Technology Vision 2017 for Automotive

To compete, automotive companies must compress timeframes to bring products to market faster. Rather than creating a collection of sophisticated capabilities in-house and risking longer development cycles, automotive businesses must engage the ecosystem—startups, universities and digital transformation companies—to deliver leading-edge capabilities.

For the first time, major rivals are collaborating to design future value chains that transform businesses, products and even the market itself. When speed is everything, these types of partnerships are what can accelerate the development of new services and features for automakers.

On-demand labor platforms and online work management solutions are dissolving traditional hierarchies and creating a more fluid workforce. Such flexibility is necessary for automotive companies to speed digital development and get compelling offerings to market faster than ever before.

As cars become more connected and sophisticated, auto makers will need new skill sets to keep pace with fast-evolving market requirements. Crowdsourcing, talent marketplaces and other ways to access required skills on demand will help automakers to get the talent they need.

Autonomous driving is dramatically influencing the design of vehicles and the experiences they deliver. The product will no longer be just a car; it will be a mobile office, an entertainment center, a place to connect with people.

Today’s technology is adapting to people and individual human behavior. Amid the growing move toward autonomous cars, companies must design for humans, and that means automakers will need to evolve what their cars are designed for and what their brands are known for.

Connected and autonomous vehicles are new industry segments, with vehicle development and enhancements and moving full speed ahead—but legislation has yet to catch up. Currently, automakers are all playing by their own set of rules while major unknowns remain.

The industry is evolving at hyper-speed, and ecosystem participants must be proactive in helping to establish standards. Those automotive players who take the lead in setting new standards will find a place at or near the center of their new ecosystem.