How you benefit from the digital structural change
The German automotive industry has a top-notch position on the world markets. The “Made in Germany” brand stands for leading know-how, innovative technology and absolute reliability. But technological and innovative leadership are not a matter of course. Engineers, designers, market analysts, sales experts and suppliers have to work hard to defend and maintain this standing. Prerequisites for this are a flexible automotive supply chain, smart business intelligence (BI) and strategic automotive IT consulting.
Automotive trend #1
Germany’s automotive industry will face fundamental changes in the coming years. Electric and hybrid vehicles are gradually replacing the conventional drive systems that still dominate the market today. Other drive concepts such as hydrogen and e-fuels are currently being tested. Will they catch on? We don’t yet know! What is certain, however, is that new vehicle components, adaptive production and innovative know-how will become decisive competitive factors. The automotive industry will thus need a flexible, transparent supply chain if it is to be able to respond quickly to change, as well as strategic automotive IT consulting.
The change is being driven primarily by the new CO2 Regulation at a political level, as well as by growing awareness for sustainable technologies among the population. The automakers’ and suppliers’ value chains will undergo significant change as a result. A flexible automotive supply chain that analyzes all the relevant KPIs, as well as reduced logistics costs, will play a key role here. valantic’s automotive IT consulting team, with its industry-specific know-how and decades of experience, would be happy to assist you.
Here’s how you benefit from valantic’s holistic supply chain management & logistics approach for the automotive industry.
Learn more about supply chain management with valantic
valantic’s three-component methodology applied to the target function of supply chain management in the automotive industry.
Learn more about sustainability in supply chain managementAutomotive trend #2
Digital technologies such as data analytics, artificial intelligence / automotive AI and IoT are establishing themselves in the automotive industry. Predictive maintenance and processes controlled by large numbers of sensors plus automotive BI almost entirely eliminate the breakdown times of customers’ vehicles, while automated quality control during production realize leaps in process efficiency. These developments have already become the status quo at many automotive manufacturers and suppliers, with the high-speed analysis of large data volumes by automotive BI and automotive AI playing a central role.
Two examples: Daimler uses a product information system that allows digital monitoring and data analysis of over 22,000 powertrain production machines at all of its plants. At the VW Group, automotive production lines are often already fully networked and integrated into central control systems (see “Automobile Wertschöpfung 2030/2050” [Automobile Value Creation 2050]. Study commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy).
Embedded into its strategic IT consulting for the automotive industry, valantic develops business analytics solutions for SAP and non-SAP systems that analyze structured, semi-structured and unstructured data and optimize processes along the entire value chain. Another option, robotic process automation (RPA), offers low-budget and low project-cost solutions for improving efficiency and throughput times in automotive industry processes.
Exploit your data’s potential to the full. valantic’s “Business Analytics” whitepaper provides useful information on all BA topics of relevance for the automotive industry.
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RPA in a minimally invasive technique for automating processes. Successful projects can typically be implemented in just a few weeks.
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Integrated business planning with SAP IBP combines operational and strategic planning processes in a single system landscape.
Learn more about SAP IBPAutomotive trend #3
Automotive production and manufacturing are becoming autonomous. Automated systems assisted by automotive AI make independent, real-time decisions and offer end-to-end optimization for the entire value chain. Autonomous AI-controlled automotive factories and the smart industries trend enable significant efficiency gains, improve quality management and reduce error rates, as well as aligning production with customers’ expectations.
The thousands of sensors that are fitted into the vehicles and evaluated by automotive AI provide valuable operational data on material utilization and wear. In a smart automotive AI factory, these data return to the manufacturer via a feedback loop, helping further improve vehicle design and production to optimally fulfill customers’ needs and preferences.
Two prerequisites must nevertheless be fulfilled for smart, autonomous AI-controlled automotive factories: (1) As they rely on accurate, real-time, process-wide connectivity and data collection, up-to-date data must be available for the production systems to be able to perform their function adequately; and (2) a transparent automotive supply chain and demand-driven sourcing of materials is vital for factories to create self-controlled material flows and fulfill orders efficiently. valantic’s strategic automotive IT consulting develops a long-term IT roadmap together with its clients.
Automotive trend #4
The digitalization of the transportation system generates many benefits. It helps travelers to find free parking spaces more quickly in congested cities, avoid traffic jams even on feeder roads and reach their destination more conveniently. Today’s customers no longer expect just a technically sophisticated automotive product, but want a comprehensive mobility service package. In future, this means that automotive manufacturers and suppliers will no longer be selling cars, but mobility.
The social trend toward shared mobility reflects this transformation. For automotive industry stakeholders, this does not mean that they must to abandon their existing business models, but that they will have to strategically diversify them if they are to reap maximum benefit from the new structural drivers and be able to tap into new market opportunities.
The shared economy flexibilizes automotive services, HR recruiting processes and the workforce. By temporarily leasing valantic’s automotive experts, you can benefit optimally from their know-how and industry expertise in developing shared business cases for the automotive sector.
Automotive trend #5
Nowadays, automobiles and especially individual parts are no longer sold by car dealerships alone; digital sales channels are booming. 41 percent of companies intend to invest more heavily in e-commerce solutions – including chatbots and conversational AI – in the future to tap into new sales channels. This was one of the conclusions reached by a survey of business decision-makers conducted by valantic in late 2020.
At the same time, an optimized and consistent customer experience (CX) is becoming increasingly important for sales success. The magic here lies in the potential, since satisfied customers are willing to pay higher prices if they have a first-rate customer experience; at the same time, a great customer experiences also helps boost provider trust and loyalty.
It therefore pays to invest in tried-and-tested e-commerce solutions and an optimized digital customer experience in automotive retail. valantic has many years’ experience in designing and developing powerful e-commerce solutions based on Magento. Our veteran Customer Experience and IT Consulting teams would be happy to help you benefit optimally from digital sales channels with a perfect CX.
Smart CX solutions for customer management and sales in automotive retail.
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Yay, my bot understands me! Conversational AI for the automotive industry from valantic.
Learn more about conversational AIYou’d like to be among the winners of these changes? To transform the current challenges into sustainable strengths for your company? To be able to plan reliably and produce smartly and efficiently, even in volatile markets? In that case, you should act now and, as a first step, talk to valantic’s automotive, supply chain, BI and AI experts. Our specialist teams combine many years’ automotive industry experience with a profound understanding of processes, new IT tools and technologies.
wayRTS is a powerful software package for real-time production planning and control of every stage of your company’s value chain. wayRTS renders your planning transparent and lets you intervene easily with planning support that can be automated as desired.
The Connected Chain Manager (CCM) is a powerful, user-friendly collaboration tool for monitoring inventories and ranges in multi-level supply chains. It is ready to use out of the box, making it ideal for situations where quick visibility is critical.
Integrated Business Planning combines strategic, tactical and operational planning processes in a single system landscape.
The webinar will focus on a live demo in SAP IBP tailored for midsize companies, the software architecture and the valantic best practices approach for integrated end-to-end planning processes.
Antonia Demleitner tells us why, as a mathematician, she took the leap into SAP consulting at valantic and she gives us an overview of her tasks as an SAP TM consultant on projects.
The automobile industry is currently undergoing rapid change. The biggest driver at the moment is the conversion from combustion engines to e-mobility. This change poses challenges for the automobile industry, which among other things require more intensive research and development, re-planning of production and logistics systems, establishing new supply chains, and qualifying employees in order to be able to fulfill the new requirements.
