CREDIT: BMW
BMW’ S PROCUREMENT TRANSFORMATION JOURNEY
Every 57 seconds, a new car rolls off the assembly line at BMW Group’ s plant in Regensburg, Germany. But beyond building desirable vehicles, the factory is spearheading the company’ s cloud transition to SAP S / 4HANA.
BMW’ s shift to SAP S / 4HANA was not just about IT, but about end-toend supply chain, logistics and supplier integration that directly enables efficiency, resilience and innovation.
This was not a case of simply purchasing a piece of technology, but a seven-year co-innovation journey with SAP that fundamentally reimagined how procurement creates value.
Rather than treating software as a commodity, BMW’ s procurement approach fostered deep collaboration that resulted in industry-standard solutions benefitting the entire automotive sector.
“ We made one thing clear to everyone on the team: every single car counts,” says Carola Schoenfelder, Chief Project Expert at SAP, speaking to BMW’ s website.
As this new cloud-based solution came into effect, not only did it digitise the entire process, but it created a unified supply management system which works across all the production technologies when it comes to building a vehicle.
It eliminated silos between press shops, body shops, paint facilities and final assembly, delivering value far beyond what traditional procurement metrics could capture.
What sets this initiative apart is how BMW’ s procurement team structured the relationship with SAP. Rather than a traditional vendor-client dynamic, they established a true partnership where BMW shared automotive-specific requirements
72 November 2025