MINI sells direct in 24 markets; BMW from mid-2027

Kihon Labs daily note: Strategy implementation

From 2026 to mid-2027. The plan held; the date did not.

From BMW's press releases and the trade press, I read this through the hidden-cost lens.

Jochen Goller, a BMW board member, told Automotive News Europe in September 2025 that the company was "honestly even more convinced than before" about its new way of selling cars. A year later, on 30 September, at its Capital Market Day in Munich, BMW gave the latest date for it: the core brand moves to agency sales in Europe from mid-2027.

MINI, the group's smaller brand, already sells this way in 24 European markets.

The plan is three years old. BMW announced it on 18 October 2023: MINI first, from 1 January 2024, with "BMW scheduled to transition from 2026".

In February 2025 a spokesperson spoke of "minor adjustments to the schedule", as newmobility.news reported from Automobilwoche. No new date came with it.

BMW kept the plan and moved the date, and it has not published what the people who sell the cars needed before the date could hold. A decision from 2023 still has to reach the people who sell the car, which makes this a question of strategy implementation.

What the sentence leaves out. The 2023 plan said the BMW brand would switch from 2026, and the release gives no reason for the new date.

The short version

BMW announced one sales model for two brands in October 2023; MINI runs it, the BMW brand does not yet.

The BMW brand's start moved from 2026 to mid-2027, and German dealers reportedly wait until July 2028.

BMW's spokespeople explain the moves with process quality, and the company has published no cost for the delay.

MINI switched on time, with early glitches

The 2023 release describes the model.

All new BMW and MINI cars in Europe are to be sold through a "genuine agency model". Each model gets one standard price across a country. The retailer earns a "fixed commission per vehicle sold", online orders included.

It gives no commission rate and no count of retail partners.

MINI went first: Italy, Poland and Sweden on 1 January 2024, Germany and Belgium on 1 October 2024, the UK in March 2025.

newmobility.news reported in February 2025 that MINI's processes and IT did not work as intended at first, and that BMW reworked purchase scenarios while selling. BMW Belux confirmed some glitches to the same site in December 2024; the site says they were solved quickly. BMW's own word for the launch, on 30 September 2026, is "successful".

The BMW brand's date moved three times

February 2025: postponed, no date.

September 2025: 2027. Goller told Automotive News Europe, as BMWBLOG reported: "we're honestly even more convinced than before that that is the right approach". A BMW spokesperson explained the new date to the same paper as "minor adjustments to the overall timeline to ensure both rapid implementation and a benchmark level of operational excellence".

August 2026: Manager Magazin reported that German dealers would not switch before 1 July 2028. BMW has not confirmed that date. A BMW UK spokesman told Car Dealer Magazine that "the BMW brand will transition to the agency model in phases from mid-2027".

The scale is BMW's own. In 2025 it delivered 2,463,681 cars, "the vast majority" through independent dealers. Revenue was €133,453 million, the Automotive EBIT margin 5.3%, and it employed 154,540 people.

In nine months of 2026 the BMW brand delivered 1,483,960 cars, down 6.4%; MINI 220,247, up 6.8%.

The same day set a second date for mid-2027: 20% fewer divisions and management roles.

Three years, one plan. MINI switched on its dates; the BMW brand moved from 2026 to 2027 to mid-2027, and Germany is reported later still.

The salesperson's day moves from discount to advice

Follow one sale at one retail partner. Today, by BMW's results release, independent dealers deliver the vast majority of its cars.

Under the agency model, BMW sets the national price and the retailer earns a fixed commission. The customer can start online and finish in the showroom. The retailer, in BMW's words, focuses on "customer consultations and care", with access to the group's entire stock.

What BMW has not described is the retailer's week. The company has published no process, so the rest of this paragraph is my outside reading. The discount conversation ends, because the price is fixed. The stock risk moves to BMW. The salesperson's day moves from negotiation to advice and delivery.

And the IT system must carry every purchase scenario on day one, which is where MINI's launch had difficulties, according to newmobility.news.

Now multiply by a brand that delivered 1.48 million cars in nine months. Every scenario the system does not cover on its first day is a sale handled by hand, or lost.

The roughly 18 months between "from 2026" and mid-2027 are the extra time the BMW brand's switch has taken so far, by BMW's own dates.

One car sale under BMW's agency model, as BMW describes it: Price set, standard nationwide pricing; Customer chooses, online or showroom; Retailer advises, consultation and care; Car delivered, fixed commission per vehicle; Data returns, one Europe-wide data basis, AI as the base. — **BMW's description, not its process map.** Price, choice, advice, delivery and data are stated; what a retailer's week becomes under the model is not.

Between the decision and the week in which it is run lies the whole of implementation. Where that gap is wide, the symptoms are work done twice, as in MINI's reworked scenarios, and dates missed.

The hidden cost is what has not happened yet: no "consistent Europe-wide data basis", in BMW's phrase, for its largest brand before mid-2027. Lost months are priced at the margin they should have produced, never at salary.

About €2,540 of EBIT on every car

BMW's 2025 Automotive EBIT of €6,259 million across 2,463,681 cars is about €2,540 per car. Its Europe region delivered 732,279 BMW and MINI cars in nine months of 2026, about 976,000 a year at that pace.

BMW reports the new date. Nobody books the months between the first date and the latest.

A switch that is not ready costs European deliveries one car at a time, each carrying that margin, before the commission the retailers do not earn.

If instead the delay is right, its cost is 18 months without the data BMW wants, and two models side by side wherever one retailer carries both brands. BMW has published neither number.

"BMW moved the date to protect quality; that is good implementation, not a problem." It may well be. BMW has published the date and the reason, not the scenarios, the hours or the cost. So you cannot tell from outside whether 18 months was the right price.

Nor can you tell that the delay cost BMW sales, or that agency will lift its margin; BMW has published no result for MINI's 24 markets beyond deliveries and the word "successful". The larger fall this year is China, where the BMW brand is down 21.2% in nine months, and BMW puts that on the market as a whole. A count by market would show more: deliveries, discount and commission per car in each MINI market, before and after its switch date.

A date moved twice is the price of a plan reaching the people who sell under it, counted late. Kihon counts it early: the scenarios a new system must carry on day one, the hours each customer-facing team needs before the date, and the margin those hours should carry. Taking a revenue system through a switch like this is Kihon's Operation work: every step from the board's date to the first customer at the new price gets a name, a day count and a test. It is the same question for an enterprise of 154,000 people and a company a fraction of its size that sells through resellers. If a date like mid-2027 is in your diary, thirty minutes on your own plan is where we would begin.

Three laws to repeat.

A plan runs late where the system meets the sale.
Day one is set by the scenarios that work.
A moved date has a price, even when nobody writes it down.

To every CEO, CFO and CRO: ask who signs off your next go-live date, and whether that person will ever sell under it.

Test the scenarios before you confirm the date

List every purchase scenario your new sales model must handle on its first day, with a name beside each.
Test each scenario with the people who will run it, before you confirm the date.
Count the hours each customer-facing team needs for the switch, and price them at margin.

What a board would ask about the moved date

Why did BMW move the date?

Process quality, in its spokespeople's words: "minor adjustments to the schedule" for "optimum implementation of the processes while maintaining the highest possible quality" in February 2025, and "a benchmark level of operational excellence" in September 2025. No cost or count came with them.

What did MINI's switch show?

Twenty-four markets live and deliveries up 6.8% in nine months of 2026, by BMW's count. The early difficulties were reported by newmobility.news, which says BMW Belux confirmed some glitches in December 2024 and that they were solved quickly.

What should you measure before your own switch?

The scenarios covered on day one and the hours each team needs, priced at margin. A date that moves twice usually means that count was made late.

Sources

Your turn: which plan in your commercial organisation has a date that moved this year, and who counted what the move cost? Write to me at cemgorer@kihonlabs.com, or answer on LinkedIn. I read every reply.