Borusan Otomotiv Grup

Who is Borusan Otomotiv Group?

Borusan Otomotiv Group includes six companies and serves in the premium automobile segment.

Borusan Otomotiv Group, a partnership of Borusan Holding and Giwa Holding operating in Germany, has been the distributor of BMW since 1984 and in 1992, BMW Motorrad, the favorite of motorcycle enthusiasts, in 1998, Land Rover, the manufacturer of the best 4×4 vehicles, in 1999. The brand range was completed with the participation of MINI, which also made a difference in the small car segment, and lastly, Jaguar, which represents the combination of luxury, comfort and performance in 2014.

Borusan Otomotive Group has been serving as the distributor of BMW, MINI and BMW Motorrad, Jaguar and Land Rover brands for more than 35 years.

Project Background

In Aslı de Munnink’s own words…

At Borusan Otomotiv Group, digital transformation started in 2017. I joined Borusan in 2018, and I am the first CDO of the company and in the group companies as a whole. As you can imagine, digital transformation necessitates a great amount of effort for a group firm of six companies. At the beginning of our initiatives, Information Technologies were the main priority in digital transformation. However, in 2018 we shifted it to another level. To differantiate ourself in the market, we focused on digital transformation in customer experience.

I wanted to get our digital maturity score measured when I first joined the company. However, we preferred to focus on other priorities at that time. One of the main reasons was some of the projects had already started and we needed to see some solid results. Also, we have high level goals in the digital team, that ‘s why we didnt want to create digital fatigue between the business units and the board.

When 2019 arrived, our priorities had changed and we focused on investing in technology. To strengthen the technological infrastructure we completed major changes and considered our customer experience goals. During that time, we built our digital strategy and data strategies.

2020 was the game changer for everyone. Digitalization became faster than ever, and our company was no exception. Our primary focus was how to use artifical intellegince and machine learning in data analytics. With the global pandemic, we have also taken a step towards real-time data management. And finally, end of 2020 is the right time to know our Digital Maturity Score.

Why Digitopia, Why DMI?

We made a very careful selection. We chose Digitopia among many alternative companies. First, we needed to see where we were in the local market at the first place, then in the globe. Second, the consulting company must guarentee an independent, holistic, and end-to-end service. We required an evaluation within these 6 dimensions; Governance, Customer, People, Innovation, Marketing, and Technology, which Digitopia includes in their methodology. Digitopia was the only one to answer all of these prerequisites.

The Process and The Outcome

We did not plan for the consultancy process to be conducted online, but the pandemic pushed us to this and Digitopia managed this process so well that all participants expressed their opinions with candor. This had a very positive effect on the results.

On the other hand, our main goal was not to only get a score. We wanted the high-level management and business units to be on the same page during our digital transformation journey. Digitopia has made a great contribution to the unification of these two sides. In all six sessions, we had various discussions looking into next two years from today.

Borusan Otomotiv Group’s Digital Maturity score was above the market average. Seeing that our work and efforts had yielded such results motivated us even more. The initiatives report prepared by Digitopia and the action plan that we prepared overlapped 90%. We have proven that we are on the right track. What we will do from now on is to protect our strengths and focus on the points where we need to improve.

When we learned our maturity score at the end of the 6 sessions, Digitopia highlighted that our aim is not to see the score but to take the necessary actions to reach our goals. When we look at the big picture, a win-win situation occurred at both the board and business unit levels.

Throughout the process, the Digitopia team showed that they know our projects as well as we do. They acted like part of our team and during the sessions, they allowed our teammates to contribute to the process without any prejudice or biases.

We see the positive effects of the interim quarterly evaluations to ensure the continuity of the DMI process. In our opinion, Digital Maturity is not a job that should be evaluated once a year and then put on the shelves to collect dust. Evaluating our actions every three months and six months allows us to see our progress and motivates us even more for our long-term goals. In this way, we can be sure that our goals in the next two years will be actualised. We look forward to using Digitopia DMI as a tool within our Digital Team in the coming years.