31 Oct China Drives the Future of Automotive Innovation

Gao Feng Insights Report, October 2015

We are pleased to share with you a report titled: China Drives the Future of Automotive Innovation.  This new report is the product of a collaboration between Gao Feng Advisory Company and our partners at Tech Mahindra.  Tech Mahindra is a specialist in digital transformation, consulting and business re-engineering solutions, and is is also amongst the Fab 50 companies in Asia as per the Forbes 2014 List.

For global automakers, China represents the greatest opportunity for growth in the 21st century.  Since 2009, China has been the world’s largest market by volume, and will likely surpass 25 million units in annual car sales in 2015.  Over the coming decades, we believe that China will remain the key battleground for dominance of the global auto industry.

However, this battle will not be waged using the conventional automotive technologies which have been refined over the past century.  We believe several driving forces, which are particularly evident China, have the potential to disrupt the status quo of the automotive industry:

• The unique context of China’s urban transportation challenge, the highpenetration rate of mobile internet, combined with the rapid and aggressive introduction of alternative mobility and ownership concepts, are compressing the time needed to commercialize smart, connected car technology and related services.

• The automotive value chain is being disrupted by non-traditional players as they enter and compete to deliver mobility solutions.  Disruptive new entrants are utilizing big data to draw insights about customers’ mobility patterns in order to address their “pain points” and offer new solutions for their mobility needs.  Such mobility needs are increasingly being met through on-demand and shared services versus individual ownership.

We believe that the confluence of these forces, along with rapid innovation to address “pain points” associated with mobility in the China context, are positioning China as the catalyst to drive the transformation of the business model and technological underpinnings of the global auto industry.  In this report, we highlight the six themes that are shaping the future of mobility, and describe the key features and functions of future automobiles.

We welcome your comments and feedback on our briefing paper or in general about our firm.  We would be glad to meet you in person to share our data and perspectives in a fuller manner.  Please let us know if you are interested in meeting and discussing directly how we can help you to operationalize these insights.

Thought leadership is core to what Gao Feng does.  We will, from time to time, share with you our latest thinking on business and management, especially as it relates to China and China’s role in the world.

Best Regards,

Bill Russo
Managing Director, Gao Feng Advisory Company
[email protected]

Aloke Palsikar
Senior Vice President & Global Head, Manufacturing Vertical
Tech Mahindra, Ltd
[email protected]

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