Bmw Case Analysis

BMW of North America:

Dream It. Build It. Drive It.

Individual Case Analysis

1. The key marketing issue

BMW comes up with a customization program called “Dream it. Build it. Drive it.” for their X3 compact SUV, was successful in increasing the sales unit of X3 in North America in 2011, which reflected a record year-on-year increase of a whopping 450%. The customization program also improves the distribution strategy of BWM by allows dealers to carry less inventory and custom order their vehicles. I believe that the key marketing issue, facing BMW, is what is the best strategy for future which means should BMW extend customization program across all production lines and all models or just keep it in some specific model, such as X3.  

2a. The pros and cons of alternative solution 1 to address these marketing      issues

The first solution to address this issue is to expand the “Dream it. Build it. Drive it.” customization program to another specific model called BMW 3 series, one model of BMW passenger cars, as an attempt and analyze the effectiveness of the customization program and evaluate if it is a relevant strategy. The pros of this solution is that the sale performance of BMW brand cars in North America in 2011, including passenger cars and light trucks SUV, is 81.1% of the BMW total sale performance in North America and BMW 3 series is a representative model of passenger cars. Secondly, BMW has already been successful when they used this campaign for selling BMW X3 SUV, which means they already had an integrated system to operate this program. Meanwhile, according to the experience of selling X3 SUV, BMW know how to deal the relationship with dealers and customers. The supply chain, which BMW used for customization services of X3 SUV, would be enough to fulfill the demand of manufacturing customized BMW 3 series passenger cars and they do not have to change the structure of supply chain management. Moreover, the BMW 3 series is the best-selling model at North America marketing in 2011, hence it will ensures the demand of customers.

The cons of this solution is that BMW decided to operate the customization program with X3 SUV model, according to communications Manager at BMW, because X3 SUV is a new product and it can only add something to a product when there is a completely new product involved. Therefore, the customization program maybe does not match with the BMW 3 series passenger cars. Besides, the case noticed that the first generation of X3, introduced in 2003, was the E83, then they redesigned the X3 to became F25 model in 2011. It implies that the success of sale units of X3 SUV did not only attribute to the customization program, the improvements of X3 model, such as F25 model and new interior, also play a vital role.