Wolfgang Schlimme, the head of BMW Russland Trading, not only gets excited when talking about BMW history today— he has been passionate about the company’s cars since childhood. He admired his uncle’s BMW as a boy and they would talk about cars for hours. Schlimme shared his vision of BMW’s development and the future of Russia’s luxury automobile sector with The Leader.

It is no wonder that Wolfgang Schlimme has been working at BMW for most of his career— everybody in his office knows that he is crazy about cars. He talked with The Leader about the image of BMW in Russia, a daughter company of the automobile multinational BMW Group, which in his opinion, has changed since he first came to work for BMW Russland Trading.

Do you consider yourself a natural leader?
I do not think I was born a leader. I consider myself to be somebody who loves to work with people. If I go over my education and my career after school, I can say that I went into a factory and got my business education in a totally different area: I bought and sold wallpaper products for more than a year. And, immediately after that, I started to work as a car salesman. So I consider myself more of a salesperson than a manager and more of a motivator than a leader. I sell products, ideas, motivation and fascination.

How did it happen that you started working for BMW? Was it your personal choice?
I worked for another German company for a year. After that, I was offered a job at a BMW dealership, and I accepted because BMW had been my dream car for as long as I could remember. My uncle began to drive a BMW in 1964. So it was definitely my personal choice to work for BMW. I was careful to work for the brand I really loved and admired.

What foreign work experience have you got?
Before coming to Russia in 1999 I worked as a salesman in various BMW sales outlets in Germany: as a sales director in Hannover, a marketing specialist in Munich and a sales director for new and used cars in Leipzig. I had my foreign work experience in Singapore, where I was responsible for marketing our cars to 22 countries for a year. My first business trip to Moscow took place in January 1999. For six weeks, I was hopping between a marketing position in Singapore and a sales position in Russia, and in March 1999 I moved to Moscow to work permanently for BMW here. At that time, we established a completely new company and a completely new distribution system for our customers, working hard together with our partner, Avtotur, to realize our production in Kaliningrad.

How large a territory in Russia do you cover in terms of distribution?
Our main functions are located in Moscow. BMW Russland Trading is the official importer of cars, as well as motorcycles and spare parts, from several factories in Germany, the United States and Kaliningrad. Our distribution center for cars is located in the suburbs of Moscow, where we have a huge warehouse for spare parts. There are four dealerships, and we plan to expand to six in 2002; overall, we are operating with 22 dealers all over Russia. I think the most remote one right now is in Novosibirsk. Believe it or not, if we have an emergency order for spare parts we can ship them within 18 hours. All our dealers have the same technology, the same level of quality all over the world. We like to say that the quality of BMW service does not depend on what country you are living in.

This year, Autosalon 2001 served as one of the most significant events in the automobile industry. What did your company achieve at Autosalon?
We went there with an unusual approach: We talked not about visions and plans but about what we have achieved. We have set up a national sales company and produced a valid price list for BMW cars. Our cars have the same retail price in Novosibirsk as in Moscow. Of course, we also have a lot of plans for the future, such as consolidating our position in Russia. But we were also talking about design, trying to figure out what BMW will look like in the future. The image of BMWs in Russia has changed in the last five years. A BMW is now a car for business and political leaders, influential opinion makers and people who really enjoy driving and are fascinated by a top-class performance car.

What is your opinion on the luxury-car business in Russia? What is BMW’s market share in that area?
My outlook for the coming years is based on the experience of the last two and a half years. The market is growing steadily, but I do not expect that we will double our sales as we did last year. The market is becoming more stable. and customers are change their way of thinking — they not only want to buy fantastic cars, they look for reasonable pricing and reliable services as well. BMW guarantees value because we have one pricing strategy and we have one position in the market. We will never be the cheapest, nor do we really want to be, because we offer the same level of service in Russia, Europe, the Americas, or Asia.

It is commonly thought that the automobile sector offers the biggest opportunities for career growth. Would you agree with that?
There are many career-growth opportunities in the automotive sector. Of course, we need to separate different areas of the car business, such as import, retail, marketing, etc. I would say that the car market is growing in Russia because people here are fascinated with cars. With such motivation one can achieve nearly everything.

What is your opinion on overall career-growth opportunities in Russia?
Russia is going through a lot of change when it comes to management. For example, we started with three expats. One of them went back to Germany and was replaced by a sales director who grew up here in Russia. Another manager, who will go back in three or five years, will certainly be replaced by somebody who made his career here in Russia. You have to understand the country completely to manage a company in Russia. As a foreigner, it is very difficult to do if you don’t have a lot of friends, if you don’t have a family relationship. In our company, most of my colleagues are extremely ambitious and their average age is 27.

There’s a new generation of managers growing up in Russia working for multinational or Russian internationally minded corporations. People who live here have a Western mentality combined with an Eastern outlook. Where else can you find that? And I think that people that work here in BMW’s office can easily work anywhere else in Russia or the rest of the world. This generation is hungry, motivated and ambitious. And it’s a big pleasure to work here: If you start a new business you can build your own team. We started with nine people and now there are about 85 of us.

If you had a chance to start over, would you have changed your career in any way?
To be honest, I would have taken a three-month break between Singapore and Russia and started learning Russian.

In what other country would you like to work?
I have already made my choice: I chose Russia and I have prolonged my contract. It’s a good growing market here, and I would like to stay longer.