Data-Driven Digital Services in the Automotive Industry

Abstract

The automotive industry is one of the areas greatly affected by digital transformation. While the importance of owning a vehicle in the traditional way has reduced over time, the need for innovative service models has increased significantly. In this context, Data-driven digital services (DDS) offer huge potential. However, the implementation of such service models in practice has yet to emerge, as most automotive companies either have not implemented such at all or apply unstructured and incoherent implementation approaches. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the status-quo of DDS and their perception in the automotive industry. Results indicate a low level of implementation, mostly limited to media-related services like music and app connectivity. Additionally, findings show that the widespread use of DSS in the automotive industry is mainly hindered by unclear value propositions, a missing digital mindset in companies, high implementation costs, and concerns regarding data protection. However, practitioners coincide in the view that DDS offer huge future potential, e.g., in terms of aftersales, product enrichment, e-mobility, customer involvement, and e-commerce service models.