BMW - Car Company



BMW - Car Company

Introduction

Automobile companies, in this competitive era, struggle for cost management, production and higher revenues. Volkswagen, GM and Ford use similar components for designing their cars whereas in contrast, it is only BMW that has successfully managed to bring up maximum revenues as compared to its competitors.

This essay will discuss the company's winning factors and strategic plans that help in maintaining its market share despite being expensive. The BMW Group is operating with 29 production and assembly plants, 43 sales subsidiaries and a research and development network. (BMW Group, 2012). Below is a brief historical review of the company that is necessary to understand before commenting on its performance.

Discussion

Change Moments at BMW

BMW is a giant producing premium products marking a new level of quality all over the world. BMW has been gone through major changes in their production facility, their work style, and in their products. The paper will discuss the major milestones, the changes in the structure and working style, their products and most importantly the change agents that were responsible for those changes. (Ramshøj Pløen, 2010)

Starting from its establishment, which was the first change that BMW actually gone through when in 1916 Flugmaschinenfabrik Gustav Otto company got merged with Bayerische Flugzeug-Werke AG (BFW) at the request of government.( BMW Group,2012). In 1917, the Rapp Motorenwerke Company got merged into Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW) GmbH, which was accordingly converted into a public limited company later in 1918. Another major change was the BMW emblem which was proudly displayed on every of its product. The emblem was objected to gives the company a new identification (Madlani and Ulvestad, 2012). In 1920, BMW's emblem marked its first advertising appearance as a rotating propeller. The change in the company name, brand name and in the emblem was due the company's acquisition along with the workforce and the facilities by the Knorr Bremse AG in 1920( BMW Group,2012). In 1922, BMW AG consequently transferred its construction operations for engines along with the brand and the company name. The year is also associated to the relocation and new beginning of the company (BMW Group, 2013).

BMW experience the diversification for the very first time in 1923 when it enters a new market segment and manufactured it first motorcycle. They tried to modify the technology by positioning the cylinder and shaft drives in longitudinal position.The biggest change that makes the company being recognized by the name of BMW was a next step of diversification, which was the construction of automobiles. The change factor was the acquisition of an automobile manufacturer namely Fahrzeugfabrik Eisenach.In 1934, the aero engine manufacture of Germany becomes autonomous after receiving a substantial financial amount from the government and for that BMW hived it aero engine division. In 1941, they expanded their BMW Plant Allach plant significantly for the aero-engines industrial production to facilitate their manufacturing. In 1939 The BMW AG was integrated by the merger of Spandau plant and by taking over the ...