CIO FOCUS
services ’. With origins of car building stretching back well over a century , Brecht points to future centred on mobility , driven by data .
Indeed , the company already offers car sharing services such as car2go and My Taxi / Halo , while moovel allows customers in the USA and Germany to optimise journeys via numerous forms of transportation , whether that means using other Daimler-backed services or public transport .
Data will also drive interaction with consumers when it comes to decisions on buying their own cars . Brecht explains : “ There is a lot of opportunity in what I can ‘ next best action ’, which is much more than CRM and knowing someone ’ s address and birthday and sending a postcard . Rather , for each and every touch point we know what the next best action is for a customer .
“ So if you ’ ve been on our website and configured a car , we want you to go to a dealership ; if you ’ re at a dealership we want you to take a test drive and so forth . Or if you have a two-seater GT and have six kids , we could try to suggest and upsell larger cars . The data stream is the backbone which connects products and services to the customer .”
While customer and driver data is both numerous and lucrative , Brecht is aware of the caution required to preserve longstanding brand values around security and safety . Operating across numerous countries with varying stances towards data privacy adds in another complicating factor which , as Brecht says , makes harnessing data a bigger challenge legally than it is technically .
Connected cars Harvesting data from vehicles is less of a legal conundrum . While gathering car data for services such as real time traffic updates is nothing new , Brecht is looking at other ways to provide valuable information to drivers .
“ You can also feedback data from things like wheel sensors ,” he says . “ Why is that important ? If , all of a sudden , you see quite a number of cars in particular area of one particular street that shows a lot of slippage , we know there is ice on the road . This information could be crucial for a driver who is half a mile away , and accidents can be prevented by warning people
22 June 2017