BMW 2005 Annual Report Download - page 160

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Knowing strengths,
developing power –
driving performance.
Understanding brands – and bringing them to life.
People who talk about brands soon end up in theory. As a “distinctive perception in cus-
tomers’ minds”, brands are, by definition, invisible, intangible and thus for many incompre-
hensible. At the same time, distinctive brands are now more valuable than ever as light-
houses in the endless sea of products. Brands provide orientation, they transport emotional
added value, which, along with product substance, is crucial for a purchasing decision.
That is why strong brands have more loyal customers, achieve higher prices and are dynamic
drivers of profitable growth. This also applies to the brands of the BMW Group: today,
BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce are among the most valuable premium brands worldwide.
There is just one difficulty: strong brands cannot simply be designed on the drawing
board. On the contrary, they evolve in practice by being developed consistently over a long
period and, in particular, by being understood and “lived” by the employees. Three years
ago, therefore, the BMW Group opened a Brand Academy in the centre of Munich for its
employees and business partners. There, the world of its three brands BMW, MINI and
Rolls-Royce takes a very concrete form. At the Brand Academy, which is probably unique
in the automobile industry, the dynamic character of the BMW brand, for example, and the
emotional, cosmopolitan chic of the MINI brand are conveyed very realistically. Brand Academy
participants really experience the impressive presence for which the Rolls-Royce brand
stands with all five senses. This is how abstract brand values become memorable brand
personalities and employees convincing brand multipliers. 7,500 of them – mostly manage-
ment staff, but also external service-providers and partners of the BMW Group – have
attended the Brand Academy to date and taken the brand values they experienced back to
their respective working environment.
Such a multiplier effect cannot be overestimated for a premium brand’s penetration. For
the employees’ brand understanding is one of the decisive factors for the public’s percep-
tion of a brand. How convincing is it? Does it keep its promises? Does it really live up to its
premium claim? In this context, service quality is one of the areas which customers observe
particularly critically.Therefore, in 2004, the BMW Group built a 20,000-square-metre train-
ing centre, also in Munich, which is devoted to the service quality of the BMW Group’s sales
organisations worldwide. In this “model service workshop” the technical features and tech-
nology of the BMW Group’s vehicles are communicated at 70 training locations.The Sales
and Aftersales Academy of the BMW Group has room to train up to 450 participants a
day. In its first full year of operation, 25,000 participants from 80 countries were trained
here.The academy in the north of Munich thus acts as a flagship for all the BMW
Group’s 53 training centres worldwide.
The objective: customers of the BMW Group are to be offered the same highly qualified
premium service wherever they need it. So if you wonder what a premium brand sounds
like, part of the answer is to be found not only in the typical BMW engine sound, but also in
the noiseless efficiency of excellent, smooth-running service.