The Secret to Scaling Data Streaming at BMW Group

In the world of IT platform adoption, technology is only half the story. The real differentiators? People, process, and a thriving internal community.

In our recent webinar, we sat down with BMW Group’s stakeholder manager to unpack how the company transformed its approach to data streaming by building a vibrant, cross-functional community and turning isolated projects into a company-wide movement.

The Challenge: Moving Beyond Technology

Many organizations start their data streaming journeys with a bottom-up approach: engineers and integration teams experimenting with new tools. But without executive sponsorship, intentional communication, and a unified platform vision, adoption often stalls. BMW Group faced these same hurdles, with siloed teams, fragmented knowledge, and the risk of reinventing the wheel for every new use case.

The Solution: Community as a Catalyst

Teams needed to be empowered across the organization to own, govern, and leverage data at the source. But before that, all parts of the business needed to be aware of the central data streaming service. This was accomplished by establishing an internal data streaming community to create a pulsing source of truth: 

• Multichannel communication: Different stakeholders, including IT, business, and developers require tailored content and support at every stage of their journeys.

• Flagship events: The Streaming Wiesn (formerly Kafka Wiesn, inspired by Oktoberfest) became the annual flagship event, bringing together hundreds of community members from more than 10 business units across the globe. These gatherings fostered knowledge exchange, showcased success stories, and built trust across the organization.

• Continuous enablement: From technical workshops to business-focused sessions, every team member, regardless of maturity level, could participate and grow.

• External visibility: Sharing internal successes with the broader Apache Kafka® and Apache Flink® communities not only built credibility but also inspired internal stakeholders to see the bigger picture.

The Results: Scale, Speed, and Shared Success

Today, BMW Group’s data streaming community supports more than 1,000 applications and 40,000 topics. The benefits are clear:

• Accelerated adoption: Community-driven knowledge-sharing saved significant time in designing and implementing Kafka solutions.

• Cross-functional innovation: Business units, developers, and architects collaborate seamlessly, driving new use cases and operational excellence.

• Resilience and governance: Shared best practices and lessons learned improve reliability, monitoring, and compliance across the platform.

• A true partnership: The central service teams at BMW Group and Confluent work hand in hand, with the community acting as a gateway for feedback, support, and continuous improvement.

Lessons Learned: Start With the People

BMW Group’s journey shows that scaling data streaming isn’t just about deploying the right technology;   it’s about building the right community. Start small, communicate relentlessly, and celebrate every win. Whether you’re just beginning or looking to accelerate adoption, success lies in focusing on people, process, and purposeful engagement.

Ready to build your own data streaming community? Explore our data readiness assessment and our positioning and branding workshop to get started.

A thriving internal community is the heart of a data streaming organization. Watch this webinar to explore how to build internal communities that inspire adoption, share success stories, and keep your platform relevant over time while accelerating its return on investment (ROI).

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