To What Extent Has Bmw Met the Critical Success Factors for the Sector in the Last Five Years?

(1) To what extent has BMW met the critical success factors for the sector in the last five years?

Johnson (2006) describes critical success factors (CSF’s) as “product feature that are particularly valued by a group of customers and, therefore, where the organisation must excel to outperform the competition”. In order to succeed within any industry, specifically the automobile industry it is essential that the CSF’s are recognised and met in order to meet the required goals. In other words as shown in (Appendix A) an organisation must meet two criteria, it must supply what consumers want to buy and secondly it must survive competition. Very noticeably in (Appendix B) is the similarities between the CSF’s of the global automobile industry. When focussing on Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW) , one of the leading car manufacturers within the global automobile industry there are four CSF’s to focus on. These being research and development (R&D), build and performance quality and the organisations financial position.

Whilst examining the last five years, R&D has played a major part in consumer lifestyle making it a major CSF to focus on (BBC News, 2004). As a business they deem R&D one of the most important sectors, this is proven through the 8000 employees that work within the division and the millions of Euros which have been invested throughout the years (BMW Education, 2010). As BMW is an organisation deriving from Germany, this has made the European market their main focus since production began. Over the last decade though and especially within the last five years BMW have decided to pump more money into R&D within the United States to push sales. (Automotive News, 2004) suggest that in 2005 R&D expenditure was up 10% creating an increase in sales of 7% within the United States. Even though at the time the dollar was very weak BMW noted the importance of R&D and its beneficial effects but still decided to focus upon it proving its worth as a CSF. Chief...