“The Auto Industry is Rapidly Changing”, warns BMW’s Sales Chief

Industries are already finding it hard to keep up with the development of technology nowadays. It is so fast changing that even the largest of companies are struggling with it. In an interview for Automotive News Europe, BMW’s Sales and Marketing Chief Ian Robertson spoke about this issue. He gave a warning to the auto industry and said that there must be focused efforts on adapting to the new way people interact and to the new technology or else their products will become obsolete.

“In our view the next 10 years are probably going to involve more change and more dynamics than we have seen in the last 100. The challenge for us as an industry is: Don’t enjoy the warm water, because it’s not going to end well,” he told participants. “In 2003, there were 6.3 billion people and 500 million smartphones. What you see now is that very, very shortly we are now going to have four or five devices for every person on the planet — now that tells you something changed and changed very quickly,” he added.

This is a serious matter for the auto industry. They need to keep up fast because people are not buying as much cars as they did before. There are also other factor that contributes to this such as the traffic in cities and other transportation alternatives. Uber and other platforms that offer transportation services have completely revolutionised the way people commute. There are also less reasons to commute. Cities are cramped. It is hard to find decent parking spaces if you bring a car to work in an urban city. People also tend to buy lots of things online thus going against the need to buy a car for purchasing daily needs. Mobility is just changing in a very rapid pace.

“If you go to Silicon Valley, and I was there a couple of weeks ago, 50 percent of all the startups last year had some sort of mobility in their title — 50 percent. Many of them will crash and burn but a few will come out the other side,” Robertson said. He is correct. Uber is in fact worth $63 Billion and is one of the most profitable businesses in the world.

On a lighter note, people are actually more tech savvy than before so they expect to see new technologies in their cars. They want them changing in capabilities, faster, better, and this gives automakers breathing room to do their magic.