Industry knowledge and a pragmatic work style underpin all the services offered by Arthur D. Little's Automotive practice.
"Glocalization" - how to master the trade-off between localization and standardization in global markets
In today's globalized world corporations still struggle with mastering the trade-off between localization to match local customer requirements and standardization to realize economics of scale. We have proven expertise in enabling multi-national corporations to define and implement the optimal approach that fits their specific situation for success in global markets.
Product Portfolio and Modularization
A robust segmentation model enables the development of a product portfolio that meets customer requirements and expectations and is crucial for success in the global automotive industry. However, real benefits come only when they are supported by a modularization and platform roadmap. We help our clients with an approach covering the complete value chain from market segmentation, requirement analysis to technical module definition; delivering clear strategic guidelines, optimized product portfolio and reduced product complexity.
R&D Efficiency Management
Relentless improvement of development efficiency is getting more and more important due to significantly growing cost pressure. R&D Efficiency Management holistically addresses all potential improvement levers - doing the right things and doing the things right in a global context. In recent years we helped automotive OEMs, automotive suppliers as well as high tech manufacturers increasing their R&D efficiency to improve their competitive situation.
Integrated Product Development backbone
Today, 70% of PLM investments do not deliver expected value. For many companies within the automotive industry, the issue of how to improve the data integration across the value chain from Product Definition, Development to Production and to After Sales is still unsolved. This issue is compounded by lack of knowledge of how to improve the link from the client's requirements to digital verification and to the physical mock-up. We help to bring the "enter once - use many" principle to life and implement state of the art PLM processes and systems, focusing on business processes and on the need for change management, we help clients to successfully leverage their PLM investments.
Smart Innovation - focusing on customer value and experience
In the automotive industry, innovation is one of the key levers for sustainable competitive advantage - but innovation is also a driver for additional complexity and costs. To be a Smart Innovator corporations must focus on the innovations that customers really value and must align all touchpoints with the customer according to brand positioning and customer expectations. We help our clients to align with customer value and re-focus on products, features, services and interactions customers are willing to pay for.
Sales Excellence
Sales and marketing processes are key drivers for revenue, but also responsible for about 30% of costs of every new car sold. We help our clients to save costs by streamlining sales/marketing/CRM processes and organizations on OEM, wholesale and retail level.
After Sales Excellence
After Sales Excellence is a key driver for customer satisfaction and loyalty but also a very important source of revenues and profits throughout a vehicle lifecycle. Our after sales experts support our clients in all relevant areas of after sales service to improve the internal cost base, the retail attractiveness as well as customer satisfaction. Our results are measurable - significant improvements on key indicators such as warranty costs, service quality, and fixed first visit rate.
Supply Chain Excellence
Our Supply Chain Excellence service enables you to realize substantial improvements in your supply chain performance in terms of cost, efficiency, lead times, demand management, customer service and working capital requirements. We measure, improve and qualify supply chain organizations and processes and support our clients by identifying and rapidly implementing cost and efficiency savings in the entire supply chain.This can be achieved with the comprehensive, cross-functional redesign of all logistics processes leveraging the entire supply chain including customers and suppliers. With our proven Integrated Supply Chain Excellence Audit we quickly identify gaps to proven best practices and benchmarks within, and beyond, the Automotive Industry.
Value Chain Design
Constantly reviewing the companies value chain in a rapidly evolving environment; deriving required core competencies and partnerships is a key management responsibility. We help our clients design their value chain in terms of a global engineering footprint, production and service network, thereby improving efficiency and customer satisfaction in alignment with corporate strategy.