Redefining the future of car dealerships

BMW doesn't limit its innovation to just the German headquarters. It takes its official dealerships on a global educational tour. For five years, one crucial stop has been our hometown of Tallinn, where dealers learned to innovate and imagine a different future. The program is orchestrated by Elamusstuudio and in 2023, supported by Strategic Leadership Group.

Why Estonia? Simply put, Estonia is a hub of technological experimentation and entrepreneurial spirit, making it an ideal playground for rethinking business models, enhancing customer satisfaction, and reimagining the future role of the car and the dealership.

Our task was to prepare and execute the three-day event, based on the varied disciplines of service design, (technological) innovation and strategic leadership. It was a boot camp for the mind, peppered with motivational meetings, eye-opening encounters with local tech startups as well as practical workshops and presentations that mirror Estonia's own transformative journey to a digital society.

Among some of the key takeaways was that dealerships need to do more than just sell cars. They need to sell experiences and solutions, challenging the traditional retail model. Through service design, dealers learned to co-create services with customers, elevating satisfaction levels, changing the service from reactive to proactive and (just maybe) letting go of the notion, that the cars need to be sold.

The 3-day event gave BMW dealers actionable insights and innovative tools and methods that provided a different point-of-view on the times to come, helping to prepare them for a rapidly changing market. In the fast lane to the future, BMW shows that constant learning and adaptation are the real keys to staying ahead. After all, innovation, like a BMW, thrives on constant motion. See you next year!