| |January 201919CIOReviewHOW IS IOT RESHAPING AND TRANSFORMING THE AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY?With the innovation of IoT in the last couple of years, the auto industry is certainly one of the top adopters of the technology; leveraging it mainly for promising safety, preventive maintenance and other infotainment purposestion have acknowledged this as a potential risk · Inadequate infrastructure - High availability and zero downtime en-vironment, Uninterrupted data con-nectivity and speed etc· Lack of skilled resources with do-main expertise· Higher cost of IoT sensors, con-nectivity and maintenance · Complex ecosystem · Ubiquity ­ Multiple sockets, appli-cations, devices etcWhile the above challenges are more relevant for a developing economy like India there are a lot of learnings that can be leveraged from the global best practices and countries such as Germany who are ahead in this journey: · Customer centric approach to en-sure faster approach compared to standard manual features· No single fit for all - Manufacturer and Brand should keep their respec-tive segment and brand ethos into consideration while conceptualizing the IoT roadmap· Vernacular and local language sup-port is a critical success factor· Secured solution - To avoid hack-ing incidents where someone took the control of vehicles· Factory-fitted solution compared to custom-fit especially in the de-veloping world to increase the customer confidence· Continuous data analytics to draw insights and improve the product, reduce maintenance cost etcFurthermore, the statistics prove that the IoT can not only benefit the manufacturer but the entire ecosys-tem including following key players:· Manufacturer ­ Enhance Custom-er Experience, Brand loyalty and ad-ditional revenue source· Customer ­ Improve safety and se-curity of both driver and vehicle· Dealers ­ Preventive maintenance and service, improved CSAT· Insurer - Insurance premium as per vehicle usage etcHow connected is the Auto industry?According to an IoT statistics published on Internet, the total number of connected devices will reach around 30 billion by 2020 and the IoT investments will cross USD 1 trillion mark. As per Business Insider's pre-mium research service, it is expected that 94 million connected cars to ship in 2021, and 82 percent of all cars shipped will be connected with IoT based device. Hence, it's quite imperative for all the manufacturers to have necessary readiness to embark on this journey effectively. While all the major play-ers are working independently (in their own areas) and are already in different stages of execution, there is a need to explore avenues of com-ing together and perhaps form an IoT consortium, as it'll benefit the entire ecosystem. In fact, the technology giants such as Google, Microsoft, SAP etc who have a crucial role to play can also take a lead on this front to join hands and come up with a compre-hensive, secure, scalable, interop-erable and cost effective platform for the Auto industry. Also, there are a lot of niche and nimble play-ers already operating in the market who can join the bandwagon and bring a lot of value to the table. Clearly, the need of the hour is to come together and ride this wave together smoothly. I truly believe that IoT coupled with Industry 4.0 will revolutionise the entire Auto industry in com-ing years and shift the power in the hands of customer. In the sense, that customer will be able to design, cus-tomize his vehicle through digital tools and the online order will be placed. The same will be moved to production in a small batch using other key levers of Industry 4.0 such as 3D printing, Additive manufac-turing etc thereby reducing the lead time from design to production. Achin Sharma
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