BMW's Innovation Strategies

The realization that a lack of infrastructure or resources to explore and exploit numerous new ideas generated was hampering BMW's new product development activities, was the first step towards devising its new innovation management model. In late 1997, the company roped in Business Innovation Consortium (BIC), a US based consulting firm that specialized in innovation management, to conduct a critical assessment of its innovation processes. BIC confirmed BMW's doubt that though many new ideas were circulating in the company, its innovation processes failed in selecting the best ideas and in allocating appropriate resources. According to the analysts, BMW's innovation related policies then, made it virtually impossible to find the best ideas and lead them to commercialization quickly...

This stage was primarily aimed at transferring the innovation project in the pre-development stage, to its respective vehicle project managers, who carried on the actual development work. Innovation transfer was a comprehensive process and usually it took several months to complete. This was so because the stage was characterized by extensive negotiations between the vehicle project managers and the project managers. As the project managers were restricted by budget allocations made by IFCs, they had to convince the vehicle project managers to limit the costs of developing the end product within the budget allotted to them. The innovation transfer stage was aimed at assessing the risks involved in the project and minimizing them...