BMW 2012 Annual Report Download - page 36

36
18 COMBINED GROUP AND COMPANY
MANAGEMENT REPORT
18 A Review of the Financial Year
21 General Economic Environment
24 Review of Operations
24 Automotive segment
30 Motorcycles segment
31 Financial Services segment
33 Research and development
36 Purchasing
37 Sales and Marketing
39 Workforce
41 Sustainability
44 BMW Stock and Capital Market
47 Disclosures relevant for takeovers
and explanatory comments
50 Financial Analysis
65 Internal Control System and
explanatory comments
66 Risk Management
74 Outlook
Purchasing and Supplier Network functions
further enhanced
As the leading provider of premium automobiles, to-
gether with its partners the BMW Group operates the
most efficient supply chain in the automotive industry.
In today’s volatile environment this means being able at
all
times to react swiftly and flexibly to fluctuations in
demand while maintaining a consistently high quality
of parts and competitive costs. Moreover, we have made
it
a key aim to promote our own innovative strengths and
those of our suppliers to enhance our position as the
leading provider of innovations in the premium segment.
In advance of the introduction of the BMW i3 in 2013
we drew up an extensive sustainability programme dur-
ing the period under report, aimed at generating yet
further improvements in the field of resource efficiency.
Numerous model start-ups during the reporting year
Numerous new models were launched in 2012 for the
BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce brands. BMW success-
fully
launched six new derivatives of the 1, 3, 5 and
6 Series. MINI successfully introduced its Coupé, while
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars brought its Phantom Series II
onto the market. Particularly worthy of mention are the
launch in 2012 of the BMW 6 Series Gran Coupé and
the two hybrid vehicles, the BMW ActiveHybrid 3 and
BMW ActiveHybrid 5. The BMW Group also introduced
the extended-wheelbase version of the BMW 3 Series
Sedan to the Chinese market and brought out revised
versions of the BMW 7 Series and the X1 in order to
satisfy rising demand in the fast-growing markets of
China, India, Brazil and Russia.
Further internationalisation of procurement markets
The BMW Group continued to focus in 2012 on increas-
ing the international scale of its purchasing activities.
One example of this was the success achieved with the
newly launched BMW 1 Series and 3 Series models. The
opening of our new plant in Tiexi*, China, for instance,
enabled us to significantly increase the volume of mate-
rial purchased locally. This is a good example of how
we are increasingly shifting added value along the sup-
ply chain and into our sales markets, thus helping us
to hedge currency exposures. Multi-currency ordering
also enables us to pay for purchasing volumes in the
currency in which added value is generated.
High level of investment safeguards productivity
and technology lead
In addition to its purchasing, quality assurance and
logistics functions, the BMW Group’s Purchasing and
PURCHASING
Supplier team is also responsible for component pro-
duction sites, an arrangement that is unique in the auto-
motive industry. Regular comparative analyses help
to guarantee that processes are efficient and effective.
The sites concerned are regularly required to prove their
competitiveness against external providers. The high
level of efficiency achieved was again borne out in 2012
by the bestowal of numerous industry awards.
The significance of Landshut as the competence cen-
tre for lightweight construction and electromobility
within the BMW Group was underlined by the com-
missioning of the production plant for ultra-light-
weight carbon-fibre parts. The carbon fibre cores pro-
duced at the Wackersdorf plant are processed in
Landshut to form CFRP body parts and subsequently
delivered to the BMW plant in Leipzig, where produc-
tion of the BMW i3 and BMW i8 will commence dur-
ing the course of 2013. This investment in CFRP tech-
nology provides the basis for large-scale automated
series production of carbon-fibre parts and is an
important aspect of the BMW Group’s long-term light-
weight construction strategy. For the time being at
least, the BMW Group is in a unique position within
the automotive industry.
In addition to the manufacturing of carbon-fibre cores
and cockpits for the BMW 1 Series and 3 Series, the
Wackersdorf plant handles packaging and distribution
of small parts for CKD / SKD production worldwide. As
such, the plant constitutes a key element of the Group’s
logistics arrangements.
Regional mix of BMW Group purchase volumes 2012
in %, basis: production material
Germany 50.3 NAFTA 13.4
Rest of Western Europe 17.3 Asia / Australia 3.1
Central and Eastern Europe 14.8 Africa 1.1
Germany
Rest of Western Europe
Central and
Eastern Europe
NAFTA
Asia / Australia
Africa
* Joint venture BMW Brilliance