BMW Taps China Executive as CIO
October 29 2019 - 6:48PM
Dow Jones News
By Agam Shah
BMW AG named a China-focused executive as its chief information
officer after the departure of its previous IT chief, who had been
in the role since 2014.
Alexander Buresch, who led the German luxury-car maker's
strategy and joint ventures in China, will take on the CIO post
Jan. 1. He succeeds Klaus Straub, whose resignation BMW confirmed
earlier this month. The company declined to comment on when or why
Mr. Straub resigned.
Mr. Buresch will be based in Munich. As CIO, he will lead BMW's
IT department and cloud strategy while contributing to the auto
maker's modernization effort, which includes self-driving
technology and digital in-vehicle services.
The company is using Microsoft Corp.'s Azure cloud-computing
services to equip its vehicles with voice-assistant, navigation and
location-based services. BMW is also using Amazon.com Inc.'s Amazon
Web Services cloud service for applications such as car
customization.
"CIOs are at the center of digital technologies that auto
companies are using to optimize their operations, speed up product
development and help sell products through digital channels," said
Michael Ramsey, senior research director at research and advisory
firm Gartner Inc.
Mr. Buresch's IT team also will support BMW's production and
logistics efforts, shepherding technologies like virtual reality
and robotics. CUT: into facilities.
The company has more than 3,000 assembly-plant machines, robots
and autonomous-transport systems connected by software with a
central Internet-of-Things platform.
Speaking earlier this year with CIO Journal, Mr. Straub, the
former CIO, described the issues associated with integrating
software with production-line equipment. "It's a significant
challenge, since we cannot simply interrupt production and halt the
assembly lines in order to deploy new software," he said.
He described his strategy of building teams to better integrate
software and hardware in its Internet-of-Things system as "100%
agile -- a holistic journey along four core dimensions: processes,
technology, structure and culture."
Write to Agam Shah at agam.shah@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 29, 2019 18:33 ET (22:33 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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