Why is BMW the no. 1 luxury car maker? Why is it selling the most and sweeping all the awards?
Here's why: Their believes are of importance. what does BMW stand for? We all know that they make ultimate driving machines and concentrate on giving their drivers pleasure when piloting their products on the roads.
Therefore we do not expect BMW to build a truck or a van like what Mercedes is doing. Quality and reliability are also strong points behind BMW success today.
They believe in excellence in everything they do: service, product quality, customer relationships, product and brand recognition.
Another reason for their success is their independence in the business world. They are the only significant luxury car maker which is independent and is free to take the neccessary steps to ensure they reach their goals; whereas Mercedes Benz is part of the Daimler Chrysler organisation and I believe is forced to use parts from Mitshubishi, Chrysler, Jeep in order to safe costs and also to degrade their own product quality to try to make Daimler Chrysler profitable. Audi also suffers from this trap where VW owns this brand and sharing of parts with a cheaper cars VW in order to try to safe costs is also hindering its success.
In a design point of view, marketing the products is BMW's strong point. The 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 Series are all different and they each carry a different character, whereas Audi car designs are all similar, especially the front and Mercedes is even worse. Product variation cannot be under-estimated.
BMW spends around 25% of their profits into Research and development and it is because of BMW that put so much of their innovations and improvements into their products that they manage to attract the public's recognition and approvals, which in turn increases its success.
In a design point of view, there has been many criticisms regarding the direction that BMW is going. But are these criticisms justified? They surely did not go wrong if more and more buyers are choosing BMW over any other cars.
In conclusion, a company must know what the public wants and must maintain a keen interest in the relationship with their customers and value their thoughts. That's why BMW is where it is today, so far ahead of the others.