Automakers should make fast, sexy and flawless products like tech companies

husbandKPMGKPMG, last year, showed a virtual husband video-chatting with his wife while she drove at the Connected Car Expo which caused the crowd to giggle. This year, KPMG is serious and warning automakers that hey have to act more like technology companies to compete.

Automakers will need faster introduction of new, “sexy” models, and nearly flawless quality to address competition from new competitors, according to a KPMG study. These new competitors, from technology giants to startups, operate at a faster pace and are acceleratinginnovation.

Some points from the study include:

  • KPMG focus groups say that a premium experience might diversify according to demographics and user situation.
  • If so, what millennials or their children think of as premium won’t be the same as baby boomers today. A rolling office? A movingentertainment center? Zero to 60 in 3 seconds or less? Automakers must pay attention to increasingly tailored consumer demand.
  • To interface with all the evolving technologies, your vehicles must have a flexible architecture. Imagine what would happen if an automaker locked itself into Myspace rather than Facebook: no one would buy the car.
  • For the first time, the auto industry faces competitors who are used to responding to far greater numbers of consumers and operating with hundreds of millions of units rather than the millions with which automakers work. That larger economy of scale gives them the potential for quick and impressive payback, and it enables them to achieve a faster pace of innovation. Now they are advancing on the auto market with its one billion cars on the road.
  • Automakers must now offers “sexy, dynamic experience” that includes things like the upgrading of sensors, actuators, and displays in 18 to 36 months and quarterly over-the-air upgrades of software.
  • Authors warn that the iPhone changed the consumer experience and how we interact with our mobile devices. Auto companies must solve the clockspeed dilemma today or risk becoming obsolete very quickly.
  • Last year, KPMG expected that the structure of the ecosystem in the automotive industry was going to change. High-tech entrants and tech start-ups would match the OEMs at providing technology and revolutionizeg the industry. This past year proved that is happening at a faster rate than KPMG
    anticipated. New technologies are coming from every direction, so auto companies have to broaden their radar and LiDAR to keep pace.

The connected car will be more connected than ever before.

Cars will connect with the infrastructure and stream telematics information about traffic, road conditions, and lane speeds. Vehicles will constantly self-identify, monitor the surrounding environment for hazards and potential threats, and adjust navigation and guidance to address those dangers.

Automakers will collect data to monitor the individual status of a car or to fix problems in a particular model preemptively. Passengers will be able to access streaming data feeds for entertainment and to utilize their handheld devices for on-the-move data streaming. They will also use their cell phones to locate their cars, turn them on, or assess their repair status. These innovations will, of course, greatly improve the driving experience of the consumer, produce greater safety, and increase longevity for the car. Connected changes will require high-speed ubiquity in the communications environment.
Enter the new players

 

The characteristics of the Sexy Dynamic Experience are already familiar ones in the market:

  • Products repeatedly evolve and improve after purchase.
  • Products are flexible, able to create environments or experience that is configurable with a consumer’s tastes or usage situation.
  • New enhancements are reverse compatible. They not only improve performance but work with earlier platforms.
  • Most traditional automotive players acknowledge the multiple challenges but have not fully come to terms with their effect on the ability to innovate. There is a means of addressing these challenges and achieving faster-paced innovation.

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