Industry on verge of digital revolution

Looking forward on the industry evolution roadmap, today's world with limited penetration of shared mobility and automated driving is only likely to remain so in the short-term.

The "shared world" and "automated world" are alternative potential midterm states based on the development of the technologies and business models.

However, the long-term reality is most likely to be Automotive 4.0, resulting from the convergence of high penetration and technological sophistication of both shared mobility and automated driving, all enabled by wide-scale connectivity.

The long-term future state of Automotive 4.0 will see the rise of shared mobility that can deliver mobility-on-demand. However, individually owned vehicles are still likely to lead in sales during the next chapter of the industry. The impact on the industry, major players and consumers will be wide reaching.

Automotive 4.0 and the digital evolution integrating the "Internet of Things" combines opportunities and risks for automotive OEMs and suppliers. As has been seen with consumer goods, higher demand for customization (build-toorder), shorter product lifecycles and decoupled software development are challenging for production.

Digitalization and utilization of customer data can significantly improve retail performance, but creates other challenges for dealer networks.

On the other hand, Automotive 4.0 extends the value chain OEMs can participate in by providing mobility-on-demand services.

The mobility-related services market within the auto industry is defined as transportation needs that are met with non-individually owned light vehicles.

Today's mobility market, comprised of taxis, limos, rental cars and car-sharing services, is likely to be substituted to a large extent with mobility-on-demand services.

Automotive 4.0 will transform the way we think about the production, ownership and usage of vehicles.

In the face of the biggest disruption the automotive industry has ever seen, the race is on to capture future customers and profits－but winners and losers in Automotive 4.0 will be separated by their readiness to adapt and their ability to transform their business models.

The authors Zhang Junyi is partner at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, Marc Winterhoff is Partner at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, Stephan Bueb is project manager at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, and Wu Zhao is Senior Consultant at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants.