said.  “Arthur Blank is working to create an incredible fan experience at the new stadium, which matches our own customer focus.”

Cannon concluded his comments with high praise for his company’s new corporate home.  “Here in Sandy Springs, we have found a vibrant and supportive business community.  You have offered us your sincere efforts to help us settle in and have shown genuine interest.  I can’t thank you enough for how welcoming you’ve been.”