Business transformation in practice

rpc – the growth story

„Give me five“– this is the tit­le of the fifth anni­ver­s­a­ry of the rpc brand in July. rpc, the joint ven­ture bet­ween BMW and h&z, is now a power­hou­se for digi­ti­zing the custo­mer inter­face. A con­ver­sa­ti­on with Rai­ner Hoff­mann and Chris­ti­an Feil­mei­er

What was your visi­on for the rpc joint ven­ture five years ago?

The idea on the part of BMW was to sum­ma­ri­ze the who­le topic of sales deve­lop­ment and to put toge­ther a con­vin­cing ser­vice packa­ge com­pri­sing con­sul­ting, coa­ching, trai­ning and human resour­ces, all in an inde­pen­dent, spe­cia­li­zed, inno­va­ti­ve, and high­ly mobi­le unit that is also inten­ded to ser­ve other custo­mers out­side of BMW without let­ting know-how flow to direct com­pe­ti­tors.

Is that still true today?

Abso­lute­ly. The who­le topic of „Trans­for­ma­ti­on of the Custo­mer Expe­ri­ence“ is just get­ting. Ser­ving custo­mers cor­rect­ly in a mul­ti-chan­nel sys­tem, with smart data and a con­vin­cing custo­mer jour­ney – both phy­si­cal­ly and digi­tal­ly – will be an essen­ti­al fac­tor for the com­pe­ti­tiveness of any com­pa­ny. This goes far bey­ond clas­sic sales opti­mi­za­ti­on.

Finan­ci­al Times and Focus Busi­ness have named rpc a growth cham­pi­on.

We are of cour­se very proud to be among the top 50 fas­test gro­wing com­pa­nies in Euro­pe, and in fact we have grown on average by almost 170 per­cent per year; we now have more than 350 employees. This is due to the fact that demand on the part of BMW was very high, inter­na­tio­nal­ly, so that we were able to open one base after ano­t­her very quick­ly and ser­ve the local mar­kets. It was also important that we moved up the time for our step to Chi­na, i.e. that we went the­re as ear­ly as 2015, two years after foun­da­ti­on, and now employ 55 peop­le the­re, 100 per­cent Chi­ne­se by the way.

And the growth from busi­ness with custo­mers other than BMW?

That is our focus now. The plat­form for a world­wi­de ran­ge of ser­vices has been crea­ted. Now we can plun­ge into other indus­tries that have a strong brand, a valu­able pro­duct, and mul­ti-level dis­tri­bu­ti­on sys­tems. We cur­r­ent­ly do busi­ness pri­ma­ri­ly with sup­pliers of tele­com­mu­ni­ca­ti­ons and com­mer­ci­al vehi­cles; the retail tra­de in luxu­ry goods as well as banks and insuran­ce com­pa­nies also suit us well as custo­mers. The objec­tive is to mul­ti­ply busi­ness out­side BMW over the next few years.

The five-year-old rpc is now lar­ger than its share­hol­der, the 20-year-old h&z. A pro­blem?

On the con­tra­ry, we learn from each other, we orga­ni­ze joint trai­ning ses­si­ons for our employees, and we can recom­mend each other’s ser­vices to our pro­ject custo­mers. For the h&z Group, it is an important part of our ser­vice port­fo­lio that we have such good spe­cia­lists for sales in Euro­pe, USA and Asia under our roof.

You men­tio­ned that digi­tal trans­for­ma­ti­on should also be the focus for rpc. How exact­ly do you advi­se your custo­mers?

First­ly, digi­ta­li­za­ti­on is chan­ging the con­tent of our work. For examp­le, when a new pro­duct enters the mar­ket, it is also about new ways of making con­tact with poten­ti­al custo­mers. This is increa­singly hap­pe­ning via digi­tal dis­tri­bu­ti­on chan­nels or soci­al media. Sud­den­ly the ent­i­re custo­mer inter­face has to learn how to move credi­b­ly in the­se worlds, how to find eva­lua­ti­ons and com­ment on how repu­ta­ti­on manage­ment works, for examp­le.

And second­ly?

Second­ly, it is not easy to pre­scri­be some­thing in struc­tures that have often grown orga­ni­cal­ly and have dif­fe­rent inte­rests: We’re doing online sales now. The com­pa­ny needs a good omni-chan­nel con­cept, on which ways which pro­ducts should go into the mar­ket and how to best rea­li­ze the­se plans. Here, rpc pro­vi­des sup­port for both con­cept and imple­men­ta­ti­on.

You men­tio­ned the two new focus are­as for rpc: Custo­mer Ana­ly­tics and Retail Design.

Many com­pa­nies want to switch to data-dri­ven sales in order to address their custo­mers even more spe­ci­fi­cal­ly. But that’s not that simp­le, becau­se the data is loca­ted in dif­fe­rent pla­ces, not that easy to bund­le and effi­ci­ent to use. The soft­ware tools are diver­se; data pro­tec­tion issu­es also play a role. The same app­lies to retail design and the latest tech­ni­cal touch points with the custo­mer. One can dream of sel­ling the future, whe­re cli­ents surf vir­tu­al worlds with 3D glas­ses, but to make it a posi­ti­ve buy­ing expe­ri­ence, not only must one have desi­gner exper­ti­se at hand, but also a very good under­stan­ding of the custo­mer. And we do. We are con­stant­ly out the­re.

Chris­ti­an Feil­mei­er
51, is from Regens­burg and rose through the ranks at BMW: from trai­nee with extra-occupa­tio­nal stu­dies to finan­ce at the head office to finan­ce mana­ger of the Cana­di­an sales com­pa­ny. Sin­ce Janu­ary 2013, he has been Mana­ging Direc­tor of rpc as a joint ven­ture of BMW and h&z with 350 employees.

Rai­ner Hoff­mann
55, is co-foun­der of the manage­ment con­sul­tan­cy h&z, comes from the All­gäu area and stu­di­ed com­pu­ter sci­ence and theo­reti­cal medi­ci­ne in Munich. After his MBA in Lon­don, he began a care­er with Sie­mens. In 1997, toge­ther with Tho­mas Zach­au, he foun­ded the con­sul­ting com­pa­ny h&z out of Sie­mens Manage­ment Con­sul­ting and built it up to its cur­rent size. Sin­ce 2018, he has been a seni­or part­ner and mem­ber of the super­vi­so­ry board of h&z.