Redefining the digital transformation of luxury BMW "proofing"

In the era of software-defined cars, the industry often uses "elephant turning around" to describe the digital transformation of traditional car companies. In the past 100 years, the product development of the automobile industry mainly focused on hardware. In today's digital global wave, how does BMW, a century-old luxury brand, seek transformation and upgrading?

65438+ 10 month 12, "2020? BMW China Digital Experience Media Communication Meeting was held online. President and CEO of BMW Group in Greater China, Senior Vice President of Electronics and Autopilot of BMW (China) Service Co., Ltd. Shen Keyuan, and President and CEO of Digital Information Technology Co., Ltd. Mei respectively interpreted BMW's "customer-centered" digital driving strategy in China from the perspectives of strategy, technology, products and planning, and let the industry see the "speed of elephant running".

Gao Le, President and CEO of BMW Group Greater China

Gao Le, president and CEO of BMW Group Greater China, said: "In the past, we defined luxury by design and product performance such as power output and turning speed, but now digitalization is becoming more and more important. Relevant data show that the degree of digitalization directly affects consumers' willingness to buy. It is foreseeable that the digital transformation has far-reaching significance for BMW. "

0 1

Grasp the initiative of digitalization

In the field of digitalization, BMW is the first luxury car brand to introduce the function and service of "connected driving" into China. This year, BMW will equip 500,000 cars around the world with the seventh-generation BMW? BMW cars equipped with iDrive intelligent human-computer interaction system have undergone remote software upgrade (OTA), among which there are more than 200,000 vehicles in China market. Gao Le said, "Few car companies can achieve such a large-scale car OTA".

But the OTA of the whole vehicle is not the whole connotation of automobile digitalization. According to Gao Le, digitalization has penetrated into BMW's R&D, manufacturing, car-end digital experience and customer journey with countless contact points, and its core is to create value for customers by using digital technology and innovative achievements. BMW's digital goal is to create a high-end brand experience that integrates inside and outside the car, online and offline, and end to end. In order to fully promote the digital strategy, in 20 19, BMW established Yue Ling Digital Information Technology Co., Ltd. in China, which is the first institution specialized in digital services among luxury car brands.

BMW recently launched My? The BMW application was jointly developed by the BMW R&D team, including Yue Ling. Although the concept of SAAS (software as a service, software as a service) is popular at present, BMW has not handed over the digital development work to suppliers. At the online communication meeting, when asked why BMW should spend a lot of money to independently develop software applications, Mei Xiaoqun said: "The digitalization of customer experience and business areas cannot be solved by standard products. Digital transformation is a closed loop for building business operations, IT systems and data capabilities. Zhang Pu, chairman of BMW Group, once said that BMW's core competitiveness is integration ability, so Yue Ling's core competence is to integrate business, systems and data. "

Mei Xiaoqun, President and CEO of Digital Information Technology Co., Ltd.

Mei Xiaoqun further explained that the customer-centered digital transformation ability is a kind of ability that needs to be internalized. BMW has invested a lot of manpower and financial resources in this respect.

Zipzer recently revealed that BMW will invest 30 billion euros in digitalization and electrification by 2025, which will focus on data infrastructure and software construction.

Shen Keyuan, Senior Vice President of Electronics, Electricity and Autopilot of BMW (China) Service Co., Ltd.

Regarding BMW's determination to carry out the digital revolution, Shen Keyuan believes, "BMW? IDrive human-computer interaction system has been upgraded to the seventh generation. Today, BMW has more than 654.38+04 million highly interconnected cars driving on the road, which clearly shows that digitalization is BMW's gene. "

02

Localization and reverse localization

When it comes to the digital development of BMW Group, "customer-centered" is the most frequently mentioned. In order to provide personalized digital services to every user, BMW has launched a brand-new application, My? BMW? App, in this application, every user will have his own BMW? Id card. MeiXiaoQun said, China is the only one for me? The market of BMW localization development, My? BMW has community, information, membership rights and online payment functions that domestic users are very familiar with. Among them, the three functions of community, membership and e-commerce are exclusive to China Edition, which are specially developed by the software developers of BMW China and Yue Ling teams for the needs of China users.

Mei Xiaoqun believes that the digital development of BMW in China is not simply "China", but a localized development based on the needs of users in China. Customized development, constantly tapping customers' diversified needs and application scenarios, and quickly landing are the core capabilities of Yue Ling and BMW's digitalization.

When talking about localization, Gao Le said, "In the past, our localization meant localizing foreign functions in China, but in the future we will' reverse localization'. In other words, more and more product functions will be developed in a digital team like China R&D Center or Yue Ling, and then applied to other parts of the BMW Group around the world. " . He said that users in China have a higher degree of acceptance of digitalization, and China is in a leading position in digital infrastructure construction. BMW should use the China market to enhance the global digital strength of the entire BMW Group.

03

Digital integration of online and offline services

The promotion of digitalization is inseparable from the upgrade of user experience, which BMW has always emphasized, and bringing consumers a brand-new luxury experience with digitalization. Although the digitalization of consumer behavior has become a current trend, consumers are more inclined to go to physical stores to experience it for themselves when buying high-end consumer goods such as cars. "We are upgrading the dealer network (the leading project of BMW network) to make the dealer store a brand experience center, not just a sales and trading center. At that time, consumers need to integrate online and offline experiences, which is exactly what we are trying to solve at present, "Gao Le said.

In the digital construction of retail network, Yue Ling will soon launch a brand-new "Spark" dealer operation platform. Improve the operation efficiency of stores, enhance marketing ability and optimize customer communication effect for dealers in an intuitive and image way. According to Mei, in the sales and after-sales reception, Spark can trace every step of the customer, and the recorded data and information can help the staff and management to analyze the receipt, continuously optimize the sales and service processes and improve efficiency. SPARK platform also integrates other digital customer contact ports of BMW, such as My? The BMW application, the "BMW Customer Service Center" micro-signal and the BMW membership system can open up customers' online and offline test drive, purchase, financial services and maintenance experience.

"In the past, there was a gap in information communication between manufacturers and distributors. Spark platform integrates an independent IT system, which can greatly improve the operational efficiency of dealers and optimize the customer experience. This is an important part of BMW's digital transformation process. " Gao Le stressed.

Summary: At present, car companies are talking about digital transformation. Even in the case that Tesla and New Power Automobile Company have "played very smoothly" in the field of intelligent network connection, what is the innovation or height of BMW's digital turn? Gao Le said at the communication meeting that what China consumers need is not a specific system, but a digital ecosystem that can be seamlessly connected with other systems. This is also BMW's digital positioning. Everything starts from the customer experience, creating BMW's unique digital ecosystem, and then connecting with other local ecosystems.

This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.