BMW Banks on Electric Vehicles for Future Success

Few large companies exist today on their own. Many of the companies have either merged with another company, or several others. It's the nature of the economy today that has driven countless mergers and created huge conglomerates. Small independent companies are virtually non-existent in large-scale industries and will likely dwindle away over time. In the automotive industry, this situation is readily apparent, but one company manages to stick it out on its own.

While mergers seems to be all the craze in the auto industry, BMW still manages to stand alone. The go-it-alone strategy usually has its drawbacks such as lack of funding, inability to share platforms and limited resources, but these drawbacks are also witness throughout the automotive industry and still exists even after mergers have occurred. As Automotive News states, BMW hopes to overcome all of the shortcomings that can potentially limit the success of an independent company while continuing to free from mergers and is banking on the success of the electric vehicle to do so.

BMW has relatively limited resources at its disposal which means that failure is really not an option. In BMW's case, failure to follow a changing industry could prove catastrophic. As Automotive News states, the company has set out to get ahead of the competition in regards to electric vehicles. So even though many industry experts feel that BMW cannot hold onto the go-it-alone strategy for much longer, the company believes that the flexibility to quickly shift towards an electric future puts them in a prime position moving forward. Going after the electric market is definitely a risk versus rewards venture with maintained independence on the reward side and a likely merger looming on the failure side, but BMW has to take risks and the company can't afford to fall even a single step behind.

Now it's unlikely that BMW will produce electric vehicles at the volumes that Nissan anticipates, but a small independent like BMW does not need high volumes to achieve success, that's an advantage of being alone. Whereas Autoblog Green states that Nissan wants to make 500,000 electric vehicles soon, BMW would probably be happy with 50,000 or less. As one of the few independent survivors in the automotive world overrun by mergers, BMW has the ability to adapt to change quickly, make decisions on its own and offer products that its customers want, something that BMW has always been stellar at. The company proves that you don't have to be a huge conglomerate to have success, you just have to make products that people want and if buyers want electric vehicles, then that's what BMW will focus on.

Source: Automotive News