BMW ReachNow

movmi’s Founder, Sandra Phillips, was hired as the interim Chief Customer Officer for 9 months overseeing all business development, product development and marketing efforts and transitioning knowledge to the incoming CCO.

Her objectives were to launch two of the markets and in April, 2016, ReachNow launched its first market, Seattle. The program launched with a mixed fleet of 370 vehicles, which included 75 electric i3. Within less than 1 month more than 13,000 customers signed up. Only 5 months later, in September, ReachNow launched its second city – Portland with 350 vehicles, again a mix of sedan, Minis and i3s.

The executive team at BMW also had set a mandate to launch a ride-hail service. Knowing the trip patterns of carsharing over time, the use cases where carsharing isn’t a safe option (eg. drinking and driving), and the financial reality of ride-hailing, Sandra devised a strategy to combine both services into one. The objective was to provide members with more choice, yet not burden cities with more ride-hailing cars. The overall objective was to use the available resources more efficiently.

In November 2016, BMW ReachNow launched a ride-hailing program called Ride, offering users the ability to either drive or be driven, depending on their preference, in addition to scheduling a pickup for later on. It was the first ever attempt to merge the two shared mobility options in one single app.