BMW Group Wins Suppliers' Choice Award, Again

CHICAGO, March 8 -- BMW Group has been named a winner of the Automotive News Suppliers' Choice Award for the second year in a row. The award is given to automakers and OEMs who best encourage - solicit, implement and reward - and foster supplier innovation as part of its total business plan.

The award will be presented to BMW at tonight's 10th annual Automotive News PACE Awards ceremony in Detroit. Enno Biermann, Vice President of Procurement North America, will accept the award on BMW's behalf.

BMW, Honda and Toyota were selected as winners. Winners are determined by a J.D. Power and Associates survey conducted on behalf of Automotive News. The survey is sent to executives at automotive supplier firms that are responsible for sales, marketing, operations, engineering, and/or overall management. In the survey, supplier executives are asked 15 questions in each of the following categories: trustworthiness, openness to new ideas, ease to work with, willingness to financially reward innovation, and effectiveness at implementing innovation. They rate each attribute on a scale from 1-to-10. BMW, Honda and Toyota consistently were ranked at or near the top in every category.

BMW is credited with promoting innovation with its suppliers, encouraging ideas from suppliers, responding to supplier ideas, and the ease in which suppliers can introduce ideas.

"The winners show that they understand the value of innovation, not merely the cost," said Peter Brown, associate publisher of Automotive News. "It is not a coincidence that the high scorers tend to be the most profitable automakers. They benefit from the suppliers' creative ideas in both product and process.