How Delphi Automotive transformed its business model with connected-car services
Over the past year on this blog, my team and I have talked a lot about the exciting opportunities today’s technology innovations are creating in the manufacturing world—the opportunities for manufacturers to improve operations, to reinvent productivity, to more quickly bring products to market, and even to completely transform business models.
One of the best examples of a leader in this business transformation is Delphi Automotive. With 90 million cars produced worldwide, Delphi Automotive recognized the opportunity that today’s cloud technologies presented, to give drivers many exciting ways to remotely monitor and control their cars. And they created Delphi Connect to do that, which can turn any car into a connected car with affordable, cloud-based telematics.
And while these new capabilities for consumers are truly valuable and exciting, what’s also exciting for me is how Delphi Automotive accomplished them. Delphi was not a software company. They were a manufacturer in an industry that has traditionally been hardware-centric. It was an incredibly risky proposition for a successful business-to-business company to try something different.
But having the vision to imagine what’s possible with today’s innovations and selecting the right technology enabled them to essentially reinvent their business model with new services for consumers. And they used Microsoft Azure to enable them to do that.
According to Jeff Owens, Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President at Delphi Automotive, “We figured that we had one shot to be successful at our first foray into the consumer software business, and using Microsoft Azure to develop and run Delphi Connect helped us achieve that success.”
Using Azure helped Delphi succeed in a new market, offer richer features, reduce development costs (and pricing) by one-third, and scale the service globally. Delphi Connect is now making connected-car services available to tens of millions of car owners for about US$100.
In this new video, Jeff talks more about how Azure has helped them achieve that success, and I encourage you to watch and learn, and imagine the possibilities for your own business!
Feel free to share your comments and successes with us on Twitter at @MSFTmfg.
LinkedIn: Sanjay Ravi
Twitter: @sanrav
