BMW boasts production facilities in 14 countries, annual output of more than 800,000 vehicles, 27 sales subsidiaries - and two modest estates in the Bavarian countryside.
Several times a year, the German car-maker's senior management gathers at the company villas, Gut Schwarzenbach and Ammerwald, to hammer out strategy. According to BMW insiders, the retreats are also used to instil the car-maker's management philosophy into each new generation of executives.
"We have workshops and team-building events around the BMW culture, which is to strive for perfection and attention to detail," says one senior executive. The graduates of this "management school" have become some of the motor industry's most desirable recruits. Rivals such as Ford, General Motors (GM) and Volkswagen (VW) have headhunted senior BMW managers to repeat BMW's success in a bigger arena. Mr Bernd Pischetsrieder, BMW's former chairman, was snapped up last year by VW to head its Seat brand in Spain. Industry analysts have already anointed him heir-apparent to Mr Ferdinand Piech, VW's boss. Mr Wolfgang Reitzle, Mr Pischetsrieder's deputy at BMW, has joined Ford as chairman of the Premier Automotive Group, encompassing Jaguar, Volvo, Land Rover, Lincoln and Aston Martin. In the latest move, Mr Carl-Peter Forster last month became chairman of Adam Opel, GM's main European subsidiary, after resigning as BMW production chief. Automotive News, the industry newspaper, recently highlighted the spread of BMW's influence across the industry, noting that other "Munich alumni" were playing important roles at rival companies. The apparent exodus was prompted partly by internal wrangling over BMW's disastrous handling of Rover Group. Certainly, the departures of Messrs Pischetsrieder, Reitzle and Forster were directly linked to management splits over the troubled British car-maker, which cost BMW about #5 billion (£3.9 billion) in losses and capital investment.
Their resignations and continued losses at Rover prompted speculation last year that BMW was vulnerable to takeover. But Mr Joachim Milberg, BMW's current chairman, dismisses that argument. Having rid itself of Rover, Mr Milberg says, BMW would consider a deal only if its performance was undermined by weak technology, falling market share and poor management. "There is no reason for a merger from a strategic point of view," he says.
Given that declaration of independence, BMW's competitors have settled for the next best option. If you cannot buy the company, hire its best managers. In addition to the Roverlinked resignations, a small corps of BMW executives have quietly left for other car-makers. Mr Dieter Laxy, former brand manager, is now head of sales at Volvo. Porsche has recruited BMW's Mr Wolfgang Durheimer and Mr Hans Riedel as heads of research and development, and marketing respectively. Audi, BMW's arch-rival, has headhunted Mr Werner Mischke as its technical development chief.
Senior BMW managers claim that the company is being used as a reluctant resource for rival car-makers, which lack sufficient talent in the premium car segment.
"The company itself is unavailable and too expensive in any case for competitors," says one Munich executive. "So they are hiring people who can deliver promising products to the customer."
Yet despite the expertise seeping to other brands, Mr Milberg is confident BMW will remain the benchmark for the industry. That reflects the apparent ease with which BMW replaces outgoing executives with able internal candidates. Insiders put it down to the management systems installed by Mr Eberhard von Kuenheim, BMW's chairman from 1970 to 1993. He insisted that at least two board members should always be younger than 50, in a move aimed at discouraging career directors. Previous "youngsters" include Mr Pischetsrieder and Mr Reitzle. Today, that category is represented by Mr Norbert Reithofer, the production chief, and Mr Michael Ganal, head of sales. Such board members are expected to nurture talent among the 40 senior vice-presidents below them. They in their turn act as mentors to 250 vice-presidents. Before any manager can reach vice-president level, he has to demonstrate expertise in two different - and preferably unrelated - areas of the company.
Every high-flier at BMW also has to encourage other managers to follow a similar trail. "The target of BMW management is to have a replacement ready for each executive," says a senior official. "Every manager is expected secretly to name a successor for when he moves on."
To ensure a pool of talent, the German car-maker admits, it hires more executives than it really needs. "When you expand, you need to have two or three, maybe five, people in stock to run new operations or sales subsidiaries."
Once a year, the BMW board conducts a so-called "portfolio meeting" where it considers the performance of senior vice-presidents and the managers below them. Each manager usually changes role after four or five years, by which time, BMW calculates, they should have "harvested" the expertise from that field - be it marketing or engineering.
"Sometimes we feel it's a pity when rivals take our people. But in other cases we are happy to let them go - there is always someone in the wings," says one BMW board member.
