The Lords of the Rings fail to deliver

By Ingrid Daschner

Audi founder August Horch (horchen = to listen) Latinised his surname, using the command form of the verb audire (to listen). Thus, Audi means 'listen!'.

However, while Audi may well be very successful, listening doesn't seem to be its speciality. And despite being manufactured at sites around the world, being truly international also isn’t a strong point with the ‘Lords of the Rings’ – at least not when it comes to leasing.

We really wanted an Audi here in the Munich office.  But the leasing department were bothered by JK's form of business: Limited Company, or in short Ltd.

Now, Johnson King Ltd has been entered in the Munich Register of Companies since March 2000.  But that didn't interest Audi.  Nor did the fact that we have leased Mercedes and BMW cars on contract without any problems in the past.

We even presented Audi with business-management evaluations.  But even that didn’t interest them.  For a Limited Company, there is just nothing doing at Audi HQ in Ingolstadt – it’s just too much trouble to change their procedures.

Contrast this with the blossoming trade in personal and company data on the German black market.  For the equivalent of two decent pizzas, you can acquire CDs telling you a lot, if not everything, about people and companies: names, addresses, bank and credit‑card data, turnover, profits, health-insurance, tax numbers etc.  Unscrupulous businessmen are infiltrating companies and bypassing their deficient data protection measures to purloin gigabytes of data so as to earn a bit on the side by selling it.

I'm actually rather proud of the iron principles of German industry, with its awareness of tradition, solidity, adherence to principles, honesty...  But its lack of flexibility combined with a lax attitude to personal information is increasing getting out of step with the modern world.

Anyway, that's one less Audi in Munich, and the competition should be glad – there are over 30,000 Limited Companies registered in Germany, all of whom will be able to lease an Opel, BMW, Mercedes or Ford.  But not an Audi.