Driving is data. By 2030, virtually all new cars will be connected devices, datacenters on wheels. For drivers, those lights and gauges on the dashboard, images on the screen, and cameras mean it's safer and more efficient than ever to get around the block or across the country. Cars do just about everything these days but the driving. And, well, of course, that's coming too.

But as important as data is to drivers, it's also invaluable to the automotive industrylearn more by viewing the on demand Microsoft Auto Industry Digital Forum: The role of data, AI and standards in automotive retail innovation. It is a way to understand more clearly than ever before who customers are and what they want. Habits, preferences, the basics a buyer won't do without, along with features they might or might not insist on, but that might make the difference in a sale. Again, looking ahead to 2030, another expectation is that up to 30 percent of new revenue for the industry will be generated through on-demand mobility services and data-driven services.Drivers, in short, want connected cars. The additional revenue this is estimated to generate is extraordinary, as much as $1.5 trillion. What a car looks like and how many people and things you can fit into it still matter, of course, but there's a lot more on the mind of potential customers these days. 85 percent of automotive executives agree that the digital ecosystem is expected to eventually generate higher revenue than the hardware of the car itself.

The challenge is not amassing the data. That's happening. Insight, seeing into the data, is what matters most. That's the focus of STAR, Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail, which for 15 years has been a non-profit organization composed of dealers, manufacturers, retail system providers and automotive-related industry organizations. STAR is the IT standards organization for the automotive industry. STAR works to share data seamlessly among every player, from the executive suite to the showroom and factory floor. Amid the ever-accelerating complexity of data sources and formats, it all can fragment, flying off in too many directions across a vast, global industry. But when applications and processes can be readily accessed, which STAR enables, they empower customer experiences. And that encourages loyalty, linking the auto industry and car buyers together, across the digital distances.

Microsoft believes in STAR. Our partnership is vibrant. We've joined forces to share our common mission of taking the automotive industry to the next level, tapping the immense, really limitless potential of data when it can be transformed into understanding.

Rafael Maldonado, Chairman of STAR and Vice President and Chief Information Officer for NADA, has said, "STAR is focused on transforming the automotive retail experience through secure, reliable and efficient use of data. As the automotive sector moves toward more agile, digital processes, we are energized by Microsoft's leadership and their support of industry standards that reduce cost and complexity for dealers, while increasing efficiency, innovation, and returns for our STAR members."

It's all about unleashing automotive data's full potential and unlocking insight. Microsoft's Common Data Model (CDM) for Automotive is an example of activating a data foundation to transform the automotive customer's experience. The Automotive CDM was developed with input from the STAR standard, working as well with other thought leaders across the industry, and with a steering team of global customers and partners. This is deep collaboration that's resulted in a streamlined, open CDM that reflects common automotive scenarios, distilled learnings from data model challenges of the past, while ensuring adherence to current shared standards. The result is a common automotive data language across the industry.

The Automotive CDM maps incoming data from business applications, processing it to standard CDM entities, and enhancing that with further automotive-specific approaches to retail, including sales and service. "Service" is a broad term here, encompassing repair order management, warranties, inspections, service contracts, scheduled service, and more. Connections are created where there were none, through logical relationships and groupings, at a very practical, real-world level, like the daily operations of an automotive dealership. Across the industry, this shared data layer solves problems, seamlessly.

Aligned, STAR and the Automotive CDM continuously lower barriers to innovation for dealers and OEMs. Within the consistent structure of standards, a richer customer experience emerges, and back-office operations are also streamlined, by further tapping the power of the breadth of the Microsoft technology stackAzure, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Dynamics 365, and more.

The shared data language of STAR and the Automotive CDM means a more personalized customer journey. When data about customer preferences is in the cloud it becomes possible to tailor a retail journey. From the first online exploration of what someone needs from a new vehicle to engagement with a salesperson digitally or in the showroom, artificial intelligence (AI)-driven insight becomes a powerful tool to empower the personalization customers like, and increasingly expect. Meaning special deals, the right features, creative financing, warranties that fit. Storing personalized information in a unified data model enables the sales manager to have a quick, accurate, 360-degree view of the customer in a dashboard that's integrated with collaboration tools designed to further help staff be at their best.

It's a journey that doesn't end when the customer drives away with a new car. Far from it. Customer satisfaction becomes an empowered, ongoing commitment. Proactive maintenance via service alerts, offers and other notifications sent directly to the customer's phone, standardized data using aggregated internet of things (IoT) data, enhance every aspect of buying and selling a car. A car owner is connected to their dealership with information about the status of their vehicle, from scheduling services to maintenance reminders to pricing transparency, all of it available with a touch of the car app.

Mobility is always critical. Companies can integrate mobility offerings directly into the customer journey to enable ride shares, vehicle loans, subscription services, and related options. If a customer needs a car for the weekend, for example, they can explore other vehicles and services in the brand family of their own vehicle.

Buying a car is a very personal decision. It's a big deal, whether it's a first car or what you plan to drive into retirement. Companies that understand the power of technology, with resources like STAR and Microsoft Common Data Model for Automotive, go beyond merely treating a purchase like a transaction. They consider it a relationship, engagement with someone they know, care about, and want to see again. That's how to inspire an initial customer journey and many more after that. That's the real power of technology, of insight from data in the automotive industrybringing people and businesses together with a personal touch to build brand loyalty that just may last a lifetime.

Learn more

View an on-demand webinar with NADA and STAR, two industry leading dealerships, and Microsoft. Our panelists discuss the role of data, AI, and standards and how you can address these in strategies for your own business.

Rapidly develop test drives, vehicle specifications and service appointment scheduling solutions with the Dynamics 365 Automotive Accelerator.

Microsoftaims tofulfillour mission of empowering every person and organization on the planetto achieve more. Visit the Microsoft Automotive website to learn more abouthow Microsoft is accelerating the future of mobility.

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As I reflect on our customers' and partners' achievements in such trying times, their successes and innovations inspire me. Looking ahead, I’m both optimistic and excited as the industry continues its forward momentum. I'd like to highlight a few recent examples of our collaboration with leaders in the industry.

In January, General Motors and Cruise announced a long-term strategic relationship with Microsoft to bring together their hardware and software engineering expertise, computing power, and partner network to accelerate self-driving vehicles’ commercialization. Also in January, ZF selected Microsoft and PwC to build ZF's Digital Manufacturing Platform to translate complex technical information into valuable business insights in continuing efforts around Factory 4.0. Smart factories work quickly, reliably, and offer a high degree of adaptability for rapid design changes. These benefits lead to more engaged employees, increased business velocity, and more substantial growth margins.

This month Volkswagen Group's Car.Software Organisation announced they’re teaming up with Microsoft to build a cloud-based Automated Driving Platform (ADP) on Microsoft Azure. The solution will leverage its compute and data capabilities to deliver automated driving experiences faster and globally. With ADP running on Azure, VW is looking to Microsoft to increase the efficiency of developing advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving (AD) functions for passenger cars across Volkswagen Group brands. The effort is a continuation of an already flourishing partnership between Volkswagen and Microsoft. VW has worked on the Volkswagen Automotive Cloud since 2018, which will span all of Volkswagen's future digital services and mobility offerings.

Then, last week, Bosch announced its efforts with Microsoft to develop a software-defined vehicle platform on Azure to connect vehicles to the cloud seamlessly. This collaboration aims to simplify and accelerate vehicle software development and deployment throughout a car's lifetime following automotive quality standards. The new platform, built on Azure, will incorporate existing software modules from Bosch and enable the software to be developed and downloaded to the control units and vehicle computers. The process will encourage further vehicle innovation and reduce development costs for vehicle software within and across organizations.

As these examples emphasize that 2021 is off to an incredible start. We will continue our efforts to develop leading solutions that support the industry's evolution. We remain committed to our customers' successes and helping them build their digital platforms quickly. Together with our partners’ and customers’ efforts, we will make mobility and transportation safer, more fun, productive, and more connected and sustainable for customers and the world.

Looking in the rearview mirror

Looking back, 2020 was a year of challenge, change, and uncertainty for many. However, as the examples above illustrate, it also marked a time of acceleration for the automotive industry that spurred investments in technology and digital transformation. It was also a year of innovation.

In the face of one of the biggest modern global challenges, we focused on our role as an industry partner not just from a technology perspective, but as a trusted business ally. We sought ways to help address customers' challenges with offerings to help them flourish in ambiguous times. I want to thank our automotive customers for stepping up to support their organizations during COVID-19. Our customers' strength, grit, resiliency, and fortitude are humbling.

Throughout the year, we focused on five critical pillars to help our customers accelerate their businesses and drive the future of mobility:

1. Accelerated vehicle innovation
2. Differentiated customer experience
3. Resilient operations
4. Increased organizational productivity
5. Emerging mobility services

I'd like to showcase some fantastic examples across these five pillars:

1. Accelerated vehicle innovation

Vehicles are the front-line of the automotive industry. Over the last few decades, the vehicle’s purpose has transformed from a means-of-travel to a datacenter on wheels. And this evolution has been deeply influenced by the role of technology. Today, modern consumers are purchasing vehicles for their digital capabilities, including safety, compliance, and an exceptional mobility experience. To help fulfill these expectations, we partner with the automotive industry to accelerate vehicle innovation, including vehicle connectivity, autonomous development, and more.

Wayve’s partnership with Microsoft is one great example of innovation in the autonomous landscape. We had the opportunity to collaborate with the London-based startup to expand their team and develop a unique autonomous driving platform with Azure and AI. Since our initial work with Wayve when they first joined Microsoft Startups, Wayve has continuously impressed and pushed the industry through one innovation after another. Now, Wayve is working towards a future where autonomous vehicles can operate in any urban environment.

2. Differentiated customer experience

Customers are the cornerstone for our automotive partners. They must deliver an exceptional customer experience that is personalized, omnichannel-driven, and data-intensive.

Mercedes Benz is a masterful example of an organization that has harnessed technology’s power to transform its world-class customer experience. In the middle of COVID-19 challenges, Mercedes leaned in on Microsoft to help keep their employees safe, develop long-term efficiency, and create a higher customer satisfaction level. To support its service technicians more efficiently repair and maintain its models, Mercedes-Benz USA is outfitting all its authorized American dealerships with Microsoft HoloLens 2 headsets. The devices feature Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, a mixed reality app that lets users collaborate during hands-free video calls from their computers. The tools enable diagnostic technicians at the dealerships to troubleshoot a problem in real-time by tapping into Mercedes-Benz's remote technical specialists’ ecosystem with expertise across its various car lines.

3. Resilient operations

To quickly adapt to vehicle innovation and market fluctuation, we support our automotive customers' needs to create an agile, responsive production process, and Microsoft's digital and cloud technologies are transforming the future of supply chain operations and manufacturing. With our resilient operations approach, we offer advanced data integration analytics solutions to help customers stay on track with vehicle innovation while generating supply-chain efficiencies, transforming the factory floor into a "factory of the future," and reducing costs.

As mentioned earlier, ZF tapped Microsoft technologies to make significant headway. Their digital transformation helped optimize their processes, reduce conversion costs, improve inventory, performance, and quality, and make their workforce more efficient.

4. Increased organizational productivity

Pivoting to a COVID-safe environment and navigating a new normal, every organization, regardless of industry, drastically adapted to the pandemic, and automotive organizations were no exception. With our increased organizational productivity strategy, our goal is to fuel and empower our customers' entire organization left-to-right with collaboration tools, technical training, intelligent platform services, and the processing power of the cloud to create a connected and productive experience for employees.

Volvo Group embarked on a cross-departmental set of strategies to improve the employee experience. The organization deployed Microsoft 365 to lay the foundation for an intelligent digital workplace. It began working with HR and corporate communications to create a cultural change that adheres to Design Around Me’s precepts. The Design Around Me steering committee collects feedback from local offices through a Yammer community in Microsoft Teams and stores documentation and examples of projects from the field on a SharePoint intranet site.

5. Emerging mobility services

As automotive organizations look to the next era of mobility, data insights define the future. As more vehicles become datacenters on wheels, they map and store the continuously generated data. Data insights help to drive business strategy, build smart mobility services, and improve profitability. Our emerging mobility services approach helps our automotive customers tap data to identify new opportunities to develop, modernize, and expand their businesses' untapped potential.

SUN Mobility is harnessing the power of Azure and data insights to reimagine electric vehicles to put India on the road to the future. Using Microsoft Azure IoT Hub, Microsoft Azure Data Factory, Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, Microsoft Azure Databricks, and other solutions, batteries and battery swap stations can transmit performance data at speed and scale. The process helps SUN Mobility understand battery utilization, identify frequently trafficked routes, and determine peak hours. With Microsoft's data experts’ help, SUN Mobility is thinking beyond software solutions and looking to bridge organizational gaps that are invisible without data. Today, SUN Mobility sees vast opportunities with the cloud and now looks at enhanced security, financial platform integration, fleet management, and energy consumption related to vehicle usage patterns.

I want to thank all our customers for trusting us as their business partner. We look forward to our collaboration toward a more sustainable, safe, and productive world.

The post Microsoft automotive momentum: looking forward, back, and beyond appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Through its four-decade partnership with leaders in the automotive industry, there's one core learning that Microsoft continues to see: with challenge comes increased opportunity for innovation. For vehicle makers, this has meant turning the business model upside down, redefining an industry, and working at a blistering pace transforming from traditional manufacturers to mobility service providers.

With most modern vehicles requiring connected and autonomous abilities, an intelligent supply chain is more important than ever. To keep pace with vehicle innovation while also creating efficiencies and reducing costs, Microsoft's resilient operations strategy is two-fold:

Connect people with products and processes:

Boost employee and manufacturing productivity by integrating people with intelligent mixed-reality devices, IoT-enabled machines, and AI-enhanced applications in your factory of the future.

Replace complexity with intelligence:

Overcome the complexities of an evolving supply chain by using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to make smarter decisions about planning, sourcing, manufacturing, product delivery, and customer service.

When Toyota Material Handling Group considered how to evolve its goal of lean and efficient manufacturing, its leadership looked to the heart of the companyforkliftand its longtime technology partner to help build its digital ecosystem.

"We need(ed) to expand our business and see the customers' point of view more and make them happy," shared Toshihide Itoh, associate director and CIO of Toyota Material Handling Group, an Aichi, Japan-based division of Toyota Industries Corporation. "But we cannot do everything by ourselves. So, I am so excited for everything that Microsoft can provide as a partner to accelerate our digital transformation."

As the largest forklift manufacturer in the world, Toyota Material Handling Group has been a leader in the digitization of the automotive industry, rapidly evolving in step with its customer's needs and dedication to high company standards. In 2019, the company shared its plan to use forklifts enabled with machine learning and Internet of Things (IoT) services in Microsoft Azure that can navigate a virtual model of the customer's warehouse. These intelligent forklifts will be able to learn and consistently improve on adaptability and performance, including communicating with other machines on tasks, to further increase efficiencies and reduce costs across its supply chain.

The company also adopted machine learning into its factory innovation. Together with Microsoft engineers, the companies are creating AI algorithms to test the quality of onsite forklift welding projects through recorded sound.

"We use machine learning and AI to do things that people cannot do by themselves, like analyze big data quickly," Itoh shared. "AI analysis can lead to new solutions and give open time for people to utilize their brain. That's very important. So, they share some work with AI and it makes everyone and everything more productive."

Another longtime Microsoft customer, Cummins, has also experienced significant benefits to its supply chain, employee productivity, and efficiencies across its business with the adoption of Microsoft Azure and Power BI. For the world's largest independent manufacturer of diesel engines, efficient and reliable self-service BI tools offered a significant turning point in business reporting and collaboration for the company.

Sherry Jared, IT director and enterprise BI service leader at Cummins, said the results were astounding:

"Think about having a soda pop can, and you shake it up and that pressure builds (and) when you pop it, it really explodes. That's … what happened when we introduced self-service in Cummins."

Global automotive company Daimler AG, well known for its Mercedes-Benz cars and Freightliner trucks, also made a big bet on Microsoft Azure when it replaced its companywide procurement system of over 400,000 global suppliers with a software as a service (SAAS) system on Microsoft Azure. The project was lit up in just three months and cost the company half of its previous setup.

"By using Azure, we started to deliver months faster than would have been possible in our on-premises environment," said Dr. Stephen Stathel, operations lead for new procurement system and team lead for the Build2Run Team at Daimler AG.

Learn more about Microsoft's Resilient Operations and how your company can begin its digital transformation journey today

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Think of an automotive manufacturer and you might picture huge factories, large production lines, robotic assembly, and innumerable mechanical parts. But it's what lies underneath all these things that’s driving the future of automotive and mobility and the companies behind it: software.

As the mobility industry and its customer needs evolve, automotive companies have been leveraging Microsoft DevOps offerings to break down legacy development silos and build new infrastructure that accelerates teams through new processes and technology. Where development, IT operations, quality engineering, and security teams once functioned as their own entity, the tools and best practices of a DevOps culture create an environment that fosters collaboration and productivity. The results are faster time to market, fewer errors, increased revenue, rapid innovation, higher customer satisfaction, and ultimately a more agile and secure organization that can evolve successfully at scale.

Microsoft customer ZF Friedrichshafen AG, also known as ZF Group, has been ahead of the game in their digital transformation.

"The collaboration with Microsoft will enable us to accelerate software integration and delivery significantly," shared Dirk Walliser, who leads corporate research and development at ZF. "This is important for our customers who appreciate agile collaboration and need short delivery cadences for software updates. Moreover, software will need to be developed when hardware is not yet available."

Additionally, ZF Group will benefit from Microsoft Azure DevOps' enterprise-grade security and open-source interoperability, which are necessary with the unique needs and compliance requirements of the auto industry.

The Ford Motor Company has also been a leader in redefining collaboration and efficiency from the inside out, growing quickly from 100 developers using GitHub to more than 9,000 global employees. The company has developed its own software for many years, but it was often within individual teams. As industry and customer needs evolved, Ford knew it needed a more cohesive way for teams to join forces.

"We had to work in a coherent and collaborative fashion as the product we created grew much more complex," shared Florian Frischmuth, chief engineer, Architecture and Software Platform at Ford. "A car has hundreds of sensors. They're not all connected, but to create more features, you need to build on these sensors. You need to work together."

The shift from automotive manufacturer to provider of software-driven mobility solutions has been both organic and necessary. In the next decade, it's predicted that 100 percent of new vehicles will be connected, and at least 10 to 15 percent of those will be fully autonomous.¹ To differentiate from the competition and be future-proof, investment in digital capabilities is critical to empowering development and operations teams to optimize collaboration across automation, testing, monitoring, and continuous delivery using agile methods.

Microsoft Azure DevOps and GitHub can help auto manufacturers stay on time, on scope, and on budget with an enterprise-proven foundation; for automakers, it's the roadmap they need to future-proof their business.

¹McKinsey; Accenture; Microsoft analysis

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Who doesn't love the clean lines, the bold curves, the shiny finish of a new car? But just as exciting is what's going on under the hood. The rise of EVs, cloud-connected technologies to help drivers avoid collisions, communications systems that become as integral to our lives as our phonesit's all happening. Here. Now. Today.

So are cloud-based simulations that put autonomous vehicles on the road. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and business intelligence (BI) simplify the experience of buying and maintaining a vehicle. Machine learning assists the factories that build these amazing machines in becoming more efficient. Emerging smart cities give people choice in how they commute.

You'll learn all about these topics on Microsoft's The Inside Track podcast, hosted by me, Kerry Lebel. Each episode features an industry expert, insider, or analyst who has studied the long-term trends, evolving expectations of consumers, and effects of technology advancements on industry strategies.

In our first episode, "Factories, BI and AIoh my," you'll hear from Trever White, Group Manager of Manufacturing Engineering Systems for Toyota in North America. He's part of a group of visionaries reimagining the factory floor in a way that's changing the industry through the use of data, AI, and business intelligencein particular, because the big challenge in any factory is making sure that all of the many moving parts can create one smoothly working machine.

"We’ve been able to focus a lot of equipment data collection and visualize equipment downtime and understand which piece of equipment is having the biggest problem at a particular time and focus on that," Trever says.Having those analytics makes equipment changeovers go much more smoothly and efficiently, Trever tells Kerry.

In episode two, "The impact of the connected vehicle," Kerry chats with his old colleague Anupam "Pom" Molhatra, currently Audi of America's Director of Connected Vehicles and Data. Today, more drivers see their cars as an extension of their digital livesalmost like their cellphone on wheels. Data and connectivity are bringing benefits like interactions with traffic infrastructure or a wider array of entertainment options right to our fingertips, for example.

"Having watched this industry, you see these moments where you think that there’s some kind of a seismic change that’s going on," says Pom. "I think we’re in one of those."

Pom shares that so many of the new technologies he discusses aren't a vision of the futurethey're happening today. Onboard AI, for example, can stop a car faster than a driver can react, which could mean fewer accidents.

"Right now, any safety systems are primarily designed to be built into the vehicle and the vehicle is self-sufficient in order to provide a level of safety," Pom says. "That’s state of the art with these systems."

Sandeep Sovani, Director of ADAS and Autonomy at the industrial simulation company Ansys, stars in our third episode, "Cloud simulations: The speed of innovation."

In October 2021, teams from 40 universities around the world will converge upon the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with test vehicles that will race at speeds of nearly 200 miles per hour, all autonomously. As Sandeep explains, there's no way these students could test these vehicles, in particular during a pandemic, without their not-so-secret weapon: simulations.

"Simulation is absolutely crucial for the development of autonomous vehicles to try out all the hundreds of thousands, millions of different scenarios that they would have to develop their software for," says Sandeep. By using AI and the cloud to accelerate design, engineering, testing, and simulations, autonomous manufacturers can clock in billions of hours before their vehicles ever see the road, and at the same time utilize their high-powered computing scenarios only when they're needed.

In episode four, "Customer experiencethe new differentiator," Kerry shares a pet peeve with our guest, Magnus Gusjonsson, Evangelist and Solutions Architect at Annata. He gets really frustrated when his customer experience doesn't focus on the customer, like when he takes his vehicle in for service and has to explain what he needs, over and over again. According to Magnus, there's a lot of opportunity in using the data that modern vehicles collect to raise that level of service.

"I think it all comes back to people, data, intelligent automation and somehow being able to just have natural engagements to customers," Magnus tells Kerry.

Here's a thought: what if, when you drove your new vehicle off the lot, it actually gained value? Or when you wanted a new feature on your vehicle, you could simply activate it from your console's touchscreen? With the growing use of connectivity in our vehicles, automakers can monetize services through feature subscriptions. Or perhaps vehicle ownership will be just one piece of the full mobility experience.

"Most automakers in one form or another have higher ambitions, and those higher ambitions are really to become a mobility service provider," says Jeffrey Hannah, North American Team Lead at SBD Automotive and our guest on Episode five, "We've only just begun." Jeffrey uses his vast industry knowledge to explain how his clients are developing intelligent transportation infrastructures, creating seamless in-vehicle mobility experiences, and finding new revenue streams as they partner with world-class mobility technology companies.

We're excited to share season one of The Inside Track with you and hope it gives you new insights into the ways that technologies like AI, the cloud, and connectivity are changing the entire mobility industry.

The post The inside track: the intersection of technology and mobility appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

The automotive industry is being reshaped by several forces such as technology changes, customer expectations, and more recently with the unexpected impact of Covid-19. The vehicle is fundamentally changing from purely mechanical engineering into a software-defined connected mobility platform that needs to respond to the rapidly changing priorities of modern vehicle buyers. The rising bar for technology adoption has created a desire for new driving experiences and business models for the consumer. In response to this shift, Microsoft, working with customers and partners, has identified five key areas that can be addressed quickly to help accelerate the automotive industry toward Mobility-as-a-Service providers and suppliers.

Announcing the Reimagining Automotive report by business intelligence platform, PSFK, in partnership with Microsoft. The report addresses the future state of the automotive industry through five forward-looking company journeys across these five key areas to address for accelerating digital transformation.

Five digital transformation imperatives

Resilient operations

Connecting the entirety of the enterprise with relevant data to drive continuous improvement through a digital feedback loop.

Digital technologies are transforming the way cars are manufactured. The transformation starts on the factory floor, with connected equipment that can analyze and visualize operational information in real-time. Displayed through mobile devices and mixed-reality headsets, that information empowers workers with on-the-job insights and instructions. The relationship between factories and laborers has grown even stronger with smart contracts that keep employees happy and companies compliant. After vehicles are built, they are continuously monitored through digital twin simulations, feeding information back into the system to improve the product and make better forecasting decisions.

Differentiated customer experience

Capturing insights from across channels to gain a single view of customers and drive personalized experiences.

To keep pace with rapidly changing consumer expectations and elevate the automotive customer experience, companies need to capture insights from across various channels. Use customer data platforms to bring together data from all sources. Gain a single view of customers and discover insights that drive personalized experiences. Create omnichannel experiences. Move prospects through the journey more efficiently with predictive recommendations. Transform the way vehicles are marketed, sold, and maintained in a digital-first context.

Emerging mobility services

Using location intelligence to develop new products and services for large fleets of commercial vehicles and urban mobility services.

Location data is fueling a smarter transportation infrastructure. From long-haul trucking to urban micro-mobility, organizations now have spatial awareness of all their assets at any given time. Providing real-time insights into congestion, delays, and potential issues, location intelligence can be leveraged to more efficiently deliver people and products while IoT-connected sensors and infrastructure continuously improve and refine the overall travel and transport experience.

Accelerate vehicle innovation

Modernizing the in-vehicle experience with location intelligence and virtual assistants; making vehicles futureproof with remote updates.

With the emergence of "software-defined" vehicles, OEMs can continuously add new features to a vehicle throughout its entire life cycle. This will radically transform the experience for drivers. Creating a seamless experience from the moment they enter, use, and leave their vehicles. By integrating virtual assistants, OEMs are not only personalizing the driver experience but making it easier for third-party services to be integrated into vehicles, in turn creating ongoing revenue streams and future-proofing vehicles with remote diagnostics and over-the-air updates.

Increased organization productivity

Creating a more connected and productive organization by empowering your whole business with team collaboration tools and the processing power of the cloud.

To keep pace with the shifts happening within the industry, OEMs, dealers and beyond need to ensure that their entire organization from the C-suite to the factory floor is seamlessly connected and empowered with the right tools. To enhance collaboration and maximize productivity, companies are digitally transforming the workplace with AI and intelligent automation to streamline workflows and offload repetitive tasks. They're integrating low and no-code solutions that enable anyone to build and deploy powerful apps and focusing on new training platforms to enhance employee skills. Enterprise-wide digital solutions and mixed reality interfaces are bringing together traditionally siloed teams by unifying devices, data, relationships, and processes.

With each of these five areas, we will dive deep to understand the reasoning for addressing them, and the impact on your business. Lastly, we will walk through specific Microsoft customer stories to investigate where they had success in these areas and what was learned during the process.

Read the full report. I look forward to your feedback and if you would like to learn more, we are always here to help.

The post 5 strategies to accelerate digital transformation in automotive appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

The automotive industry is undergoing digital transformation at an unprecedented rate. The widely acknowledged forces driving this change include new and emerging players in the market that have a strong technology baseline and are growing at an enviable rate. Additionally, new vehicle technologies such as connected vehicle services and Autonomous drive systems are changing the face of automotive as we know it today. As a result, automotive companies are doing all they can to accelerate their digital transformation to create new differentiated and personalized experiences that will keep them happy, loyal to their brand, and open to new subscription-based emerging mobility services that will create new long-term revenue streams. The winners will be the ones who make this transformation the quickest, collect and analyze the data they need to identify new services and get them to market faster than their competitors.

Our support of the automotive industry is deeply rooted in five primary pillars of focus that help you accelerate your future of mobility. Our customers have identified these key priority scenarios as focus areas where they would like to partner with Microsoft on, and this was further reinforced during the pandemic. If you strip away the fancy titles, these pillars can be boiled down to five areas: the vehicle, the customer, operations and manufacturing, employees, and mobility services. The first four areas are all solutions that Microsoft has to accelerate your progress toward that fifth pillar of mobility services.

Accelerated vehicle innovation

The vehicle is the front-line product of the industry and the primary point of contact with consumers. It is a large component of how automotive companies are perceived in the market and by which consumers make purchasing decisions. The technology stack within the vehicle has become much more of a differentiator for modern car buyers than miles per gallon, horsepower, or many times, crash test ratings. We have come into an era where consumers are expecting a smartphone on wheels, and to fulfill on that expectation the automotive industry needs to provide a well-connected vehicle based on a software-defined platform for rapid updates, as well as new feature and services releases.

Differentiated customer experience

A critical piece of the puzzle in the evolution of emerging mobility services is proactively engaging with your customer in new, consolidated, and most importantly, personalized ways throughout your product's lifecycle.

With connected field service solutions, you can remotely monitor connected vehicles on the road today sold to your customer. As a result, you can get the insights you need to do predictive maintenanceminimizing your customer's downtime and increasing their brand loyalty when it comes time to purchase their next vehicle.

Delivering a connected vehicle also means you need to take a new, collaborative approach to the sales process to help sellers navigate your increasingly complex portfolio of products and services as well as build long-term relationships and ongoing customer loyalty.

With connected sales and service solutions, you can empower your sellers to see the full spectrum of a customer's needs. Sellers can analyze previous product usage and performance, and then predict potential needs using intelligent tools.

Sellers can also collaborate with customers to customize product purchases and efficiently execute contracts using configure-price-quote, quote-to-cash, and contract lifecycle management tools. These tools can shorten the buying cycle and help the customer get precisely what's needed. There's also the call center of the future, where you can tap into the insights gleaned from your smart connected products to improve the effectiveness of your customer service agents using virtual agents or bots.

Resilient operations

To adapt quickly to vehicle innovation and market fluctuation you need an agile, responsive production process. You need solutions that can help you enable a "factory of the future." By that, I mean a complex ecosystem of self-regulating machines and sites that customize output, optimally allocate resources, and offer a seamless interface between the physical and virtual world.

The journey to a “factory of the future” starts with connecting factory assetsadding sensors to machines and equipment to collect data, then monitoring and adjusting operations accordingly.

Ultimately, you'll want to connect and monitor factory performance across the globe, using data from smart assets to apply operational insights and further optimize your production processes.

As you're making more products, and delivering customized connected services along with them, your supply chain becomes ever more complex and multifaceted. You can use intelligent supply chain solutions to help you manage that complexity. A new generation of intelligent business applications can help you deliver the right products, parts, resources, and services where and when they're needed; achieve a balance between desired customer service level and budget requirements; and enable tighter upstream and downstream collaboration across increasingly complex value chains.

Increased organization productivity

Even before the pandemic, the industry needed new skills, tools, and insights to keep up with the digital transformation and speed of business that impacts every one of the other pillars we'll talk about. Now we take remote work, advanced engineering needs, and remote assistance of the frontline workforce as table stakes. However, there was already a skills gap in the automotive, and now there's even more to do to get the modern workforce ready for the new normal. Increased organizational productivity requires that we use technology to attract, train, and retain the next generation workforce, equipping them with the skills to reimagine manufacturing and shape our sustainable future.

Emerging mobility services

All of these previous pillars are critical projects to complete as you evolve toward emerging mobility services. You can use all this data coming from the connected vehicle, field services, sales, factories, and the supply chain to speed innovation and optimize production, customer experience, and profits.

With connected product innovation solutions, you can get real-time insight into which products and features customers are using without waiting for customer survey results. And with big computing capacity available on-demand, you can iterate the next version of your product much more rapidly using digital twins, as well as simulation and analysis tools. The automotive industry is doing this on a massive scale with the data coming from their connected vehicles and fleets of specially instrumented autonomous vehicles. EFS is doing using this data to teach the next generation of vehicles how to see the real world. But any IoT connected machine provides this opportunity for a digital feedback loop.

You can also get more accurate, timely data on which parts failed and what the best problem resolutions were so you can improve product and service performance.

These are just a few ways you can analyze data to realize a faster speed-to-market and improve the quality of your products and services, or product-as-a-service.

Microsoft will continue to support our customers and partners in this journey and look forward to seeing what the future holds for us together in partnership along the way.

Learn more about Microsoft's commitment to the automotive industry and see how the capabilities of our solutions accelerate vehicle development, increase customer brand loyalty, empower your workforce, and drive new revenue streams for the likes of Renault, BMW, Audi, Bosch, Toyota and many more.

The post Partnering with Microsoft to accelerate your future mobility services appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

One approach to navigating the post-COVID-19 world is adopting intelligent supply chains. The automotive industry supply chain is especially complex. Multiple companies work together to manufacture a vehicle that may have more than 2,000 assemblies and 30,000 total parts. The efficient and timely movement of vehicle parts between suppliers and OEMs is critical. A recent independent study conducted by the Center for Automotive Research (CAR) stated that vehicle parts need to arrive without damage, on time, and in a pre-planned sequential order.

Intelligent supply chains can enable automotive OEM business decision-makers to visualize data from processes, products, and people to gain new insights that inform decision making. The use of intelligent supply chains will differentiate automotive OEMs in the new competitive landscape created by COVID-19.

Let's explore the benefits of intelligent supply chains and how they address the new challenges brought on by COVID-19.

• Increased transparency into the supply chain.
• Improved insight into customer demand.
• Increased manufacturing agility.

Benefit 1: Increased transparency into the supply chain

A key benefit of intelligent supply chains is increased transparency into supplier status, inventory, and capabilities. Tracking inventory on spreadsheets or storing key business information in silos may have worked in the past. However, in today's business environment, this approach is too slow and error-prone. OEMs need to quickly identify capacity issues or distressed suppliers. With increased transparency, OEMs gain several advantages in today's environment.

• When production commences, OEMs can quickly identify missing or at-risk parts.
• As customer demand fluctuates, OEMs can fine-tune their responses.
• As pressure builds to manage expenses, OEMs know the exact location of parts and components.

The right inventory, in the right place

To achieve supply chain transparency, automotive OEMs look to companies like Sugere, which offers container, mobile asset, and finished vehicle tracking solutions built with their patented technology and hosted on the Microsoft Azure platform. This type of solution can deliver OEMs a clear ROI in as little as six months.

Another example is BlueYonder's (JDA) Luminate Control Tower. It offers a real-time view of every route in the supply chain, down to individual carriers, legs, and ports. With continuous monitoring of news, events, and social media signals, manufacturers can receive immediate alerts to potential impacts from external events and shipment delays.

Daimler is operational in three months

Automotive OEMs may hesitate to move to more connected and automated supply chain systems now. However, with the right motivation, projects can be done quickly. Daimler was operational in three months after replacing its companywide proprietary procurement system. Used to manage 400,000 global suppliers, Daimler selected a software as a service system running in Azure. The new system, which involves the SAP S/4HANA database, SAP Supplier Relationship Management on HANA, and the Icertis Contract Management platform cost 50 percent less than their proprietary solution.

Benefit 2: Improved insight into customer demand

The second benefit of intelligent supply chains is increased insight into customer demand. Missteps in forecasting impact OEMs significantly in a tight cash flow environment. The companies that can identify and respond to shifts in consumer behavior the quickest will be the most competitive. The advantages include the following.

• Minimizing inventory and production expenses.
• Shifting production based on geographic needs.
• Updating new product development strategies.

Leveraging AI to deliver insight

To gain better insight into customer demand, OEMs can evaluate solutions like Prevedere Demand Forecasting for Manufacturing. Built on the Azure platform and leveraging Azure AI, this solution analyzes external data such as weather patterns, economic data, industry trends, and social trends alongside internal performance data to identify leading indicators. The result is dynamic, real-time demand forecasting. Automotive OEMs can respond to changing forecasts by adjusting production, resource allocation, and pricing as various external sources affect the market.

OEMs can also look at solutions like o9 Integrated Business Planning for Manufacturing. Also built on the Azure platform and leveraging Azure AI, the solution provides instant visibility into gaps between plans, actuals, and forecasts by product, channel, and region. Decision-makers can understand the stories and assumptions behind the numbers. They can view sales and marketing actions and initiatives to close the gap.

Toyota predicts customer behavior

Toyota Turkey wanted the ability to predict singular customer behavior. The company empowered its customer relationship management solution with Azure and Azure AI technologies. With the services provided by Azure, Toyota employees can easily integrate machine learning models into everyday marketing and sales operations for improved planning insight.

Benefit 3: Improved manufacturing agility

The third benefit of intelligent supply chains is increased manufacturing agility. But in a post-COVID-19 world, the definition of manufacturing agility needs to broaden. OEMs will need visibility into employee availability to work, production lines will be reconfigured for social distancing, and hygiene practices will be monitored. Connecting machines, factory sensors, and employees and applying analytics will give automotive OEMs advantages including those below.

• Proactively identifying shortages of qualified workers.
• Quickly starting up production after shutdowns.
• Monitoring worker health and keeping them healthy.

Global automotive supplier transforms employee communications

American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM) needed to unify communication channels across its company after an acquisition. The company launched a new intranet site, “POWERhouse,” leveraging Microsoft 365, Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Power Apps, and Microsoft Stream. The resulting unified platform enables efficient communication across AAM's global, mobile workforce which is now critical in a post-COVID-19 world. AAM associates access work updates as well as policies, procedures, and product documentation through their mobile phones. AAM keeps its workers in sync allowing it to be more agile as it competes in the new normal business environment.

Monitoring people, health, and hygiene

Winner Import Ukraine, a vehicle parts business, built their business processes on top of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365. Their HR system enables them to track available workers and to proactively address gaps during the pandemic. Automotive OEMs can explore solutions like Ecolab's Compliance Monitoring System to track compliance with handwashing rules. Brisa, the leader of the Turkish tire industry, has transferred its business processes to Microsoft Teams. The manufacturing can stay in contact with employees during production shutdowns.

Next steps

OEMs facing COVID-19 challenges will benefit from adopting or enhancing intelligent supply chains. They can be adopted or enhanced incrementally using three steps:

• Connect business systems.
• Generate new reports or visualizations.
• Gain insights.

With the new challenges from COVID-19, automotive OEMs with intelligent supply chains will be the most competitive.

The post How OEMs are adapting with intelligent supply chains appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

This is to the benefit of fleet managers, helping them remotely access vehicle information like fuel economy, fuel consumption, operating temperature, diagnostic trouble codes, and key vehicle performance indicators. Collecting this type of vehicle data and combining it with other business data such as maintenance records, weather, routing, maps, inventory, and fuel costs results in a rich set of data that can be analyzed for business insights.

Learn more about how Microsoft is accelerating the connected vehicle experience.

Fleet managers see concrete benefits: reduced operational costs, improved safety, and increased customer satisfaction.

Reduced operational costs and improved efficiency

Connected fleets enable fleet managers to optimize fuel efficiency, improve routing, and streamline reporting. For example, with big data from connected vehicles, a fleet manager can predict failure points by distance traveled and group the data into statistical confidence levels. This data can be used to prioritize maintenance, manage the supply chain, and avoid failures. The result is decreased operational costs and increased profits.

Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi uses a system built on the Microsoft Azure cloud to deliver connected services in vehicles sold in nearly 200 markets.¹ The program uses AI and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to analyze vehicle data to deliver intelligent services like proactive monitoring and over-the-air software updates.

PT Serasi Autoraya (SERA), a subsidiary of PT Astra International (Astra) provides transportation solution services in Indonesia managing thousands of fleet assets.² Working with Accenture Industry X.0, Avanade, and Microsoft, the company built out AstraFMS, a connected fleet management solution hosted on the Microsoft Azure cloud and powered by the Accenture Connected Fleet Platform. With AstraFMS, PT Sera is streamlining operations and lowering fuel costs with improved vehicle utilization and reduced driver misuse.

Improved safety

Connected fleets provide an opportunity to improve driver safety habits. Managers analyze dashboards and reports to identify patterns, behaviors, and habits of drivers. With this information, businesses are able to make informed decisions on how to improve driver habits and more.

WayKonect, headquartered in Lille, France, delivers a fleet management solution based on Azure that helps improve driver's safety habits.³ Fleet managers use the company's tools to analyze patterns, behaviors, and habits of individual drivers. The result is real-time coaching tips to help drivers improve.

To safeguard against fraud and enhance both driver and rider peace of mind, Uber⁴ uses the Face API, part of Azure Cognitive Services, to make sure that the driver using the Uber application is the same as the driver on file for the account. This incremental verification is quick, works on all smartphones, works in dim light, and scales to more than 1 million drivers. By using the Face API, Uber saved months of development work. The time saved was devoted to building out a custom user experience.

Increased customer satisfaction

Mercedes-Benz Research and Development⁶ is helping fleet managers increase customer satisfaction by improving the way that software is updated in vehicle head units. The head unit computer in a car's dashboard runs the infotainment system, including the navigation system, digital radio tuner, and apps, such as parking and search. Previously, this software could only be flashed as a monolith when a vehicle rolled off the factory line or when it returned to the shop.

By containerizing the head unit apps using Azure Container Registry and Azure for Kubernetes Service, Mercedes-Benz can update software on the head units over the air easily and frequently. Fleet managers see less downtime and benefit as new features are continuously added.

Next steps

As automakers offer more capabilities in connected vehicles, fleet managers benefit. From proactive monitoring and reduced fuel costs to increase driver safety and less downtime, fleet managers are seeing better business results.

Learn how Microsoft is driving the future of mobility.

References:

¹Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi launches Alliance Intelligent Cloud on Microsoft Azure

²Powering the fleet with AstraFMS

³French startup wins the race to optimize vehicle fleet management by using Microsoft Azure

⁴Uber boosts platform security with the Face API, part of Microsoft Cognitive Services

⁵Mercedes-Benz R&D creates ‘container-driven cars’ powered by Microsoft Azure

The post Harnessing the power of connected vehicles to transform mobility appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs.

Announcing Microsoft as the official Cloud Computing Sponsor of the Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC). The IAC is a $1.5 million prize competition among universities to program autonomous-modified Dallara IL-15 racecars. Thirty-one teams will compete in the world's first head-to-head race at speeds of up to 200 mph around the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway on October 23, 2021.

The automotive industry is going through an industry-wide transformation and autonomous systems development is a high-profile contributor to these changes. The IAC's goal of bringing public awareness to the impact of automation in the automotive industry has brought together industry leaders, institutions of higher education, and technology partners in autonomous development. Microsoft is a key partner to the evolving automotive industry, so it is a natural fit for us to play a role in elevating the visibility of the amazing opportunities available in the automotive industry for tomorrow's engineering graduates.

"With participation from teams around the world, the IAC competitors needed a powerful cloud platform that enables development of radically advanced technologies while collaborating with team members in various remote environments," said Matt Peak, managing director of Energy Systems Network (ESN), who along with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway are primary organizers of the Indy Autonomous Challenge "ESN is excited that Azure is now in the hands of Indy Autonomous Challenge university teams as we welcome Microsoft as an official sponsor."

We look forward to working directly with the 37 international universities and their nearly 450 student team members who will be competing in this challenge as they build their technical acumen, their automotive knowledge, and their professional networks through interactions with industry professionals. As Microsoft continues to support the broader academic community with their transitions to remote and blended learning, it is especially relevant to be part of a community that will be learning, creating, and interacting in a virtual environment. We are honored to be part of the IAC as it develops the future leaders in autonomous technology and looks forward to supporting these efforts throughout the course of the challenge and into the future.

"The accelerated growth of autonomy is one of the trends shaping the future of mobility," said Sanjay Ravi, Automotive GM at Microsoft. "We at Microsoft are happy to support and amplify awareness of the amazing work that is being done in the autonomous development space and highlighted so well by the Indy Autonomous Challenge. I look forward to seeing the innovations driven by the hard work and creativity of all the students engaged here.”

Microsoft' Azure cloud platform is empowering innovation among the automotive and motorsports engineering communities. Azure features a large range of specialized software and infrastructure offerings that optimize complex engineering workloads that have stringent and specific requirements. Microsoft has automotive customers and partners that successfully utilize Azure for geo-distributed cloud-based workstations, as well as crash tests, CFD, and multi-physic simulations. We are deeply committed to supporting a strong and diverse ecosystem of software partners to ensure automotive workloads are first-class citizens on Azure and deliver a superior customer experience.

To learn more about Microsoft's solutions for the automotive industry visit: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/industry/automotive

To learn more about the Indy Autonomous Challenge visit: https://www.indyautonomouschallenge.com/

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