From May to December 2019 we worked with BMW in South Africa to build their first end to end Online sales website for BMW globally. 75 people and 9 teams delivered across 3 countries, a website that went live in January 2020 - where a customer can buy, trade in and book a test drive without leaving their lounge. Amazing timing considering the impact of Covid. Why did they approach us? There was a clear deadline and a lot of global visibility for this initiative but the team had not been able to get traction, or really get started for 6 months – they worked in silos aligned to traditional hierarchy. We introduced a new way of working aligned to Agile and Scrum principles.
This experience taught us that a successful Business Agility transformation is simply about 3 steps... 1. Business & IT leadership in it together 2. The Value stream that put the customer first 3. A Culture that embraces collaboration We had to get rid of the blame game and all accept we were in the same boat, even when it was sinking. This required a huge shift in BMW's culture, which is build around hierarchy, competition and individual success.