CORPORATE success will depend on the capacity of companies to manage change, BMW's chairman warned yesterday.

Delivering the Institution of Engineers of Ireland's 2001 McLaughlin Lecture at the National Gallery yesterday, Prof Joachim Milberg outlined some of the external challenges facing corporations.

These included globalisation, the information society, "hypercompetition", which relates to the use of disruptive tactics by companies, and the mixing of what he termed "the real and the virtual economy".

Referring to the question of whether there was any future in the old economy, Prof Milberg said: "Without real products and real production, no economy has a future."

Prof Milberg observed how a combination of Ireland's location and the innovative power of Irish firms had led to the "economic miracle" of the Celtic Tiger.

BMW sales in Ireland last year rose by 1,259 to reach 4,340 vehicles, an increase of 40 per cent, Prof Milberg said later. Since 1995, sales here have risen by almost 300 per cent, he added.

The firm plans to introduce the new Mini here on July 7th. This will coincide with the UK event and will take place before all other world markets. The new Rolls Royce brand will now be introduced in 2003.