CDO

Jens Monsees is the Vice President Digital Strategy of BMW. He is the most senior employee concerning digitalization in the company. Like this he can also be titled as the CDO – Chief Digital Officer – of BMW. He established a division including about 20 employees working on different digitalization-projects. These range from 3D-printing to the use of big data. Since Jens Monsees left BMW on 1 October, the position was taken over by Martin Isik.

Why should BMW and the BMW CDO be involved in digitalization?

BMW works on digitalization for both internal and external reasons. Inside the company their aim is to make almost every process more efficient. This includes for example production processes, additive manufacturing or even 3D-printing. On the other hand, improvement should also be recognized on the customer’s side. To realize this BMW will pay more attention to their customer’s interests and also to their personal digital experience. BMW CDO focuses hereby on three range of topics. These are: digital customer experiences, autonomous and networked driving and the interior of the future.

It’s on: “ONE COMPANY, ONE VISION: TO CREATE INNOVATIONS”

Digital projects

In order to support exchange between innovators, experts and interested parties in general, the BMW Group created rad°hub. A creative space open for discussions and ideas about the future of mobility. Thinking of “rad” as the German word for “wheel”, rad°hub stands for “the momentum that drives the earth and its inhabitants, today and in the future.”

The concept

At every rad°hub, participants work together in smaller breakout groups to develop future scenarios. Intensive exchange between people from different disciplines provides new impulses and a change of perspective, as well as an opportunity to build new contacts. Scenarios are explored and analyzed with a single goal. This is to spark impulses and develop ideas for products and services in the mobility sector.

Accelerators / Incubators

The Innnovation Lab from the BMW Group UK based at their headquarters has a duration of ten weeks. With the help of this program startups have the possibility to test products at scale. Further they get expert support from senior members of the BMW Group UK and access funding from L Marks. This is what is most important.

Worth mentioning is also the acceleration program ‘Tech Founders’ which lasts for 20 weeks and is based in Munich. Hereby startups have the chance to collaborate with industry partners. Like this they can also get access to for example hardware prototypes in order to develop their ideas / products.

Social media

BMW was the first automotive company with 10 million followers on Instagram. They have created the hashtag #BMWrepost where follower from all over the world present content themselves. This makes the brand more authentic and personal. In addition to Instagram BMW is using twitter as a channel mostly for news or facebook as a social platform in general. What combines every channel is containing highly engaging content.

Jan

My name is Jan Puder (LinkedIn profile Jan Puder). I am the founder & CEO of the BusinessTech-Company. Me and the BusinessTech-Company want to push the digital frontier. This is the reason, why I started this website. I want to provide information about digital businesses, especially for Chief Digital Officers.

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