Strange Bedfellows: BMW Wants a Cozier Relationship With Daimler to Make Life Easier

Matt Posky
by Matt Posky

According to BMW’s new head of purchasing, Markus Duesmann, the company intends to expand its cooperation with Daimler AG in acquiring automotive components from suppliers.

The competing automakers began their cooperative purchasing in 2008, limiting it to elements most manufacturers typically share already — items like seating frames, radiators, tires, or air conditioning systems. Despite the cost benefits and leverage from their massed buying power, the companies still keep each other at arm’s length. More recently, however, the two have managed to maintain a healthy rivalry while seeking mutually beneficial ventures together.

While Duesmann didn’t say if the company would update its savings goals, BMW Group has been obsessively trying to find ways to cut parts costs and improve quality over the last ten years. The tentative parts relationship with Daimler has helped address those issues, and has remained in place even after Norbert Reithofer stepped down as company chairman. Expanding its cooperative buying with Stuttgart is one of the simplest ways cut costs and nurture a more positive relationship between the German manufacturers.

“It’s not been fully exploited; there are regular talks and we are discussing jointly purchasing more components,” Markus Duesmann said in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Duesmann claims BMW will need to purchase much more software over the next few years for its electric cars, and would be open to leaving Samsung. Considering that it took years for the company to line up all of the suppliers it needed for the i3, BMW says it sees a usefulness in an open and routine dialog.

“We are in talks with all the major manufacturers and will make a decision for each model generation,” he told Reuters.

[Image: BMW Group]

Matt Posky
Matt Posky

A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.

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 4 comments
  • Chocolatedeath Chocolatedeath on Jan 20, 2017

    Transmissions, wiring, nuts and bolts make sense for both.

  • JustPassinThru JustPassinThru on Jan 20, 2017

    Daimler...does not play nice. As they displayed when raping and disemboweling Chrysler. Marriage turned into corporate white-slavery; and that turned into dismemberment. I can see how this would go. The few surviving models would get D-B "improvements" a la Chrysler's 2000-era lineup; the BMWs would be cheapened, patents and basic designs would be modded to become Mercedes products. The motorcycle line would be sold to Chinese investors...who have the moving truck for the tooling and designs, standing by. What part would remain intact with Daimler? The bank accounts.

    • See 1 previous
    • WallMeerkat WallMeerkat on Jan 23, 2017

      @JimZ Just look at what happened to MGRover, and the mess they left Sauber F1 in - partnering with BMW doesn't go well either!

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