Oliver Zipse has helped BMW once before to correct a wrong decision. What does the new CEO have in mind with the Munich-based carmaker?
Christof STACHE / AFP
Friday, 19.07.2019
17:09 clock
In one of his rare interviews, Oliver Zipse once made an almost prophetic statement. “And then there is certainly the luck of the efficient in the game,” he said in October last year, then as a BMW production chief, the “Handelsblatt”. It was about the question of why BMW was the first car company to take a majority stake in the long-sealed-off Chinese market. But it could also have been about his own ascent.
Since Thursday evening is certain: The 55-year-old will be the new BMW boss. He follows the luckless Harald Kruger. For BMW it is a change of leadership in difficult times. For Zipse it is the culmination of a career in which he has purposefully worked his way up. And it’s the victory over a rival who could still have consequences.
As the former production director, Zipse was an obvious choice for the CEO. Three of the four past BMW bosses had also previously held this post.
Born in Heidelberg, Zipse earned the reputation of being a reliable producer – whether at the joint venture in China or in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. There, Zipse inaugurated a new plant just a few weeks ago, but BMW has not let go of its construction, despite threats by US President Donald Trump.
Global trade conflicts are just one of many construction siteswaiting for Zipse as BMW boss. The once so confident carmaker has fallen into the defensive at the beginning of the year BMW recorded a loss for the first time in ten years.
Uncertainty in particular raises the question as to which drives the Munich residents want to use to earn their money in the future. In 2011, BMW brought one of the first with the i3 electric cars on the way and has since been considered a pioneer in this field; but the i3 did not prove profitable.
Today, companies like Tesla can be celebrated as market leaders. BMW, meanwhile, has relied on trying different types of propulsion: In addition to e-cars and the still widespread gasoline and diesel, the company wants to increasingly rely on hydrogen in the future, wants to dance at virtually all weddings simultaneously. But to permanently equip for all options, the company actually produces too few cars.
“BMW has come from the position of the top dog in the challenger,” says Stefan Bratzel, director of the Institute of Automotive Management. In this situation, it needs a boss who can “show leadership inside and out”.
Internally, Zipse is undoubtedly recognized, the support of the employee camp was crucial for his freestyle. But as production director, he has worked mainly behind the scenes. In view of the external impact, another candidate would have been more obvious: Chief Development Officer Klaus Fröhlich is known for self-confident to brash performances and also crucially involved in the future BMW strategy.
“If you know the BMW culture, the decision for Zipse is not entirely surprising,” says Bratzel. The owner family Quandt attaches importance to a rather discreet, consensus-oriented company management. But is so much harmony at all good?
In any case, Kruger’s predecessor, Kruger, ultimately had to go because he was regarded as underachieving – not least because he did not sufficiently trust his predecessor and today’s supervisory board chairman Norbert Reithofer could take off. Can Zipse do it better?
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Car expert Bratzel considers Zipse an “independent head”. It was not least thanks to him that BMW no longer rely on carbon fibers, Reithofer long praised as the key material of the future.
In general, one could therefore “already trust Zipse that he emancipated himself from his predecessors,” says Bratzel. The new BMW boss could also set his own accents in the mega-topic of digitization – after all, he once studied computer science and mathematics in Utah.
How well the change of power succeeds in BMW, but should also depend on the losing rival Froehlich. The Supervisory Board definitely wants to keep the 59-year-old in the company – if only because of his know-how about the future strategy.
For this, Fröhlich’s contract could be extended to 2022 – despite the unofficial age limit of 60 years for this post, which was still considered an obstacle in the race for the CEO. But so far there is no agreement according to information from the head office with Merry.
Thus, it is not excluded that history repeats itself at BMW: Even when Kruger was the CEO, defeated Herbert dies a self-confident opponent. Diess then switched to Volkswagen, where he also rose to become CEO – and Dazed as such finally, publicly with Krüger on what the mobility of the future looks like.