WITH THE GENTLY rolling Visayan Sea and a blue sky with a puffy assemblage of clouds as backdrop, vehicles of Toyota and, for the first time, Lexus, are proudly displayed on the fine white-sand beach fronting Kandaya Resort in Daanbantayan, Cebu.
Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. Senior Vice-President for Marketing Sherwin Chua Lim speaks at Road Trek 19. — PHOTO BY KAP MACEDA AGUILAThe much-anticipated Toyota Land Cruiser FJ was a hit at the recent Philippine International Motor Show.
— PHOTO BY KAP MACEDA AGUILAWITH THE GENTLY rolling Visayan Sea and a blue sky with a puffy assemblage of clouds as backdrop, vehicles of Toyota and, for the first time, Lexus, are proudly displayed on the fine white-sand beach fronting Kandaya Resort in Daanbantayan, Cebu. It’s the second day of Road Trek 19, an annual out-of-town activity of Toyota Motor Philippines Corp. with members of the media and content creators showcasing current or new models of the country’s leading auto marque.
We sit down with TMP Senior Vice-President Sherwin Chua Lim for a one-on-one chat. The night before, TMP Executive Vice-President Jose Ma.
“Jing” Atienza had announced a change in both their roles. Mr. Atienza, who is also the president of the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines, Inc. , now wears an additional hat as TMP’s Chief Industry Officer. Sherwin, on the other hand, will get an expanded portfolio of responsibilities while retaining his SVP for Marketing post. He will now handle — in addition to sales and logistics — after-sales and value chain operations of the company.
After graduating from the De La Salle University where he majored in Business Management, Mr. Chua Lim joined TMP in April 1995. Sherwin has also been rotated into many roles in the company, a practice widely known to be in pursuit of the principle of, that immerses leaders in “frontline locations” to get a better contextual appreciation of what goes on.
“First, I was with Field Operations, so I handled dealers and the sales side of the dealers. Then, I was moved to Marketing, which handles promotion, advertising, and even PR work. After a few years, I was transferred to Dealer Development, handles the expansion of the dealer network and ensures that all our facilities are well-maintained and up to standards,” he shares.
The executive was also tasked to oversee the Customer Relations Department, then it was back to Vehicle Sales Operations which, he explains, also covers “product planning, sales planning, advertising, PR, dealer operations… It’s basically the whole of sales operations. ” Mr. Chua Lim also had a stint at the helm of two TMP-owned dealerships, Toyota Makati and Toyota Bicutan.
We talk about his career, the challenges and opportunities amid an increasingly electrified mobility landscape, how Toyota is approaching this “new normal,” and more. Velocity: I think TMP is unique in that the organization challenges you guys to keep learning through role rotations. What’s your take on that? How has it benefited your career?
Yeah, to be honest, looking back, I was with sales operations from the day I started in TMP, and for 15 years I was really locked in and was doing the same thing over and over again. It was a fun job, that’s why I loved it. When a change was offered to me, I was thinking, why do you have to change my role?
I mean, I’m doing well, I’m having fun, in sales operation, you learn a lot, you don’t just focus on sales, since you’re talking directly to the dealers, you also learn some of their operations, after-sales and other stuff, and I said, “Why? But when they started rotating me, that’s where I learned that it’s not enough to just be in one role and say you know everything.
There are connections in the operations, like you can’t have a successful sales operation without a strong dealer network. You can’t have a good sales operation if your customer relations is weak, so you can connect all of those, and you know it needs that support in the end to really achieve a successful business. Yes. It shouldn’t be just about telling the dealers to do this or that.
You have to understand the whole operations before you can really say that you need something as support. It is important that you have this strong back room of manpower or support to really achieve a successful sales operation. It’s not about only expanding your knowledge but understanding the whole business. MP has introduced several cars so far this year, first disclosed in January.
Tradition would be to keep cards close to your chest. So, what was that about? What was the reasoning or the rationale behind revealing everything at the start of the year? The Land Cruiser FJ, the RAV4… these were already being talked about by a lot of people.
So we thought we might as well just announce them at the press conference before the media thanksgiving party. During that time of the year, the market was a bit down, so we needed something to spark it up — you know, get people excited. I think was one way of perking up the market interest, and to help the industry also.
Despite the issues that happened toward the second half of last year, Toyota was continuing to provide new models. I think it was a good move. Also, the models we launched did not really have a direct effect on our existing models. How would you describe the public reception to these models at the Philippine International Motor Show ?
We are so happy with the outcome when we showcased the models at PIMS. There was a lot of interest, and it was also an opportunity for us to listen to the voice of the customers. I even had the experience of sitting inside the Land Cruiser FJ, and then one customer went in trying to get a feel of the vehicle.
He was just talking to himself, commenting that it . I really felt positive about his comments. I don’t want to say “success” immediately; that will hopefully come when we launch this model.
Toyota has always been building cars to serve the needs of the market, and if you hear positive news or positive comments about the features of the car, the ride of the car, that what they need is inside that car already, I feel happy knowing that we’ve introduced something that the market really needs. Toyota continues to espouse a so-called multi-pathway toward carbon neutrality.
More recently, because of the US-Iran war, there was a significant uptick in demand for electrified vehicles. Can you share how TMP is approaching this development we can call the “new normal” as many are making their way toward electrified? The numbers show that there was rapid growth in electrified vehicle sales starting March, shortly after the war started and fuel prices were soaring.
Like you mentioned about the multi-pathway approach, a big portion of the market still has requirements for gasoline and diesel engines. Toyota, as I mentioned earlier, provides vehicles to serve the different needs of the market. We cannot say that only one technology will solve the problem of 100% of the market. That is where the multi-pathway approach comes in.
If we want to cater to the different needs of the market, we need different powertrains or different types of vehicles, and one of these are electrified vehicles. There is also a need for diesel engines. There are a lot of consumers who still feel they need diesel engines for utility. There are also lots of fuel-efficient gasoline vehicles at a much lower price, which makes them more attainable.
There’s that market in the Philippines, if I may say so. There are a lot of first-time car buyers; buyers that have limited financial means to purchase a higher-priced vehicle. Most of the electrified cars right now are priced higher than the entry-level ICE vehicles. In April, there was still actually continuous demand for the entry-level models that we have like the Wigo and Vios.
People need transportation, and if that’s where the budget fits, so they had to buy either of these models. As for electrified vehicles, we also experienced that growth, especially in the month of April, the height of the crisis, but 80% or even more of our sales is still comprised of ICEs. I’ve heard from other brands that they’re experiencing a shortage of electrified units due to the surge in demand. Is it the same for Toyota?
There’s a wait time. In the case of our battery electric vehicles, we weren’t really expecting to sell a lot of them. If you saw the CAMPI report, sales of BEVs weren’t as strong as hybrids, but during that time there was all of a sudden a big growth in the demand for electric vehicles. Of course, we have a production process so we can’t ask for double or triple the volume overnight.
We sold out all our BEVs and even hybrids. It will take time for us to replenish that, which will happen. Chinese brands are coming in, but the good news for Toyota is that you seem to be holding steady at number one and are keeping your significant market share. Did you adopt a different strategy because of the market these days?
What’s the mindset like? We’re not changing our strategy, like I mentioned earlier. Toyota has always been providing based on what the market needs. This time, if there’s growth in electrified vehicles, of course, we will do our best to cater to that market requirement.
But again, since a big chunk of the market still is into ICE vehicles — whether gas or diesel variants — we will still have to serve that segment also. Simply put, we need to have products that the market requires, so we’re not changing our strategy. We are anticipating the resumption of the Toyota Gazoo Racing Philippine Cup. Can you tell us more about that?
Can you share with us how it’s sort of evolving? What’s new about this is we are taking this opportunity to make the race become a rolling laboratory of Toyota. We will be testing the B5 coco-biodiesel and E20 bio-ethanol blend.
Although it’s not requested or required from us by the government, we’d like to do our share by testing these fuels, so maybe we can start preparing ourselves in case there’s a similar spike in traditional fossil fuels in the future. These biofuels are also low in carbon.
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