After achieving an all-time sales high in the fourth quarter of 2020, the BMW Group is optimistic about the current year.
The company is realigning its Sales and Marketing division in close collaboration with its retail partners – with the aim of offering the industry’s best premium customer experience.
“We are optimistic about 2021 and look forward to resuming our profitable growth, thanks to strong demand for our fresh product line-up,” said Pieter Nota, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG responsible for Customer, Brands, Sales. “We want to increase sales of our electrified vehicles by more than half in 2021. This underlines the importance of electromobility as a major growth driver for our company.”
Investment in digitalization
The BMW Group also forged ahead with the digitalization of its sales and marketing last year, partly in response to the coronavirus pandemic and customers’ desire for the sales process to be as contact-free as possible: Sales representatives in more than 60 markets are now able to advise customers and sell vehicles from any location.
The second step was for the company to take the sales process for retail partners largely online via its high-traffic websites in key markets. This will be rolled out in other markets in 2021.
“We will be investing a triple-digit million euro amount annually up to 2025 in the digitalization of our sales and marketing and are working together with our retail partners to offer the industry’s best customer experience going forward,” said Nota.
The BMW Group also wants to significantly expand the range of vehicle functions available as digital aftersales upgrades. This will make it easier for customers to equip their vehicles with options that meet their wishes and individual mobility needs.
Customers will benefit from the BMW Group’s new sales and marketing strategy for the first time with the introduction of the new BMW iX and BMW i4. BMW and MINI customers will be able to take advantage of a steadily expanding range of additional vehicle functions available as digital aftersales upgrades, as well as a seamless and especially customer-centric configuration process with personalized options.
Sustainability
The BMW Group’s belief that there can be “no premium without sustainability” also applies to sales and marketing. The company already helps customers make appropriate, sustainable decisions about products and drive trains today. This contributes to the strong sales of electrified vehicles, which resulted in the BMW Group being able to overfulfill the EU’s CO2 targets in 2020. The BMW Group is also training employees and retail partners to become ambassadors for its sustainability ambitions. In addition, the sales organization is promoting topics such as recycling and the use of secondary materials.
