Automotive : Gaining the Required Edge

The key drivers responsible for the increased adoption of technology in the
automotive sector are the two Cs: customer and competition. The customer rules
in the automotive sector, and the two drivers indicate the responsiveness toward
the customer, whether proactive or reactive. And if the company needs to be
proactive, it also needs to understand the customer pain points and collating
data from the primary level of source: dealer and customer.

A strong method of data collection is required; when the customer walks into
the showroom, it is imperative that all relevant information is captured, which
can be used later to define the customer requirements. And this data collection
can only be done with the enablement of systems to collect data and hiring
system in order to play with data so as to arrive at management information
system. This enables the management to chalk out a strategy in terms of product
launch and product positioning.

The second important driver is competitionreducing the time to market. With
growing cutthroat competition, there is an urgent need for automotive companies
to penetrate newer markets. And this can only be achieved by shortening the
product lifecycle, which, in turn, is possible if data is collated from
suppliers in time.

Hilal Khan CIO, Honda Motors

Technology adoption in the automotive sector is an ongoing process, and with
the business and market changing by the day, IT helps companies to either
foresee and take preventive steps or take counter measures later. But what is
important is that organizations need to find out the method of doing it over a
consistent period of time.

Automotive companies have to keep in mind the customer and product safety,
and the strategy, thereby, needs to evolve from this. For instance, in Honda we
realized early that logistics plays an integral role in an automotive company so
the manufacturing of car and spare part management is a key issue. Therefore,
the whole chain started from sourcingproduct planning to material planning to
scheduling, receiving and warehouse management and the like. Deploying IT
systems, which are more accurate, fast and efficient, can further reduce this
chain.

The benefits predictably from using IT arereducing time to market,
increasing efficiency and accuracy of service and, last but not the least,
reducing costs. So, for instance, if you have a good drawing system, you have
the ability to interact with the principal and supplier, thus bringing in the
benefits of time and cost.

Technology in an automotive company has progressed from its initial stages,
when it was seen as a cost of doing businessone needed to provide systems for
function processes. This stage also included integrating all these diverse
processes since it was advisable to have minimum islands of applications for
ease of integration.

The second stage is when IT was used as a medium of growthwhen the
automotive companies started using the data gathered because of system
enablement for business understanding. The current stage is using technology
more as a strategic tool for gaining the required edge in the market on the
basis of data gathered under which automotive companies are doing dashboard
solution and analytics.

Global automotive companies stand out from their Indian counterparts
primarily because while Indian companies talk about services what the companies
are implying is that the service needs to be done on their terms.

Like any relationship, the foundation of the relationship between the vendor
and the client is transparencyeverything should be laid out clearly on the
table. Also, as far as the after sales service is concerned, a customer should
have complete visibility.