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.

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