Digital transformation to cause tipping-point in mobility

Technology innovation is transforming mobility, turning it into an 'Asset light, Technology heavy' industry. Connectivity and the smartphone facilitate unlimited opportunities for new business models and revolutionise the way the mobility industry envisions its future.

New business models and trends in mobility, corporate mobility, integrated transport solutions as well as connected and autonomous vehicles were extensively presented and discussed by over 330 senior industry executives during Frost & Sullivan's annual industry event "Intelligent Mobility" last week.

One of the key discussion points revolved around the increasing competition in the mobility landscape. "We are starting to see new partnerships form, which centre around mobility," outlined Frost & Sullivan Senior Partner and Global Practice Director, Sarwant Singh. "Avis acquiring Zipcar, Daimler's ownership of moovel and BMW's Drive Now are good examples of car manufacturers moving into the mobility space by offering a carsharing scheme to customers, whether they own a car of that brand or not."

Even though this might look at first as if the auto makers are cannibalising their own market, it actually gives them access to a larger and more diverse customer base in the future. At the same time, the customer's view is shifting away from 'ownership' to 'mobility'. "People are psychologically ring fencing the pot of money they would normally spend on owning a car and applying this pot to individual journeys," Singh continued.

With the number of business travellers in and out of Europe set to double by 2030, according to Amadeus IT Group, corporate travel also needs to focus on the development of new business models. New market entrants, such as Uber, and new concepts, such as the sharing economy, are causing disruption in the market. The industry focus is therefore shifting to door-to-door solutions, with corporate car sharing taking a promising lead. "The corporate mobility market place is a Trillion-dollar opportunity," outlined Consulting Director, Graeme Banister, of Frost & Sullivan. "By 2020, the corporate carsharing market will have 85,000 vehicles."

Another top theme at the Intelligent Mobility conference was the digital transformation, the emergence of connected and autonomous vehicles and their impact on the motor insurance industry. With increasing autonomy of cars, the insurance liability is most likely to shift to the car manufacturers. According to Frost & Sullivan, the motor insurance market in Europe is expected to decrease by a CAGR of 3.88 percent over the next 35 years, and the question insurers are trying to find an answer to is, who is to blame in the event of an accident? A key takeaway on autonomous driving however, was the fact, that "the technology is there, it's the programming that still needs to be addressed," summarised Singh.